Ok, my own version of local news on a Google Map. http://www.dynamite.co.uk/local/?feed=feedNews.php
All this is doing is building a Yahoo News search based on the location at the centre of the map, with the output from Yahoo set to RSS.
The resulting RSS is then cached, embedded directly in the Google XML, and an XSLT style sheet used to make it look nice for the panel on the right.
Simple - but as with other approaches, not hugely accurate. And my database of towns isn't particularly accurate either.
(It'd be nice to get search results back in RSS format from BBC News..) ;) Dom
