diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
index 430dc42..e39a2ce 100644
--- a/.Rbuildignore
+++ b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -11,3 +11,4 @@
 ^\.travis\.yml$
 ^cran-comments\.md$
 ^CRAN-RELEASE$
+^NEWS\.md$
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77a00f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+# sparkhail 0.1.1
+
+`sparkhail` is a `sparklyr` extension for Hail (see <https://hail.is/>).