London, August 29, 2009 -- Ice cream trucks, the ubiquitous roaming purveyors of frozen dessert products that infest suburban neighbourhoods around the world, announcing their arrival using strident, uniformly irritating off-pitch melodies, have been found in a recent study to be a leading international cause of insanity.

Washington, D.C., August 9, 2006 -- Vice President Dick Cheney has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced today. Cheney thereby joins the ranks of other top-level officials whom Bush has honored with the prestigious award, including former Iraq CPA head L. Paul Bremer, General Tommy Franks, and former CIA director George Tenet. Vice President Cheney issued no public response to the honor and has been unavailable for comment.

Washington, D.C., October 5, 2006 -- Republican national committee chairman Ken Mehlman announced today that a special form of ballot will be issued to illegal immigrants across the United States in time for use in this November's pivotal mid-term elections.

The ballots, dubbed "Provisional Targeted Ballots" by the GOP, will allow illegal immigrants to actively participate in the "great and noble experiment that is American democracy", according to Mr. Mehlman, before being deported back to their homelands in boxcars by members of the Republican Guard (Immigrant Deportation Division).

Osaka, Japan, August 22, 2007 -- Engineers at Daikyo-Tonabayashi have confirmed the production of the first robot goldfish, years ahead of schedule. Recent developments in nanotechnology and the introduction of the Sentium microchip 80747 have made possible a breakthrough of extraordinary magnitude: a fully operational electronic tropical companion.