Xinhua News is a Chinese newswire. Further descriptions can be found from Dialog . The Associated Press is a large English newswire. Further description from EINS . Newswire ASAP is produced by IAC, and includes citations and complete text to 11 international newswires, Further descriptions can be found from Dialog .
Current news is free online from many directions.
There is one free news by email alert service. For past news, seek a commercial news database. News articles are typically light and biased. The sheer quantity of news in the large news databases makes this a useful resource to fall back for any tightly focused research topic. I once discovered an obscure scientist working in a unique field from a small 3 paragraph article in a local farmer's newspaper in England.