You could use iteration in the each-viewhelper like
<f:for each="{news}" as="newsItem" iteration="iterator">
<f:if condition="{iterator.index} == 1">...</f:if>
<li class="first-item"></li>
</f:if>
<f:if condition="{iterator.index} == 2">...</f:if>
<li class="second-item"></li>
</f:if>
</f:for>
but you have to add this conditions to all items. else you could use the cycle-viewhelper to define columns like this:
<f:for each="{news}" as="newsItem">
<f:cycle values="{0: 1, 1: 2, 2: 3}" as="cycle">
<f:if condition="{cycle} == 1">...</f:if>
<li class="col-1"></li>
</f:if>
<f:if condition="{cycle} == 2">...</f:if>
<li class="col-2"></li>
</f:if>
<f:if condition="{cycle} == 2">...</f:if>
<li class="col-2"></li>
</f:if>
</f:cycle>
</f:for>
here you just have to add conditions to each column. i would add just classes by condition, not the whole li-tag but the code above is nicer to read i think.
<f:for each="{news}" as="newsItem" iteration="iterator">
<li class="{f:if(condition: "{iterator.index} == 1", then: 'first-class')} {f:if(condition: "{iterator.index} == 2", then: 'second-class')}">
</li>
</f:for>