The design is okay, however the header area needs to be more organized and aligned, everything has different alignements.. like the block's height.
It would be so much more attractive if you use Arial as font than Times new Roman because you have a modern design with very old looking text.. it dosent like right. I give it a 5/10 with the current text and 7/10 with arial.
nice design - i think it was hard to submit a news story though (3 awkward steps). I'd rate it a 6 or 7. Keep at it!