Amsterdam, June 19, 2010 -- Greenpeace, the activist group known for its risky, but non-combative, worldwide efforts to protect the environment, declared today it has officially renounced non-violent tactics.

The Terminal Avenger, now with torpedoes

The act is seen as a reaction to an increasingly hostile activist environment that has frequently pitted Greenpeace in one-sided violent confrontation against both anti-environmentalist corporate interests and the often corrupt governments that support them.

Rome, Italy, January 31, 2018 -- A spokesman pro tem for interim Prime Minister Mario Piccolo announced today that a long-term effort to modify the Constitution of Italy to improve political stability has at last been approved by outgoing members of the temporary Parliament.

Forza Italia candidate Giovanni Lupitini

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.

Washington, D.C., March 12, 2006 -- Vice President Dick Cheney, a leading advocate of the use of torture in the so-called "war on terror", successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technique this month by allowing himself to personally undergo a one-week program of "coerced interrogation", the compassionately conservative term for the practice. During the week, the Vice President proved the value of torture by unwillingly confessing to a wide range of infractions, some of them quite surprising.