Northern Light Current News Review

Last updated Jul. 12, 2023.
by Greg R.

NOTE: As of Feb. 28, 2003, Northern Light Current News has stopped being updated. Not surprising, since divine, Inc. (which bought Northern Light a year earlier) has filed for bankruptcy earlier that week.

This review will remain available as a reflection of how it used to work. For current news searching, see News Search Engines for alternatives.

Dates: Only current two weeks is covered in the Current News section. These are free. Older newswire stories are available through the Special Collection for a fee.
Sources: Covers over 50 newswires including AP Online, UPI, and PR Newswire. Sources list as of early 2003 below.
Sort: Relevance or date and time in reverse chronological order
Frequency: According to their documentation, all sites are refreshed every 15 minutes
Case Recognition: None
Stop Words: None found
Truncation: Northern Light has two truncation symbols. The unlimited truncation symbol is an asterisk * while a percent sign % represents any single character. This can be used as internal truncation or end truncation, but a minimum of four characters must appear before a truncation symbol can be used. A single term can include more than one truncation symbol. ALSO, note that all terms are automatically searched in both plural and singular forms. A term entered as plural or as singular will result in the same number of hits. There is currently no way of turning this feature off.
Boolean:Northern Light supports full Boolean searching with the operators AND, OR, and AND NOT. Searching can be nested using parentheses. Operators can be in lower or upper case. Northern Light can also use a variation of the + - syntax. Northern Light's version differs in that unlike all the other systems using + -, terms entered with no operators or + - notation are processed with an AND.
Phrase: Phrase searching can be designated by double quotes "" around a search phrase. Note that words within a phrase will be searched in both singular and plural form.

Sources list as of early 2003:

A&G Information Services
Advanced Intelligent Network News
Africa News Service
Agencia EFE News
Air Safety Week Technology
Aircraft Value News Technology
Airline Financial News
AP Online News
Asia Pulse Regional
Asiaport Daily News News
Bestwire Service
Business Wire
C41 News
Canadian Corporate News
Cineman Syndicate News
Communications Today Technology
Commuter Regional Airline News Technology
Corporate EFT Report
Credit Risk Management Report
FedNet Government News Government, Law & Politics
Global Positioning & Navigation News Technology
Hart's European Fuels News Technology
Hart's European Offshore Petroleum Newsletter Technology
Healthcare PR & Marketing News
Helicopter News Technology
InfoLatina S.A. de C.V.
Inter Press Service
Interactive Sports Wire Sports & Recreation
Internet Wire
IPO Monitor
ITAR/TASS News Agency News
Item Processing Report
M2 Communications Ltd.
Market News Publishing
MIN Media Industry Newsletter
Octane Week Technology
ON24 News
Oxy-Fuel News Technology
Petroleum Finance Week Technology
Phillips Publishing International News
PR News
PR Newswire
PrimeZone Media Network
Resource News International
Reuters OnLine News
Satellite News
Selling to Kids
South American Business Information (SABI)
Space Business News Technology
Sports Network News Sports & Recreation
States News Service
TechWeb News Technology
Telecoms Deal Report Technology
U.S. Newswire Government, Law & Politics
Washington Technology Technology
Wireless Data News
Wireless Insider Technology
World Airline News
World Airport Week Technology
Xinhua News Agency News