After you do your query you can write this:
<table>
<?php
$rows = 1;
$while($news = @mysql_fetch_array($query)){
if($rows % 2 != 0){
echo "<tr><td>" . $news['details'] . "</td>";
}
else {
echo "<td>" . $news['details'] . "</td></tr>";
}
$row++;
}
if($rows % 2 != 0){echo "<td> </td></tr>"; }
?>
</table>
With this code you create a table an initialize a variable with 1, just for checking the number of rows.
Al the end if you have 3 news, the script will complete the row and an empty cell.