Here s how you could do it using JQuery (please keep in mind I dont know JQuery, just saw this approach somewhere and thought it might work for you).
I put this in a popup and it worked....
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
function renderNews(newsList){
$( #news ).html( );
$(newsList).each(function(i,item){
var link = document.createElement( a );
$(link).attr( href ,item.link);
$(link).html(item.description);
$(link).click(function(){
chrome.tabs.create({url:$(this).attr( href )});
});
var linksDate = document.createElement( span );
//$(linksDate).text(item.date);
$(linksDate).text(item.day + - + item.month + + item.hour + : + item.minute+ - );
var listItem = document.createElement( li );
$(listItem).append(linksDate).append(link);
$("#news").append(listItem);
});
}
function getNews() {
$.get("http://www.milannews.it/?action=search§ion=32", null, function(data, textStatus)
{
if(data) {
var news=$(data).find(".list").find( li ).slice(0,3) ;
$("#status").text( );
var newsList=[];
$(news).each(function(i, item){
var newsItem={};
newsItem.description=$(item).find( a ).html();
newsItem.link= http://www.milannews.it/ +$(item).find( a ).attr( href );
newsItem.date=$(item).find( span ).first().text();
newsItem.day=newsItem.date.split( )[0].split( . )[0];
newsItem.month=newsItem.date.split( )[0].split( . )[1];
newsItem.hour=newsItem.date.split( )[1].split( : )[0];
newsItem.minute=newsItem.date.split( )[1].split( : )[1];
newsList[i]=newsItem;
});
renderNews(newsList);
localStorage.setItem( oldNews ,JSON.stringify(newsList));
}
});
}
function onPageLoad(){
if (localStorage["oldNews"]!=null) renderNews(JSON.parse(localStorage["oldNews"]));
getNews();
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="onPageLoad();" style="width: 700px">
<ul id="news"></ul>
<div id="status">Checking for new news...</div>
</body>
</html>
And dont forget to put the urls your getting with the xhr stuff in the permissions part of your manifest....
http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/xhr.html