This:
my $ubbpath="http://dimhorizon.com/ubb/noncgi/icons";
looks a little suspect, are you sure you want the /icons on the end?
I'm not a cron expert tho.. but it'll work at least once when everything (not including the cron task) is setup correctly
755 is fine on the permissions and the news.php file is created automagically once you set it up.
