Hi, I want to have different news topics and set different permissions for each topic (only allow registered users to submit things into certain topics and make it so their submissions must be approved before being displayed on the site) and I would like to be able to display each different topic on different pages rather than all on the main news page. Can I do all this with the default news module or will I need something else? Thanks.

You cant do this with the default news module.
Not sure about the News Module avaliable at Dev.XOOPS, that might be closer to what you want.

I'm guessing that AMS might do some of what you want.
AMS Module