I'm going to be implementing a Journal/News script and was wondering which is the best (preferably free) to use. I'm looking for CSS/XHTML Compliant (ie falling into standards).

I just went through a whole bunch the other night looking for newspaper scripts.
http://www.hotscripts.com has a bunch of free scripts...have a look around. News/blogging scripts are listed in a couple different categories.

i may be late, but try also http://www.fusionphp.net/