iOS News app notifications on Apple Watch will not disable

First: I'm a big fan of turning notifications off on my Apple Watch on a per-app basis. I finely tune what comes to my watch and what doesn't.

iOS News app will not stop coming to my watch even though I have disabled it.

Here are some other steps I've taken (along with Apple support on twitter, who I'm not sure even understands what I'm talking about):

Tried disabling other apps to make sure it isn't a system-wide issue: done, those apps do not push to apple watch after I disable them

Rebooted phone and watch: done

Unpaired and then re-paired watch: done

Switched News' notification toggle on and off several times (leaving it at off): done

Turned of all apps' ability to use background app refresh: done

Still getting notifications from News on my watch. I use News occasionally so I don't want to just delete it, and I like the notifications on my phone. Up until now I've never had a problem disabling notifications to my watch.

Using Apple Watch 1st generation (before the Series 1/2) and iPhone 7 Plus. Both updated to latest software (Watch 3.1, iOS 10.1.1)