The gang to credit with heartening news? (4)
I believe the answer is:
crew
'the gang' is the definition.
('crew' can be a synonym of 'gang')
'credit with heartening news?' is the wordplay.
'credit' becomes 'cr' (abbreviation).
'with heartening news?' becomes 'ew' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'cr'+'ew'='CREW'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for crew that I've seen before include "A kind of short cut" , "Squad" , "Cox and Co" , "Ship's men" , "Boat race team" .)