Pensacola, FL, April 22, 2007 -- Following a series of potentially flawed elections in which the integrity of voting machines was called into question, the Elections Board of Florida has made the decision to scrap the traditional voting process altogether and put in its place a new system, based on the Applause-o-Meter, with which they feel the voting public may be more comfortable.

Kermit Porter, spokesman for the Florida State Elections Commission, elaborates:

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.

Boulder, March 22, 2014 -- Genetic engineers at the world-renowned Tweek-e-Gene Institute in Boulder, Colorado, announced today the successful production of the world's first live custom-designed human Manga-baby. The baby, a healthy boy weighing 2.3 lbs. and measuring a lanky 38 inches from head to toe, will be named Ichi the Killer.

Ichi the Killer, prototype Manga-baby

Trend-spotters confidently predict Ichi will be the first boulder in a virtual landslide of specially-ordered designer Manga-babies.

Berkeley, California, February 19, 2009 -- The widely accepted theory regarding the creation of the universe via a single, momentous explosion, the "Big Bang", has been effectively turned on its head. Scientists report new evidence has come to light of a second, more dramatic explosion, that is theorized to have occurred a few nanoseconds after the first one.