der Spiegel is one of the major German news publications and it has an English site:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/search/index.html?suchbe...

but it might be a couple days behind.

I find controlled-distraction -- set times when I let myself be distracted (such as: 'at 2pm I will spend 15 min reading HN) -- is helpful. Otherwise I don't think sporadic, intermittent distraction could be of much use.