They can use Google.com to read and post to Newsgroup, even if they are silly enough to stay with AOL.

I would guess AOL did this for at least a couple of reasons.
-Newsgroup activity can use up a lot of bandwidth and AOL is slow enough the way it is, some readers download and upload a great deal of data.
-AOL can not put spam pop-ups in your newsgroup, they want you back on their home page, clicking and buying it up, reading their advertisements.

Cheers,
Jim
"madgardener" wrote in message ...
Well apparently there are quite a few missing friends from our cyber backyard. Grdngal has lost her newsgroups capability, and now I've found that the other Marilyn up in Ohio has lost HER newsgroups thanks to AOL dropping them. This is horrible!! It's like walking down the street to visit a friend's garden and discovering in the night that the whole yard has been whisked away! I guess I'll have to personally e-mail some of my garden friends to see if they're having newsgroup withdrawal. I wonder why AOL would do this? (and the server that Pam, aka grdngal, has)
madgardener up on the snowy ridge, where we FINALLY got snow (it's all gone Eastwards to North Carolina every time!) back in Faerie Holler, overlooking a beautiful wintery English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7?, Sunset zone 36