Python is easy to learn, even if you don't have previous experience. Check out some tutorials (note - I recommend learning Python 2.6, forget about Python3 for now):

http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ http://docs.python.org/using/ http://python.org/doc/ http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html

After learning the basics, take a deeper look into Django: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ http://www.djangobook.com/

You should be able to build an app like newsYC in a week or so.