Appscars: Which is the Best News App? Voting Ends 2/8 at 9 a.m.

I’m sure that Aldiko 2.0 would like to thank the academy (read: you) for being winning the Appscar for Best eReader App. For our next category, we turn to the news.

For many, the app has become the preferred method for getting the latest updates about the things they care about, whether that be international news, local news, or niche category news. You nominated your favorite apps in this category, and now it’s up to you to narrow that list to one.

CNN  Mobile: For the top stories now, CNN Mobile is your best bet for around-the-clock news. This ad-supported app for iPhone and iPad displays the top story in your location, in each category (Crime, Entertainment, Health, Politics, Tech, Top Stories, U.S. and World) with a big image, and up to nine smaller stories with a thumbnail picture for each. Use the My CNN feature to view local news, traffic, and weather conditions, as well as followed topics (with alerts for when updates are published) and saved stories for reading when you’re offline. And iReport, allows citizen journalists to take pics, shoot video, and upload their own stories to CNN.

Flipboard: Elegantly mixing social networking with news, Flipboard puts Twitter and Facebook status updates into a magazine-style layout that’s visual driven with images. You can also add feeds from your favorite blogs and general news sources, to create the newspaper of the modern age. Most recently this free iPad app added Flickr, Google Reader, and Facebook Groups to the compatible sources of information. When you click on a story, the original web source of that news loads.

NPR News: For the lover and supporter of National Public Radio, NPR News app is the must-have app of the bunch. It’s free and brings you local and national news from your local NPR radio station, and you can search for a station near by zipcode you when you travel. You can download stories for reading offline, and listen to popular programs that include Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air, Car Talk, and Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! NPR News is available on Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad.

NYTimes: All the news that’s fit to print in an app; that’s the free NYTimes in a nutshell. You can sync and read the stories that are important to you when you’re away from the web. Available on the iPad, iPhone, as well as Palm webOS and Android devices, you can read or watch stories from 25 sections of the popular newspaper, including politics, arts, science, and style. You can share stories through your favorite social networks, and customize the font you read in (either in landscape or portrait mode).

Pulse News Reader: By taking all your favorite news sources from around the web and consolidating them into one app, the free Pulse News Reader offers an image-driven mosaic for news.  Tapping on an article takes the reader to a clean and easy to read view of that story. You can also sync stories to your device for offline reading later. This app is available for the iPad, iPhone, and for Android. Most recently, app maker Alphonso Labs added the social sharing via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail or Instapaper from inside a story.

The polls are open from now until Tuesday, February 8 at 9:00 a.m. Did we forget someone? Feel free to add write-ins in the comments section below. Then tune in tomorrow for the Finance App category.