14.04 upgrade changes login shells to /usr/sbin/nologin for some system users

[Adam Funk]

I upgraded my home server to 14.04 a few days ago.  The upgrade
process changed the login shells in /etc/passwd for several system
users to '/usr/sbin/nologin'.  I guess this is a security improvement?

For the most part, it's fine, but the upgrade changed it for the
'news' user & that broke my leafnode installation, because the cron
jobs are owned by root but use 
su news -c "commands..."
to run.  The curious thing is that my leafnode installation is
compiled from the source, not installed using the package, so I 
don't see why the Ubuntu upgrader even knows about the news user.  Any
ideas?

Also, will this happen again at the next upgrade, or is there anything
I can configure now to prevent it?

Thanks,
Adam