Looking for a good news script.

you may want to try out virtualnews script. It's a paid script though.
maybe you can use Hotscripts.com to look for more scripts.

Are you familiar with RSS?

I've put an RSS feed on my forum. It updates the top news from C]net every 30 minutes automatically. It's pretty cool.

I used this site to get the code. It's free as long as you link back.

There are alot of scripts a very good and simple one is cute news, If you are looking for something specifically for articles best ones are paid ones like
Ezine
Subdreamer

You could try out Mambo, XOOPS, PHPNuke/PostNuke or some similar CMS. I also need to find one for a new article site I am going to work on. I have used all 3 systems in the past, and switched between them a few times. Take a look at the list of features and go from there. As far as the layout is concerned, with Mambo, you can choose if you want a two column layout, or a leading story, then the rest of the articles will be below it. There are always hacks you can download and try out. It also has an article rating system, and a forum addon.

You may be interested in Smarter News.

Its a flat file, and there are a few minor bugs, but overall I've seen great results with it.

If you are looking for an ASP news/cms solution, I would reccomend PSnews.
It can be found at http://psnews.sourceforge.net

Example of its use: http://itvibe.com

Cutenews (www.cutephp.com) if you want something quick and easy to use (PHP Only).
For the lil bit more advance/features try WordPress (www.wordpress.org - PHP&MySQL)
For a CMS, personal I would look no further than civicspace, it runs the spreadfirefox.com site and it can use the drupal hacks.