To remove them, all you have to do is go to the "Standard" toolbar and click
on the "Column" icon and click a single column. This will change your page
formatting to a single column, which is a normal page.
A few points though:
1. When you open a "NEW" document, are you using the "New Blank Document"
icon from the Standard toolbar, or are you clicking File, New and then
selecting a document type?
2. The reason I ask this is that by default, the blank document does not add
newspaper columns to blank documents.
3. Therefore, if you are not using the "New Blank Document" icon, it would
be recommended.
Hope this helps.