Three Random Stories one page, weird table layout

I have a query that pulls three random news stories from a table, and displays them on the page.  The random order works perfectly if i have one per row in a table, or put a line break between each one.  The problem is that i want two of the stories to be side by side with the third story being underneath them in a new row that spans across both columns.

When I do this, however, all three stories are the same, which obviously is not what I'm trying to do.

Screenshot of page and code is attached.

<?php 
//News Index page
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/includes/verifyaccess.php");
if ($permgrpid == '0' or $permgrpid == '')
	{
	header("Location: login.php?error=unauthaccess");
	die;
	}

require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/includes/header.php");

$interval = 240;

$compquery = "";
$stickysql = "";
if (isset($sticky)) $stickysql = " and newsid != " . $sticky;
$randhour = (date("j") * 100 + date("g"));

$query = "SELECT DISTINCT(news_stories.newsid), news_stories.title, news_stories.story, news_stories.date, news_stories.author, news_stories.image, news_stories.apprauth, 
			news_stories.apprmod, news_comments.date, news_comments.sentby, news_comments.newsitem, news_comments.comment FROM news_stories	LEFT JOIN news_comments ON news_stories.newsid = news_comments.newsitem WHERE DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL $interval DAY) <= news_stories.date AND image = '1' AND apprmod = '1' AND apprauth = '1' group by news_stories.newsid order by rand() limit 0,1";

$res = mysql_query($query) or die (mysql_error());

//echo $query . "<br />";

echo "<table width='95%' align='center' cellspacing = '3' cellpadding='3'>";

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($res))
	{
	$newsid = $row['newsid'];
	$newsid2 = $row['newsid'];
	$newsid3 = $row['newsid'];
	$title = $row['title'];
	$story = $row['story'];
	$date = $row['date'];
	$author = $row['author'];
	$image = $row['image'];
	$commentdate = $row['date'];
	$sentby = $row['sentby'];
	$commentnewsitem = $row['newsitem'];
	$comment = $row['comment'];
	
	echo "<tr>";
	echo "<td><span class='newsheadline'>" . fixQuotes($title) . "</span><br />" . fixQuotes($story) . "</td>";
	echo "<td><span class='newsheadline'>" . fixQuotes($title) . "</span><br />" . fixQuotes($story) . "</td>";
	echo "</tr>";
	echo "<tr><td> &nbsp; </td></tr>";
	echo "<tr><td colspan = '2'><span class='newsheadline'>" . fixQuotes($title) . "</span><br />" . fixQuotes($story) . "</td></tr>";
	}

echo "</table>";
?>

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