Washington, D.C., December 23, 2005 -- Lewis "Scooter" Libby was pardoned today in a surprise announcement by President George W. Bush. Libby, who had been indicted on five felony counts for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice, and one misdemeanor charge involving an altercation with two lesbian cheerleaders, said "Yeah. Like I didn't see that one coming."

Washington, D.C., November 26, 2005 -- Republican proponents of the USA Patriot Act are proposing a new provision they say will provide a fiscal silver lining to the controversial surveillance measure, but some privacy advocates are up in arms about what they see as an intolerable intrusion on privacy and civil liberties.

Sioux City, Iowa, October 12, 2030 -- The recently-formed Midwest Commission on Giant Hamster Flu (MCGHF) reported yesterday that an additional 39 men and women have succumbed in the past month to the latest outbreak of Giant Hamster Flu, or GHF. This brings the total GHF-linked death toll to over 400 for the first three quarters of the year, a 49 percent increase over 2029.

Officials of the MCGHF are now characterizing the outbreak as a serious pandemic with the potential for widespread contagion, although no cases of GHF spreading from human to human have yet been reported.

Pyongyang, North Korea, November 5, 2006 -- A jubilant U.S. State Department announced today that the Halliburton subsidiary of Buhn & Dogale, a small ceramic figurine manufacturing firm located in the Cayman Islands, has been granted a coveted $3.2 billion no-bid contract to construct North Korea's first light-water nuclear reactor.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said key officials associated with the contract award, an important component of the recently signed North Korean Now You See Them Now You Don't Strategic Nuclear Arms Limitation Treaty, were "elated".