Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL> desc news
 Name                                      Null?    Type
 ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------

 NEWS_ID                                   NOT NULL NUMBER(14)
 NEWS_DATE                                          TIMESTAMP(0)
 SL_ID                                              NUMBER(2)
 HEADING                                            VARCHAR2(3120)
 DESCRIPTION                                        VARCHAR2(3900)

create table news(
news_id number(14) primary key,
news_Date timestamp(0) default sysdate,
heading varchar2(32),
description varchar2(320));

insert into news(heading, description) values('News heading','Description of the news will goes here. This is dynamic text that will be inserted');

public String singledOutNews(){		
	
		String news="";

		try{
			if ((cnn==null)||cnn.isClosed()){
			cnn=DB.getOracleConnection();
			}

		String query = 	" select a.news_id,to_char(news_date,'Month day, yyyy'),heading,"+
				" substr(description,1,370),country from news a, news_location b "+
				" where a.news_id=b.news_id and rownum<5"+
				" order by news_id desc";

		PreparedStatement ps=cnn.prepareStatement(query);		
		rs=ps.executeQuery();
		
			while(rs.next()){
				String newsId	=rs.getInt(1);
				String newsDate	=rs.getInt(2);
				String heading	=rs.getString(3);
				String desc	=rs.getString(4);
				String country	=rs.getString(5);

				if(desc.equals("") || desc==null){
				desc="";
				}else{
				desc=desc.replaceAll("<br>","&nbsp;");			
				
				int index=desc.lastIndexOf(" ");
				String descByDroppingLastWord = desc.substring(0,index));

			news+= "<a href=\"/servlet/displayNews1?newsID="+newsId+"\">"+
				"<font size=3 color=olive face='times new roman'><b>"+
				heading+"</b</font></a><br>"+
				"<font color=teal size=1 face=verdana><b>"+rs.getString(2)+"</b></font>"+
				"<font color=maroon size=1 face='verdana'> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [<b>"+
				country+"</b>]  </b></font><br>"+descByDroppingLastWord+
				"<a href=/servlet/displayNews?newsID="+news_id+"\">&nbsp;&nbsp; Details.....</a><br><br>";
		}	
		ps.close();		
		rs.close();
		cnn.close();		

		}catch(Exception e){
		errorMsg("ERROR: IndexDAO.displayNewsTicker()", e);
		}
	
	return news;
	}

select * from(
select <column_list> from table
   order by news_id desc
) where rownum <=15

select * from(
select news_id from news
   order by news_id
) where rownum <=5;

SELECT * 
FROM (select * 
      from(select news_id 
           from news
           ORDER by news_id DESC
          ) 
      where rownum <=15
      ORDER BY dbms_random.value)
WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;