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  • International Time Court Rejects Hellena’s Case

    International Time Court Rejects Hellena’s Case

    hellenamugshotwebBy Chase Chapley

    PARIS, France – As expected, the International Time Court rejected Hellena’s request to be tried before them in a unanimous 9-0 decision.  She will now have to return the New Romford City Court for her trial.

    Hellena, the alternate timeline version of Titana stuck in our timeline, was caught several months ago stealing a device from ATOM Labs.  The nature of the device has not been disclosed to the public, but reports indicate it had time travel capabilities.  After being apprehended by Titana, Hellena was going to be tried before New Romford City Court before her attorney requested to be tried before International Time Court.

    The nine judges of the ITC were not persuaded by Hellena’s arguments.  Her attorney argued that all time-displaced beings should not be bound by a timeline in which they did not originate.  Hellena’s timeline involved the increased danger of Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century, where he gained, according to her attorney, near godlike powers from the Ark of the Covenant.  She had to make a deal with Lord Hades in order to combat Napoleon, and this turned her evil.  “Her innate nature,” said her attorney, “is fundamentally different due to a fundamentally different timeline.  You would no more judge an alien from another planet by Earth standards, so why impose such sanctions on a time-displaced being such as my client?”

    The judges questioned her attorney for a half hour, specifically about the nature of the device she was accused of stealing.  This portion of the court transcript is classified, but the judges were critical of using their court to try someone for theft, especially when no time travel occurred.  After a ten-minute deliberation in their chambers, the justices unanimously declined the transfer request.

    Then Hellena flew at the judges before being restricted by the Time Bailiffs.  Hellena was sedated and returned to Peace Force Special Custody to be returned to New Romford.

    Most legal experts agree that trying to attack the ITC will hurt her chances of acquittal at New Romford City Court.

  • Scientist Warns Against Throwing Nuclear Weapons into Sun

    Scientist Warns Against Throwing Nuclear Weapons into Sun

    By Karna Firaliz

    UOP, Milky Way Galaxy – A leading scientist on planet Uop in the Saggitarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy warned his planet’s governments to stop throwing nuclear weapons into their sun for fear of destabilizing it.

    Aem Jil’mo, one of Uop’s leading physicists, submitted his findings to his nation’s Supreme Council.  “We’ve successfully removed tons of our planet’s nuclear waste via dumping it into our sun,” his report read.  “So far, it has proved useful in cleaning up our environment, but it is taking a toll on our sun.  The nuclear weapons detonate when they hit the sun, and now, those explosions are disrupting its internal fusion process.  I fear that if this continues the sun will destabilize, possibly explode.  We must stop this now.”

    Jil’mo’s nation did not respond well to the report, calling it “delusional,” “apocalyptic,” and “dumb.”  These comments coming from his scientific rivals and business leaders.  The other nations on Uop didn’t provide much support.

    “See, I like Aem,” said Irm Pwem, a rival scientist.  “Generally, he’s a good guy and knows his stuff, but the sun is going to explode from throwing nuclear weapons into it?  Come on.  The sun is huge and is a giant nuclear fusion reactor itself.  Throwing a [candle] into a [the Uop equivalent of a forest fire] doesn’t make it blow up.”

    “Aem has a pattern of apocalyptic thinking,” said Opper L’ol, a politician who regularly works with Jil’mo.  “Last year he thought a string of uopquakes meant that Uop was going to explode.  Now this.  Do you know that he even built a rocketship for his infant son, that he was going to send his son to another planet, by himself, in case Uop exploded?  I mean, if you have the time to build a rocketship, why not make it big enough for your entire family?  You’re just going to shoot your infant into space and hope for the best?  Stupid.”

    For his part, Jil’mo acknowledged that his previous theory was flawed but only because his sentient computer program, Mindor, had fed him misleading data.  He claims to have fixed the errors in Mindor’s programming.

    “I’ve double-checked my numbers,” he said.  “I even wrote them out on paper and did the calculations by hand, and they corroborate what Mindor found.  Throwing nuclear weapons into the sun is a bad idea.  Even if it doesn’t lead to anything apocalyptic, it still encourages the wasteful exploitation of our planet’s resources and destabilizes international relations.”

    While it looks like Uop’s nations will need more convincing, Jil’mo has reportedly expanded his rocketship to carry two passengers, and his wife gave birth to a girl three months ago.

  • Local News Roundup (6.19.15)

    Local News Roundup (6.19.15)

    localnews

    By Packie Williams

    NOWICKS, The Heights – The Bernard St. Warrior got into a fist fight with two carjackers on Henry Drive two nights ago.  The wannabe superhero, whose real name is Nicholas Conberm, tried to prevent two men from stealing a car outside of Finn’s Bar.  Conberm flung rubber balls at the carjackers with his slingshot, missing the carjackers and breaking the windows of the car he was trying to save.  Not intimidated by Conberm, the carjackers got into a fist fight with the Bernard St. Warrior, eventually winning.  The carjackers fled the scene once a police car approached the scene.  Conberm was ticketed for breaking the car’s windows and is expected to pay for the repairs.

    BEATON HILL, Dukes – Cat-themed supervillain, Mr. Whiskers, was arrested last night trying to steal an Ancient Egyptian Bastet statue from the Wonders of Ancient Egypt exhibit at the Princetown Museum.  Superhero, Red Man, was the one who caught Mr. Whiskers and his goons attempting to pilfer the Bastet statue, the featured piece of the exhibit.  Red Man was roaming the neighborhood rooftops when he heard the alarm go off.  Using his lasers, jet boots, and Red Claw, Red Man defeated the goons easily, but that was enough to give Mr. Whiskers a chance to escape.  Red Man chased after the supervillain and caught him in the alleyway behind Fletcher Street in Dominicana.  Mr. Whiskers was turned over to police custody.

