Disable Apple News Audio

Is there a way to permanently disable the Audio function in Apple News? Apple News Audio randomly starts playing without me doing anything that should obviously cause it to open up and play. When it pops up, I select the three dots on left and select "Close Audio Player" but this only seems to keep it at bay for a few hours before it decides to open up and play again where it left off.

Also - There is no option to select Apple News under the Apps dropdown in this forum, so this is likely mis-categorized.