- var_dump: documentation ( source)
- preg_match: documentation ( source)
<?php
$cool ='<li><span class="sidebar-vote-number"><a href="/story.php?title=gamestarts now">1</a></span><span class="sidebar-article"><a href="/story.php?title=googlegoogle-google-google" class="switchurl">GoogleGoogle Google Google</a></span></li>
Published News</a></div>
</div>
<div class="boxcontent">
<ul class="sidebar-stories">
<li><span class="sidebar-vote-number"><a href="/story.php?title=googlegoogle-google-google">1</a></span><span class="sidebar-article"><a href="/story.php?title=googlegoogle-google-google" class="switchurl">GoogleGoogle Google Google</a></span></li>';
preg_match('~Published News.*<li><span class="sidebar-vote-number"><a href="([^"]*)~msU', $cool, $match);
var_dump($match);