Tampa, FL, June 30, 2008 -- The small and solemn multitude is clad in traditional blacks and grays, the voices muted, the music played at low volume and in a minor key. But two key factors set this familiar scene apart: enlivening each mourner's respectfully dreary attire is a brightly colored ring of tropical flowers; and the service is taking place on a wharf overlooked by the imposing bulk of one of the world's largest container ships, the 314-meter goliath Thanatos.

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".

Mali, September 22, 2015 -- A local ostrich, Zzirrk Struthio II, has been charged with multiple ostricides following a grisly chance discovery in the two-toed, long-necked ratite's backyard. Mr. Struthio was taken into custody and is being held at the Municipal Pen on a bond of 100,000 grubs pending trial.

Two of Mr. Struthio's victims

"It was probably the most gruesome thing I've ever stumbled across," Krrbll Trrtt, a young ostrich who lives next door to Mr. Struthio with his parents, said.

Washington, D.C., November 4, 2006 -- In a press release issued today by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s special Office of Looking on the Bright Side, the administration pointed out that despite continuing widespread and escalating violence in the chaotic region, nearly 21 million Iraqis have not yet been killed or wounded.

This, while a decrease from the 21.5 million not yet killed or wounded highlighted in an earlier announcement, still represents, according to a Rumsfeld spokesmen, "a very large percentage of the populace thus far not yet killed or wounded."