It's not that long since most of the big search tools decided to cover recent and breaking news. But several now have a news section where you'll find headlines from numerous sources and links to articles. These allow you to search specifically for news, which is helpful when you consider that most of the material on the Web is not news.

Google's news section is presently in beta, so perhaps you can send some feedback and contribute to its development. As it stands it is quite basic. There is US news and non-US news. And there are sections for business, entertainment, technology and sports. Related news stories from various sources are grouped together by an algorithm rather than an editor.

The is no advanced search option yet but I assume that will change. For the moment, it's handy to be able to sort by relevance or sort by date. This means you can get the most recently reported, or the most recently updated, to appear at the top. However, it would seem to make a lot of difference if you are reading a new story or an old one that has just had some minor correction. It's not clear which you are getting here.

You are encouraged to let Google know if you have any suggestions about how news could be searched and sorted better, what sources should be used, what additional categories you'd like to see and anything else you like or dislike about the service. I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Cheers
Nice