Washington, D.C., December 3, 2005 -- Chief Justice of the United States William H. Rehnquist died yesterday evening in an incident unrelated to the many life-threatening illnesses that plagued his last years of life. Chief Justice Rehnquist served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1972, when nominated by President Nixon, until 1986, when he assumed the post of Chief Justice following President Reagan's nomination. Rehnquist will continue to serve posthumously, a move those familiar with judicial praxis describe as "highly unusual".

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.

Washington, D.C., January 24, 2007 -- President Bush's 2007 State of the Union address bumped into an unexpected snag with the "rapturing" of approximately 150,000 Fundamentalist Christians yesterday, Washington sources said.

Remains of raptured former Bush supporters

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.