William Vambenepe, the head of the Product Management team of Google News, said Google is not just pushing local news in the Google News Showcase feature but also directly in Google Search. He showed an example for a query on [inauguration] where there is a box below the top stories section for local news.

He wrote on Twitter “the push for local news is not limited to Google News Showcase (though it is part of it). Case in point, the “Local news” section (meaning California for me) below “Top stories” for local aspects of a national story (this was for the “inauguration” query).”

And this is what I see, so it works for me as well:

Yes, this was a side note about the news on Google News Showcase that this product added “many new publishers (including Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Libération in France) and an upcoming “extended access” feature providing free access to some articles behind publisher paywalls.”

Google has been saying for some time that local news is important. So you can see it is making efforts there.

Here is a bit more on the News Showcase story:

Forum discussion at Twitter.