this ain't gonna be pretty ;)

select  assetData.title,assetData.url,UNIX_TIMESTAMP(Post.userDefined1) as newstime,assetData.synopsis,assetData.revisionDate as revisionDate
from Thread
left join asset on Thread.assetId=asset.assetId
left join Post on Post.assetId=Thread.assetId and Thread.revisionDate = Post.revisionDate
left join assetData on assetData.assetId=Thread.assetId and Thread.revisionDate = assetData.revisionDate

inner join asset parent on asset.parentId = parent.assetId
left join assetData parentdata on parent.assetId = parentdata.assetId
where  parentdata.url = 'en/news' and asset.state='published' and asset.className='WebGUI::Asset::Post::Thread' and (assetData.status='approved' or (assetData.ownerUserId='3' and assetData.ownerUserId<>'1') or assetData.tagId=NULL or assetData.status='pending') and assetData.revisionDate=(SELECT max(revisionDate) from assetData where assetData.assetId=asset.assetId)
group by assetData.assetId order by Thread.isSticky desc, userDefined1 desc LIMIT 3

 change parentdata.url to point to your CS and set limit to 1.. And maybe UNIX_TIMESTAMP(Post.userDefined1) as newstime to assetData.startDate and the same change to order by section

I managed to pull off what I need. Here's the query I used:

SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTRING(Post.content, 1, 250) AS "" FROM Post JOIN Collaboration ON Post.AssetID=Collaboration.lastPostID WHERE Collaboration.assetID LIKE "(Here I cheated and looked up the Asset ID for the Collaboration system in question)" ORDER BY Post.DateUpdated DESC LIMIT 1; 

 I used the "lastPostID" field to determine which post to display, and assumed the posts were in chronological order, so I did an ORDER BY descending and took the top post.

 Still a nasty query, but not quite as ugly as the first one :) Couldn't have done it without the first one as a jumping off point, though. Thanks!