diff --git a/NEWS.txt b/NEWS.txt
index 82d60ecc2a..24d0408671 100644
--- a/NEWS.txt
+++ b/NEWS.txt
@@ -3,8 +3,11 @@
 
 Features
 --------
-    - row caching added; configure with the RowsCached attribute
-      in ColumnFamily definition
+    - row caching: configure with the RowsCached attribute in
+      ColumnFamily definition
+    - Hadoop map/reduce support see contrib/word_count for an example
+    - experimental authentication support, described under
+      Authenticator in storage.conf
 
 Configuraton
 ------------
@@ -19,12 +22,16 @@ Configuraton
 
 Thrift API
 ----------
-    - removed deprecated get_key_range Thrift method
+    - removed deprecated get_key_range method
+    - added batch_mutate meethod
+    - deprecated multiget and batch_insert methods in favor of
+      multiget_slice and batch_mutate, respectively
 
 JMX metrics
 -----------
     - read and write statistics are reported as lifetime totals,
-      instead of averages over the last minute.
+      instead of averages over the last minute.  average-since-last
+      requested are also available for convenience.
     - cache hit rate statistics are now available from JMX under
       org.apache.cassandra.db.Caches
     - compaction JMX metrics are moved to
@@ -40,10 +47,14 @@ Installation/Upgrade
       shipped in lib/. If you are installing from binary distribution then
       you will need to install Ant (http://ant.apache.org/), and invoke
       `ant ivy-retrieve' in order to download needed dependencies.
+    - 0.6 network traffic is not compatible with earlier versions.  You
+      will need to shut down all your nodes at once, upgrade, then restart.
+
 
 
 0.5.0
 =====
+
 0. The commitlog format has changed (but sstable format has not). 
    When upgrading from 0.4, empty the commitlog either by running 
    bin/nodeprobe flush on each machine and waiting for the flush to finish,
@@ -74,21 +85,27 @@ Installation/Upgrade
      - Added get_range_slice, deprecating get_key_range
 
 
+
 0.4.2
 =====
+
 1. Improve default garbage collector options significantly --
    throughput will be 30% higher or more.
 
 
+
 0.4.1
 =====
+
 1. SnapshotBeforeCompaction configuration option allows snapshotting
    before each compaction, which allows rolling back to any version
    of the data.
 
 
+
 0.4.0
 =====
+
 1. On-disk data format has changed to allow billions of keys/rows per
    node instead of only millions.  The new format is incompatible with 0.3;
    see 0.3 notes below for how to import data from a 0.3 install.
@@ -109,8 +126,10 @@ Installation/Upgrade
 6. Added commitlog fsync; see "<CommitLogSync>" in configuration.
 
 
+
 0.3.0
 =====
+
 1. With enough and large enough keys in a ColumnFamily, Cassandra will
    run out of memory trying to perform compactions (data file merges).
    The size of what is stored in memory is (S + 16) * (N + M) where S
diff --git a/interface/cassandra.thrift b/interface/cassandra.thrift
index 58c25c3d1d..531d66ae4b 100644
--- a/interface/cassandra.thrift
+++ b/interface/cassandra.thrift
@@ -318,6 +318,7 @@ service Cassandra {
     Perform a get for column_path in parallel on the given list<string> keys. The return value maps keys to the
     ColumnOrSuperColumn found. If no value corresponding to a key is present, the key will still be in the map, but both
     the column and super_column references of the ColumnOrSuperColumn object it maps to will be null.  
+    @deprecated; use multiget_slice
   */
   map<string,ColumnOrSuperColumn> multiget(1:required string keyspace, 
                                            2:required list<string> keys,