Okay, something very strange just happened. After I got set up to use the
newsreader in MS Outlook (not Express), I browsed for a while and then closed
the newsreader. Later, I went to the "Go" menu and selected "News". What
happened next was weird...

Instead of opening the newsreader, a Windows Explorer window opened up
pointing to a folder somewhere on my system drive (I closed the window before
recording the path - argh!). Then, after I closed that window, I went back
to the "Go" menu to try again. The "News" menu item was gone! I went to
"Customize" to add it back in, and it doesn't even show up in the list of
Commands for that Menu!

What in the world did I do?