e765272cce5886370af96fd8dc507cb4e5373964
steve
  Mon Dec 19 15:17:46 2011 -0800
Added VCF announcement
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                     </TD></TR></TABLE>
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                     <P>
                     To receive announcements of new genome 
                     assembly releases, new software features, updates and 
                     training seminars by email, subscribe to the
                     <A HREF="https://lists.soe.ucsc.edu/mailman/listinfo/genome-announce" 
                     TARGET=_blank>genome-announce</A> mailing list.</P>
 
             
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+                <FONT FACE="courier" SIZE="3"><B>19 December 2011 - Variant
+                Call Format (VCF) Now Supported in Genome Browser</B></FONT>
+                   <P>
+                   We are pleased to announce that the UCSC Genome Browser
+                   now supports Variant Call Format (VCF).  VCF is a flexible
+                   and extendable line-oriented text format developed by the
+                   1000 Genomes Project for releases of single nucleotide variants,
+                   indels, copy number variants and structural variants discovered
+                   by the project.  Similar to bigBed, bigWig and BAM, the Browser
+                   transfers only the portions of VCF files necessary to display
+                   viewed regions, making VCF a fast and attractive option for
+                   large data sets.  VCF files will need to be compressed and
+                   indexed using the tabix package available from
+                   <a href="http://samtools.sourceforge.net/"
+                   target="_blank">SAMtools</a>.  This new format is available
+                   for use in custom tracks and data hubs.  For more information
+                   about VCF and tabix, please see our <a href="goldenPath/help/vcf.html"
+                   target="_blank">VCF Track Format help page</a>.</P>
+                <P>
         	<FONT FACE="courier" SIZE="3"><B>7 November 2011 - UMD Cow
 		Assembly Now Available in Genome Browser</B></FONT>
 		    <P>
 		    In response to the many requests from the bovine research
 		    community, we now offer the University of Maryland (UMD)
 		    <em>Bos taurus</em> assembly in the Genome Browser, in 
 		    addition to the assemblies produced by the Baylor College 
 		    of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center. The UMD v3.1 
 		    assembly (Nov. 2009, UCSC bosTau6) was produced by the 
 		    <A HREF="http://www.cbcb.umd.edu/" TARGET=_blank>UMD Center 
 		    for Bioinformatics and Computational 
 		    Biology</A> (CBCB) in College Park, MD. </P>
 		    <P>
 		    The UMD 3.1 assembly is based on reads downloaded from 
 		    the NCBI Trace Archive, most of which were sequenced by