Posting Multiple Categories on the Index page

Is there a way to multiple this down a list, keeping out certain categories. We only want a News, Features, Opinion and A&E. And of course under each of these posts we only want posts from this category, how is this possible?

<?php if ( $paged > 1 || option::get(‘recent_posts’) == ‘on’) { ?>
<div id=”content”>
<h3 class=”title”><?php echo $paged < 2 ? __(‘News’, ‘wpzoom’) : __(‘Archives’, ‘wpzoom’); ?><?php if ( $paged < 2 ) _e; ?></h3>

<div class=”clear”></div>
<?php
global $query_string; // required

/* Exclude categories from Recent Posts */
if (option::get(‘recent_part_exclude’) != ‘off’) {
if (count(option::get(‘recent_part_exclude’))){
$exclude_cats = implode(“,-“,option::get(‘recent_part_exclude’));
$exclude_cats = ‘-‘ . $exclude_cats;
$args[‘cat’] = $exclude_cats;
}
}
/* Exclude featured posts from Recent Posts */
if (option::get(‘hide_featured’) == ‘on’) {
$featured_posts = new WP_Query(
array(
‘post__not_in’ => get_option( ‘sticky_posts’ ),
‘posts_per_page’ => 5,
‘meta_key’ => ‘wpzoom_is_featured’,
‘meta_value’ => 1
)
);

$postIDs = array();
while ($featured_posts->have_posts()) {
$featured_posts->the_post();
global $post;
$postIDs[] = $post->ID;
}
$args[‘post__not_in’] = $postIDs;
}

$args[‘paged’] = $paged;
if (count($args) >= 1) {
query_posts($args);
}
?>

<?php get_template_part(‘loop’); ?>

</div> <!– /#content –>

Is there a way to duplicate this and specify it?