There is now a special box for Google News videos in the top "News & Politics" category:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4258/newscj5.png

Still waiting for a real news channel on Youtube :)

You can now use drag & drop to reorder the containers from the homepage. Is this new?

Yes it's new, Pascal wrote about that.
http://www.googlewatchblog.de/2008/12/09/iyoutube-gadget-jetzt-auch-per-drag-drop-verschieben/