How to pull latest posts from a specific category

I figured it out, had a lot of syntax issues and open php tags.

<?php
  // the query
  $the_query = new WP_Query(array(
      'category_name' => 'local-news',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'posts_per_page' => 5,
  ));
  ?>

  <?php if ($the_query->have_posts()) : ?>
      <?php while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query  >the_post(); ?>

    <div class="card-body pb-0">
    <div class="latest_news_cont">
        <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">
        <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
        </a>

        <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">
        <h5>
            <?php the_title(); ?>
        </h5>
        </a>
        <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
        <p style="text-align:center;"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" class="readmore_news">Read more</a></p>
        <br>

    </div>
    </div>

      <?php endwhile; ?>
      <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

  <?php else : ?>
      <p><?php __('No News'); ?></p>
  <?php endif; ?>