Not sure if this is a Search Engine issue or a News module specific issue.

I did a search and received results that included expired news items.

Steps to reproduce:
Create a news story Titled "The kitten in the hat"
Create a news story Titled "The kitten has a bat"

Expire the news story Titled "The kitten has a bat"

Do a search on the keyword "kitten"

Both stories appear.

Perhaps this is as designed, but, I suspect not, since click the link for an expired story not viewable, returning a blank page.

The blank page is a bug, but returning an expired article is not, IMO, since expired articles also appear in the news archives (they are not deleted, they just lost their news value).

Herko