Actually this is the wrong thread, you want to ask in the main XenPorta thread. This thread is for custom blocks.
But to answer your questions, yes.
To eliminate the "continue reading" link go into your Modules settings, select Recent News and enter 999999 as a value for the recentnews_truncate value.
To remove the avatar you will need to modify the template EWRporta_Block_RecentNews.
Code:
<div class="messageUserBlock">
<div class="avatarHolder">
<xen:if is="{$news.attach}">
<a href="{xen:link attachments, $news.attach}"><img src="{$news.attach.thumbnailUrl}" alt="{$news.attach.filename}" /></a>
<xen:elseif is="{$news.medio}" />
<div style="background: url('data/media/{$news.medio.media_id}.jpg') no-repeat; background-size: 100%; -moz-background-size: 100%;">
<a href="{xen:link 'full:media/popout', $news.medio}" class="OverlayTrigger"><img src="js/8wayrun/EWRmedio_play.png" style="max-width: 240px;" /></a>
</div>
<xen:elseif is="{$news.image}" />
<a href="{$news.image}"><img src="{$news.image}" alt="{$news.image}" style="max-height: 150px; max-width: 150px;" /></a>
<xen:else />
<xen:avatar user="$news" size="m" itemprop="photo" />
</xen:if>
</div>
</div>
I haven't test it, but pretty sure if you wrap the above code in a comment tag then you will have the look you want.