Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) this week added a new local news feature to its Google News service, allowing users to see the day's top stories based on an address, city or zip code. "While we're not the first news site to aggregate local news, we're doing it a bit differently -- we're able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources," the company wrote on its blog. "We're not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located."

San Francisco - Google has begun publishing full stories from news agencies such as the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Canadian Press and Britain's Press Association on its Google News aggregation service, Reuters reported.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google has added the ability for certain users to add comments to the stories from 4,500 sources it aggregates on its Google News service -- namely, those individuals or groups who are mentioned in the stories. Unlike Digg, another news aggregation site where users can comment on and rank stories, prospective commenters on Google News stories must e-mail their comments to Google, along with proof of identity. The company will then try to independently assess the identity of the individual.

Two weeks ago, Google News fell behind Digg.com in share of UK visits to News and Media websites. Yahoo! News UK & Ireland ranks at #4, Digg.com at #6 and Google News UK at #7 among News and Media websites. However, looking at website visits alone tells only half the story.

Brussels, Belgium - French-language newspapers in Belgium have reached a truce of sorts with Google, and will allow the search engine to once again link to their websites, but talks fell short of an agreement that would return their articles to Google News, the Associated Press reported.

Washington - The news gathering organization Agence France-Presse (AFP) announced that it has settled a lawsuit with Google, and licensed the company to use AFP news and photos on Google News and other services.