Add NEWS and bump version

Author: cderv

DESCRIPTION

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: quarto
 Title: R Interface to 'Quarto' Markdown Publishing System
-Version: 1.4.4.9016
+Version: 1.4.4.9017
 Authors@R: c(
     person("JJ", "Allaire", , "[email protected]", role = "aut",
            comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-0174-9868")),

NEWS.md

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # quarto (development version)
 
+- Added `check_newer_version()` function to check if a newer version of Quarto is available. The function compares the current Quarto version against the latest stable and prerelease versions. It is aimed for verbosity by default (`verbose = TRUE`), but `verbose = FALSE` can also be set for just checking update availability with TRUE or FALSE return values. Version information is cached per session for up to 24 hours to minimize network requests.
+
 - Added `write_yaml_metadata_block()` function to dynamically set YAML metadata in Quarto documents from R code chunks. This addresses the limitation where Quarto metadata must be static and defined in the document header. The function enables conditional content and metadata-driven document behavior based on R computations (thanks, @kmasiello, #137, #160).
 
 - Added debugging logic for quarto vignette engine to help diagnose issues with Quarto vignettes in **pkgdown** and other context (thanks, @hadley, #185).