London, November 29, 2010 -- Do simple things like tying your shoes, brushing your teeth or sitting through someone else's wedding seem to take longer than they once did? Do you generally wake up in the morning feeling cranky and bleary-eyed rather than refreshed and well-rested? Do vacations seem to flit by like a millisecond-long, scarcely remembered dream?

Atlanta, April 22, 2009 -- With bird flu, also known as avian flu, now confirmed to have mutated into a form that can be transmitted human-to-human, international disease control agencies are concerned by a new report that virtually all of this year's star anise crop, a vital component of Tamiflu grown only in four provinces of China, has been wiped out in a series of mudslides brought on by unseasonably strong tropical storms in the region.

Sacramento, February 6, 2008 -- Republican candidate for president Ron Paul swept the primary elections in several key states on Super Tuesday. The candidate, who despite the support of a fiercely loyal virtual following who, while avid internet users, are generally too young or too anti-government to vote, had been trailing distantly in California and New York polls prior to Super Tuesday.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and his broom.

Stuttgart, December 29, 2008 -- German environmentalists are up in arms after the disclosure today of the sale by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Autobahn, the country's famed high-speed highway network, to an investment coalition headed by several prominent OPEC nations including the Republic of Saudi Arabia.

The step is one of many moves toward privatization by the fragile coalition government headed by Merkel that is now being hotly disputed by members of the more liberal Social Democrat coalition members due to what have been termed the "insane conditions" of the sale.