News display snippet
====================

<?php
include("news_config.php"); // provide $db_table and $news_lim values, etc.
include("db_conn.php"); // database host, name, user, password

// connect to host and select db
mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass) or die ("Can't connect!");
mysql_select_db($db_name) or die ("Can't open database!"); 

$query = "SELECT * from $db_table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $news_lim ";// select required number of items
$result = mysql_db_query($db_name, $query); 

while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result)) // loop through all results
   { 
   echo "<p style='". $hdr_style. "'>". $myrow['hdr']. "</p>";
   echo "<p style='". $news_style. "'>". nl2br($myrow['news']). "</p>";
   }
// loop done
?>

news_config.php (parameters file)
=================================
<?php
$db_table = "news"; // if thats what you called it
$news_lim = 5; // number of news items shown - for example
$hdr_style = "font-family: arial, helvetica; font-size: 15px; color: #333333;";
$news_style = "font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #333333;";
?>

database create file (sql import)
=================================
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS news;
CREATE TABLE news (
  id tinyint(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  news text NOT NULL,
  hdr varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
  PRIMARY KEY  (id)
) TYPE=MyISAM;