Some quick thoughts:

1) Indispensable: add a rss feed: many people read news sites using a RSS Reader instead of going to the site.

2) Two or three columns will be nice for a quick view without scroll.

3) Quickly add an openid/facebook/google login.

4) Comments: Although I don't like to distribute for the same URL in a zillion of sites, add something like disqus and forget to develop comments again.