Washington, D.C., January 19, 2007 -- A federally-funded effort to counteract what some medical professionals have termed the "epidemic-level shortness in the attention spans of American citizens" has been launched with the backing of the Congressional Task Force for Making People Pay Attention.

Paris Hilton (interior)

Washington, D.C., February 2, 2007 -- Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, who was appointed by President Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary in November of last year and confirmed by the Senate today, said he will dedicate his new mandate in part "to the ongoing global struggle against unfair competition and open source radicalism".

Secretary of Defense William H. Gates III

Houston, Texas, June 28, 2009 -- Somali pirates hijacked and have taken control of the International Space Station, NASA sources announced yesterday. The pirates, who approached the vessel using small, inflatable spacerafts, are demanding a ransom "in excess of ten million dollars", according to Dr. Julius Vern, vice-administrator of NASA's International Space Station program, or they will destroy the vessel.

Washington, D.C., November 12, 2008 -- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appears set to respond to pressure from an insistent and shrill phalanx of self-described consumer watchdog groups that have demanded that the well-known TV and radio "bleep" be censored under public airwave obscenity laws. According to the groups, the "bleep", by serving as a placeholder for profanity, itself constitutes profanity, or, as the groups describe it, "meta-profanity".