Once you call codon.config.php, the entire engine and modules are all loaded in.
So in that case, the News module is already loaded - you can just call the module using:
MainController::Run('News', 'ShowNewsFront', 10); // show 10 stories
That's probably what you're looking for. But I agree with mark, it'll be much easier to skin phpVMS to go however you like - some people do use something like Joomla and phpVMS, and just skin both to look the same.