YellowDog

I think I mis-stated about modifying “a couple of other files.” I actually pulled code out of index.php, put it in a separate file, and call that file from index.php (i.e. the sidebar). Those are the other files I modified. I did this so that I can choose whether to include the sidebar on subsequent pages and if I edit sidebar.php, the change will occur in all files that call it.
Something is certainly stripping the link (href) code from the post. But it doesn’t strip it if there is content in the excerpt field.
One mod I made may have something to do with this:
<?php if ($single) the_content();
else the_excerpt(); ?>
I found this mod on this forum. As I understand it, if there is no excerpt, it should display the content (which it does). So if this is having an effect, I don’t know why. But I thought I’d point it out.

Thanks for your quick response. I’ve seen your name around here alot. Are you connected to WordPress or just a helpful individual?
I have no plugins. I haven’t upgraded but I just installed this (ver. 1.2) 7/12/04.
Is there an upgrade this soon that would address this? And while we’re on the subject….I am curious about upgrading in general. I have made numerous changes to the index.php and wp-layout.css and a couple other files. Does the upgrade impact anything I might have customized or just ‘system’ files? Would I need to take any precautions to preserve what I’ve done before I upgrade?
TIA

Thanks for trying, gravity.
Where’s Root or Podz or some of the others I’ve seen helping out around here? Maybe a new perspective will help.

Sorry, I didn’t realize I was not logged-in.
I altered the post “Mediaa€?s lack of diversity skews news judgment” so that it has no excerpt. The text “USA Today” should be a link but, as you can see, it is not. In the post “News Grows Old Before Its Time,” I copied the entire contents into the excerpt field, but the link (interesting question) would have display if I just wrote “hi” in the excerpt field.
https://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/

At this point I can’t vouch for the math. I have been doing alot of ‘experimenting’ and hoping I stumbled over a solution. So its current state is just the point at which I gave up and decided to seek help. That’s also why it may seem ‘fancy’ as I kept trying different things to make it work (i.e. creating new divs and reordering them).
Despite the above, it looks fine in Netscape but not IE. A more trivial matter, there is a graphic background beneath the horizontal button bar that shows up in Netscape but not IE. What’s up with IE?
Thanks for taking a stab at it. I spent the whole day on this and got nowhere.