Google has enhanced its news-specific search capability. The News Search (still in "beta test" mode) collects news stories from sources around the world - updating them continuously throughout the day. The News Search home page lists news in a variety of categories (including "Headline News," "World News," "US News," "Business News," "Entertainment News," etc.) - in a directory style.

Within those categories, stories are grouped together by subject, with stories from multiple sources - covering the same news subject - in sub-groups. A recent search for "american taliban" returned over 200 results. The first result included a story from the Pakistan News Service that carried the identifier "less than 5 hours ago" indicating the up-to-date nature of the search results. Under the first result were related news stories from other publications around the world.

A sampling of other sources include:

• BBC
• Christian Science Monitor
• CNN
• Hindustan Times
• Miami Herald
• Jordan Times
• Raleigh News & Observer (Nando Times)
• San Jose Mercury News
• Sporting News

To read more about recent additions to Google's functionality, see these articles:

• Google Offers Catalog Searches
• Google Indexes Micorsoft Office & Other File Types
• Google Indexes PDFs
• Google Adds Image Search
• Google Expands its People-Finder Capabilities