Good point -- it doesn't remove the verbs entirely. However, it removes them from their natural place in the sentence and puts them somewhere where they're like

Good point -- it doesn't remove the verbs entirely. However, it removes them from their natural place in the sentence and puts them somewhere where they're likely to be missed entirely. By front-loading the headline with only the nouns, he puts what is arguably the most important part--what _happened_--at the end. But you are right that the awkwardness is mostly due to a lack of prepositions.