So, you really don’t want news updates popping up on your Android phone, what do you do? You go to Settings/Sound and notification/App notifications and find Google Play Newsstand and turn its notifications off. Go through the list and see if there are any other news apps, turn their notifications off.
You can also disable the apps. Go to Applications/Application manager and disable or uninstall.
Note, however, that the news app can come back, and it can start bugging you with news updates again! Here’s how to stop that. Settings/Backup and reset. Uncheck the Automatic restore box. There. No more news popups. Plus, any other Google apps you’ve disabled will stay that way.