sure, it did ;)
It got rid of the text I was looking for;
$newsText = str_replace("<span style=" . '"' . "mso-spacerun: yes" . '"' ."> </span>", " ", $newsText);
$newsText = str_replace("<span style=" . '"' . "mso-spacerun: yes" . '"' ."> </span>", " ", $newsText);
but now, the user has just...