Detroit, August 19, 2009 -- Automotive giants Ford Motor Company (F) and General Motors (GM) galvanized American stock markets early this afternoon with nearly simultaneous hostile bids to acquire each other.

Ford was out first, issuing a bid to buy all outstanding shares of GM for $40 a share, a 30% premium on Friday's closing price. Mere seconds later, GM announced a bid to acquire Ford for $9 a share, a 35% premium. Shares in both industrial giants skyrocketed during the subsequent buying frenzy.

Chicago, IL, July 22, 2019 -- A massive volcanic eruption at Yellowstone National Park yesterday wreaked havoc for the organizers and balloon captains of the 9th Annual Hot Air Balloon Regatta, causing disappointment among surviving spectators and participants. The eruption, which had not been anticipated by the regatta's organizers, severely disrupted the day's events and may force Western Ballooning to cancel the project altogether for this year.

Washington, D.C, January 2, 2006 -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, apparently dissatisfied with the current American vernacular's inadequacy in consistently reflecting his own ideological positions, has issued a new pamphlet entitled Donald's Dictionary: The Donald Rumsfeld Guide To Positive Speaking. The Secretary of Defense said he hopes this word usage guide will help "keep the conversation on the right track, any deviation from which will only aide and abet the enemy".

Washington, D.C., April 12, 2006 -- A controversial law passed yesterday by the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives will give gun manufacturers the right to sue both perpetrators and victims of shootings for "defamatory product misuse". This new measure follows on the heels of a new "blank slate" law passed in 2005 absolving gun manufacturers of any legal liability in the event that their products, no matter how small, powerful, or easily concealed, obtained or abused, are used in the perpetration of violent crimes.