News category on every page in sidebar

Hello,

I’m trying to have the most recent 3 articles in the News category listed in my sidebar. This will work on pages which are general or in the News category, but on any other pages, it doesn’t show up.

Can someone let me know how I can get the posts in the News category regardless where I am?

Also, is switching the while(has_posts()) to a for loop an acceptable alternative to have it only display 3 instead of all of them?

Thanks.