Genealogy.about.com reports that Google News Archive is gone for good.

(emphasis mine) [my comment]

Google News Archive - Gone for Good?
By Kimberly Powell, About.com Guide   August 18, 2011

I was not a happy camper last night when I went to the main Google News Archive page, previously available at http://news.google.com/archivesearch, only to find it redirecting to the main Google page. Today Google News Archive is still redirecting, although it takes you to the Advanced News Search page. Does this mean Google News Archive is gone for good? [yes] I sure hope this is only a temporary change since I use the Google News Archive on a regular basis, especially for historical issues of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press and other southwestern Pennsylvania newspapers.

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The content from the Google News historical archive is still available, BUT MUCH HARDER TO ACCESS WITHOUT THE GOOGLE NEWS ARCHIVE SEARCH INTERFACE. …

You can also still browse by date from the newspaper list - thank goodness. I really miss the timeline, the ability to search by source title, and other advanced search features of Google News Archive, and sure hope this is a temporary glitch and not the end of a wonderful research tool… [it wasn’t a temporary glitch…]

Netforlawyers.com reports that Google has discontinued News Archive Search.

Google Integrates News Archive Search Into Current News Search, Weakens Archive Search

Back in May, we wrote about Google's cancellation of its News Archive project. At the time, the Boson Phoenix, one of the newspaper partners providing content to the News Archive, reported that the Archive was expected to live on - it's just that no new content would be added to it. While conducting test searches today, we have learned that Google has discontinued the standalone News Archive Search and integrated its results more fully into its (current) News Search. 

Previously, the Google News Archive Search was located at http://news.google.com/archivesearch and its Advanced Search page was located at http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search. As of (at least) August 17, the former returns a 404 error now redirects to the (current) Google News Search page and the latter redirects to Google's Web Search Advanced Search page.

After some further digging, we've determined that the News Archive Search isn't completely dead...it's just been integrated so far into the (current) News Search that it can be (more) easily missed.

[However, the most useful feature is now gone forever…]

The "Timeline" display of results is also NO LONGER AVAILABLE …

Genealogyintime.com reports about The Death of Google News Archive.

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What Killed Google News Archive?

It appears that two things lead to Google’s decision to cease work on their News Archive: complaints from large newspaper publishers and Apple’s iPad drawing too many publishers to the Apple platform.

The irony of newspaper publishers exerting pressure to shut down a newspaper archive is just too rich given that newspaper readership has been steadily falling over the last several years (see Why Are Newspapers Dying?). When the British Museum announced plans in 2010 to digitize its historic newspaper collection, the Murdoch news organization complained bitterly about the project and tried to get it shut down. Clearly others had also complained to Google through lawsuits and other means about the company’s attempt to organize the world’s information through historic newspaper archives and other approaches. The weight of these complaints must have been felt by Google.
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My reaction: Google News Archive Search is dead.

1) Google has discontinued the standalone News Archive Search.

2) Google News Archive is now redirecting to the Advanced News Search page.

3) Google News Archive was killed by complaints from large newspaper publishers (whose lies were being easily exposed through a few simple searches).

Conclusion: I used Google Archive News Search heavily while blogging on market skeptics. My video series about THE ESF AND ITS HISTORY would also have been much harder to make (if not impossible) without it.

You could find things in Google Archive News Search that you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was in incredible tool for sorting the truth from all the propaganda, and that is probably why it is gone.