Washington, D.C., September 12, 2007 -- The Ron Paul for President campaign announced today it had hired Roy R. Schecter, a widely vilified international purveyor of spam email, to bolster its seemingly unstoppable grass-roots Internet campaign. A spokesman for Ron Paul said Schecter, 26, will take charge of coordinating the campaign's innovative Internet marketing efforts.

Brattleboro, Vermont, April 19, 2007 -- A recent pharmacological study conducted by the American Institute for Studying Things Swallowed (AISTS) has discovered a previously unknown link between Viagra use and hubris. According to the study, frequent users of the performance-enhancing drug may suffer from a potentially self-destructive condition characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-worth, an over-estimation of one's personal capacities, and arrogant, potentially annoying behavior patterns.

Colon, Michigan, December 9, 2008 -- For decades, his name was a household word, like Kleenex or Chapstick. Millions of people around the world had watched mystified as he defied physical laws and ordinances, performing remarkable magic tricks that were of equal delight to children, adults, and precocious horses. Today, in one of the great tragedies of modern necromancy, The Great Lumache is a broken man—lost, hopeless—bereft of illusions. An Avant News exclusive interview.

The Lumache Mansion in Colon, Michigan

Bentrix, Utah, June 29, 2072 -- The Consumer Product Safety Commission (Conprosafe) has ordered a recall of over 342,000 Econo-Spleen brand artificial spleens following a new surge in spleen-related deaths. The recall affects all Bentrix spleens manufactured and installed prior to April, 2069. Users of recently implanted Econo-Spleens are urged to immediately contact their local splenectomy center for identification and replacement. K. Uiloi Forfor 9b, Vice-Attaché for Lesser Organs at Bentrix, downplayed the recall as "trivial dissociative panic".