Hmm. I personally believe that the existing multitasking view is already overloaded with too many widget-like features; loading it down with yet more widget-y stuff will just make it even harder to use as a way to view and control the running full-sized apps. It'd be better to segregate widgets into their own display.

Also, I should say that I've been struggling myself to get news data into a widget-sized interface on the N900. It's just not comfortable to read sentences and paragraphs of text on a postage-stamp-sized section of screen; news can really use a full-screen display. In my opinion, the existing Sailfish mechanism is perfectly suitable for this sort of task: you could use the cover to display the first few words of the most recent headline (with perhaps some icon if it is breaking news), and have the user bring up the full-screen display to read the details. (Weather should work the same way -- show the minimal details for the current location on the cover, along with a warning icon if bad weather is on the way, and have the user open the full-screen display for the details...)