Ahh, since I'm running 6.5 it's a bit different since the styles have changed a bit. Should have said something in my first post.
In 6.5 we totally removed the .new class. And that bit is controlled by the .standouttext class. I *think* you might be able to just add the .new class back in. Maybe add:
.new {
font-color: red;
}
The font color is controlled throughout a variety of classes. Basically I'd just do a search and replace for #CCCCCC; and change to #FFFFFF; It's actually defined in a total of 9 classes in total and it's the only place that color code is used so if you change them all to #FFFFFF it should do what you are looking for.