Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig newsplex.com. NS
Answer
newsplex.com. 4 NS ns64.domaincontrol.com.
newsplex.com. 4 NS ns63.domaincontrol.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0