Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for automatic identification of news events. One method includes obtaining scores for a plurality of time entries, each time entry corresponding to a time period during which one or more articles on a topic were published, where the time entries have an associated order with respect to a timeline. The method further comprises identifying candidate regions of time entries, where each candidate region includes one or more time entries that follow each other in the order, and selecting a desired number of regions from the candidate regions. The method further includes selecting an article for each selected region and presenting a summary of the topic. The summary references the selected articles.