You need to do one of two things:
Either you can add a WHERE clause to specify a datelimit, so you will get only news that is 'newer' than the date you mention.
SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE date_field>your_date
ORDER BY date_field DESC
Or you can put a hard limit on the number of items you get back.
SELECT *
FROM table
ORDER BY date_field DESC
LIMIT 5;
(replace 5 by the number you want)
It's a good idea to play with this in the commandline to see what each query does. Try things out!
