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lynn,
I hope to see an answer to your question, because I want to do the same thing. I was approaching the problem a different way though. I thought maybe I could create a custom block which would include the news_index.html template (which I believe is the main news page that shows the intro to your main news articles).
If I could do this, then I could add other content, or other blocks.
The problem I have is there isn't a block for main news. There is recent news, News Topics, Big Story, etc. All of these blocks look like they are designed to be in a smaller column to just have a list of links to articles. I want a block for the news articles that I can display in the largest column (center for me) that will display the actual articles.
At first I thought I could do this by setting the news module as the top page, which displays the articles nicely, but when I put blocks in the center column (where the news module displays the main news), I have now way of weighting the block of news articles. I'd like to add blocks to the center column, but have them display BELOW the articles.
Hope there's a guru out there that can assist with our dilemna. I get the general feeling that this is much simpler than I'm making it seem though.