news is used to keep the user informed of current events. By convention, these events are described by files in the directory /var/news.

When invoked without arguments, news prints the contents of all current files in /var/news, most recent first, with each preceded by an appropriate header. news stores the ``currency'' time as the modification date of a file named .news_time in the user's home directory (the identity of this directory is determined by the environment variable $HOME ); only files more recent than this currency time are considered ``current.''

-a

Print all items, regardless of currency. In this case, the stored time is not changed.

-n

Report the names of the current items without printing their contents, and without changing the stored time.

-s

report how many current items exist, without printing their names or contents, and without changing the stored time. It is useful to include such an invocation of news in one's .profile file, or in the system's /etc/profile.

All other arguments are assumed to be specific news items that are to be printed.

If a delete is typed during the printing of a news item, printing stops and the next item is started. Another delete within one second of the first causes the program to terminate.

See environ(5) for a description of the LC_CTYPE environment variable that affects the execution of news.

/etc/profile

/var/news/*

$HOME/.news_time

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

profile(4), attributes(5), environ(5)