Google has started beta testing a new free service that is open to the public. Without any publicity, Google has added a new search box that allows you to pull up recent stories amassed solely from newspapers and magazines around the world. This is good news for everyone who needs to trace a widely known fact back to a reliable source; using Google's new News Search feature ensures that your search is limited to credible news sources. To try News Search, go to Google.com, and click on the link for Advanced Search (I always use the Advanced Search anyway—it saves time). Any search terms you insert in the News section here will only return hits from legitimate news sources when you click the Search button. The News Search also appears at the top of http://news.google.com , a headline-news page that began last December. Currently Google only searches the last week of stories, but rumor has it they will lift the limit soon. Also, Google attempts to group related news together purely by word analysis, leading to some interesting combinations. Strangely enough, however, they usually make sense.
Harcourt student hits the big time... Good call, Gus. As the eternal lattice of coincidence would have it, there's an article at http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/365321p-2955017c.html linked from today's http://news.google.com page about the sentencing (by O.J.'s favorite judge Lance Ito) of CCHS/ICS/Harcourt student Efren "The Angel of Death" Saldivar. -Dan Rabther
Another new service (in beta) from Google: questions answered for a fee. See https://answers.google.com/answers/main
Totally irrelevant to this board, but I notice that Google also have a catalog search tool in beta: http://catalogs.google.com/