[Eikinskjaldi]

Firstly, at the top of your new script write

require_once('global.php');

if the script lives in another directory you must first chdir to where global.php lives then chdir back.

Once you have done that, you have access to the $vbulletin->db object, so you can do all your selects/inserts etc using the usual vb database methods.

Secondly, you can then require_once your script and then either

1) put your table stuff into individual functions and call them

or

2) keep themn as global variables, and where ever you want to use them just put a
gloabl $varname;

at the top of the function that needs to use them.

As to where the hooks should go....how long is a piece of string? it depends on where and how you want to access and view the news items.