Russian news online?

So my university doesn't offer Russian classes outside the basic first two semesters. Now that I've taken them I wanted more. I got my university to agree to do an independent study for me but it cannot be me simply going through another language textbook. My project is to follow the Russian news--- I can pick a general theme and focus mainly on that. They've got to be in Russian though obviously.

So my question is if you can help me compile a resource list to find good, reputable news in Russian about Russia. My semester doesn't begin until the end of August but I'm trying to get it prepared... and if I can begin early it'd be better as this is going to be quite daunting feat for me!

Also, my friend got a job teaching English in Russia starting this summer. So we had thought maybe I could have her send me the physical newspapers---but not sure how to send them, it seems to be absurdly high to ship them!

Anyways your insight would be much appreciated. I'm quite lost right now with this topic. It's going to be a LONG and hard semester, that's for sure!!

Government channels:

http://www.vesti.ru/videos?vid=onair (on-line)

http://www.1tv.ru/news/

"Liberal" channels:

http://www.ren-tv.com/telecasting/news-and-analytics

http://www.echo.msk.ru/

http://www.lenta.ru/

Since you want reputable news sources, I'd skip the government channels. Try Novaya Gazeta. People seem to want to kill off their reporters, so that might mean something. For financial news, there's Kommersant.

I would recommend http://news.google.ru/news?edchanged=1&ned=ru_ru It is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from Russian-language news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader's personalized interests. It's very usefull for me.

You could, you know, just like, teach yourself.

It works for some people :)