Why is my post being created inside another post? [ Wordpress ] - wordpress

Question

I know there is probably a solved question like this already, but I can't seem to find it.
I am just starting out so this may be a noob question, please bear with me ><
I am trying to display the top 3 recent posts on front-page.php of my site, the problem is that the post keeps being created within itself.
Here is the CSS involved.
.news-container{ background-color: #fff;
padding: 2em;
max-width: 600px;
heigth:300px;
text-align: left;
}
.has-thumbnail {
position: relative;
padding-left: 200px;
}
.post-thumbnail {
position:absolute;
top:0;
left:0;
}
article.post { border-bottom: 1px solid #bbbbbb;
margin-bottom: 3em;
}
article.post:last-of-type { border-bottom: none;
}
Here is the front-page.php code involved.
<div class="news-container">
<?php
$recentposts=get_posts('showposts=5');
if ($recentposts) {
foreach($recentposts as $post) {
setup_postdata($post);
?>
<article class="post <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?> has-thumbnail <?php } ?> ">
<div class="post-thumbnail">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('small-thumbnail'); ?>
</div>
<p><?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?>
<h3><?php the_title()?> </h3>
<p>
<?php echo get_the_excerpt(); ?>
Read more »
<br><br> <br><br> <br><br>
</p>
<?php
}
}
?>
</article>
</div>
Why is this happening? Thanks for reading this!

Answer 1

Try this updated code i think you not close all tags properly. This will solve your problem.
<div class="news-container">
<?php
$args = array('posts_per_page' => 5, 'post_type'=>'post' );
query_posts($args); $post_query = new WP_Query( $args );
while($post_query->have_posts()){ $post_query->the_post();
?>
<article class="post <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?> has-thumbnail <?php } ?> ">
<div class="post-thumbnail">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('small-thumbnail'); ?>
</div>
<p><?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> </p>
<h3><?php the_title()?> </h3>
<p><?php echo get_the_excerpt(); ?>
Read more »
<br><br> <br><br> <br><br>
</p>
</article>
<?php } ?>
</div>

Answer 2

You can accomplish this with the WP Latest Posts Plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-latest-posts/screenshots/