Hey there,
Regarding blocks for news headlines.

Make sure you categorize your headlines well.

and try

Topic Blocks

Which is basically a modified version of lykos block. very effective we use it on our site! (But, you will want to rename many of the blocks specific to the topics they represent or things will get confusing)

We also use spotlight....but an old hacked version from long ago. Works perfectly for us, but we dont bother with topic images (which I believe didnt anyways work in this old version)

I want the news to be shown from ALL topics (as there's little to post anyway). Tried a hack on the News in Dev.xoops, but it didn't work. Tried Spotlight 1.4 again, but naaah.

I'll figure something out
thanks for your help!