Mini Loop: exclude category

I am using the mini code on a static page and so far it shows all the categorys.
I would like it to shwo only one specific category (news)
Help would be much appriciated.

the mini loop:
<?php
$how_many=5; //How many posts do you want to show
require_once("../core/wp-config.php"); // Change this for your path to wp-config.php file ?>
<ol id="whats-new">
<?
$news=$wpdb->get_results("SELECT ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts
WHERE post_status= "publish" ORDER BY 'ID' DESC LIMIT ".$how_many);
foreach($news as $np){
print ("*<a href="");
echo get_permalink($np->ID);
print ("">$np->post_title</a><br>");
} ?>
</ol>