I have a similar issue but it looks a little different. I see the boarders of all the news and the text, but not the picture (just black boxes). Also, my screen freezes for 30 seconds upon logging in for the first time after starting the pc. It doesn't matter how much time I leave between starting the pc and logging in, it always happens the first time and only then. If I log out and back in, I can see everything again and the pc doesn't freeze upon relogging.
I've been told that it is because of some Windows 7 update and they told me to manually remove all the updates one by one and see if it still happens. Now, I don't feel like spending a couple of hours to resolve this as it's not that crippling, but it is quite annoying that I now have to relog every time to be able to click on the event.