    HOLLAND, Norwoods – Residents reported a “monster” in Lake Hominy terrorizing kids on the lakeshore and giving people “bad dreams”, but authorities could not confirm that a lake monster exists.

    MONACO, Bexton – Police were called into the Grocery King on Atlantic Avenue and Catherine Street as an eight-foot-tall Minotaur entered the store.  The Minotaur, whose name is Gary Larson, grabbed a cart and started to shop.  It’s not clear who called the police, a staff member or a patron, but Larson seemed to expect the attention.  Larson kept his hands in the air as the police began to question him, and when it became apparent that Larson, who had just moved to Monaco last week from Boston, was simply buying groceries for his new home, the police apologized and left.  Grocery King would not comment past saying they were not the ones who called the police.  Larson, for his part, was jovial, happy, and did a good job of not knocking things over with his horns.

  • Wheel of Fortune Puzzle Writer Becomes Monster Trying to Combat ‘Writer’s Block’

    Wheel of Fortune Puzzle Writer Becomes Monster Trying to Combat ‘Writer’s Block’

    By Skip Daverman

    SAN DIEGO – One of the puzzle writers for Wheel of Fortune was arrested after rampaging across Downtown San Diego due to a negative reaction to illegal superpower drugs.

    Bill Sloan, 56, has been writing puzzles for Wheel of Fortune for 23 years and became Head Puzzle Writer in 1999.  He’s considered a legend in the game show circuits for his mastery of televised word puzzles, balancing the right combination of consonants and vowels while staying up to date on current trends.  But even the best puzzle writers get writer’s block, and to combat his latest bout, he turned to drugs.

    “The poor guy was just having on heck of a time,” said Wheel of Fortune host, Pat Sajak.  “Bill is usually just so spot on with all his puzzles.  I don’t know how he comes up with the Before & Afters.  I mean, ‘Artichoke Heart of Darkness’?  Pure genius!  Who comes up with that other than Bill?  No one, that’s who.”

    Producers said Sloan, who works remotely from his home in San Diego, hadn’t turned in a new puzzle in months.  While they insist he was never in danger of losing his job, they also sensed that Sloan was growing desperate.  “Genius just gnaws at you,” said executive producer, Harry Friedman.  “And it gnawed at Bill.  He just wanted to write one more good puzzle, and he just couldn’t do it.  So sad.”

    While crew members, producers, Sajak, and co-host Vanna White all contributed puzzles in his absence, Sloan dove deeper into depression (and the show’s ratings started to slide).  At some point, he purchased illegal superpower drugs to amplify his brain activity, and today, his brain exploded with ideas.  Literally.

    Sloan’s superactivated brain gave him so many ideas that they took physical form in the real world.  How is not understood right now, but scientists imagine he manipulated light waves to make physical objects from nothing.  Dinosaurs, robots, cowboys and Indians, cruise liners, the Rolling Stones, and, for some reason, a Sajak-White fusion creature appeared in Downtown San Diego.  The constructs were too much for Sloan to control, so they wreaked havoc all over the place, destroying streets, vehicles, and buildings.

    The SDPD tried their best to contain them, but thankfully, Adonis flew in to save the day.  His mighty punches and eye beams were enough to destroy the constructs into nothing, and they were all gone in less than a minute.  Depowering Sloan was another matter, but after a long talk, Adonis was able to calm him down.  It didn’t appear that Sloan knew what he was doing, but the SDPD put a few power dampeners around his head just to be safe.

    Sloan was arrested and is being held on several felonies.  Meanwhile, Wheel of Fortune vows to move on.  “Maybe we can use a few of Bill’s old puzzles,” said Friedman.  “You know, just as a tribute to a legend.”

  • Vegas Plans to Build Spaceport

    Vegas Plans to Build Spaceport

    vegasspaceport

    By Stan Hopewell

    LAS VEGAS – Las Vegas is a vacation destination for many people, and with the increase in business relations and tourism from space aliens, many of those coming to Vegas are not from Earth.  If Vegas has its way, they’ll soon have a spaceport of their own.

    “We welcome all visitors to our great city,” said Las Vegas Mayor, Carolyn Goodman.  “And we welcome visitors from other worlds, too.  No matter what color your skin is, no matter how many eyes you have, no matter if you don’t even have eyes and just sense the world through a mucus membrane that interprets colors and shapes for you somehow, Las Vegas welcomes you.”

    The proposed spaceport would be constructed northeast of the city.  It would have 20 gates to start out and would be able to double its capacity in the future.  Currently, Virgin Galactic and Starlines are the only commercial spaceship lines in talks to support the Vegas spaceport.

    But the City of Las Vegas and the State of Nevada face a steep climb to getting approval from the federal government to build a public, commuter spaceport.  Currently, only New Romford, Houston, and Cape Canaveral have spaceports, and they’re all run or overseen by the federal government.  Space tourism advocates have long lobbied for restrictions to be loosened for new construction.

    “We’re losing out on billions of dollars here,” said Jay Mora, Director of the Space Tourism Board.  “Aliens are coming to our planet one way or another, usually through legitimate channels, but sometimes they just come here.  Some stay here because they fell in love with Earth.  We have so much to offer them, even if they’re just here for a few weeks.  Do you know that most space aliens don’t know what rock ‘n’ roll is?  Or what superheroes are?  Or have never seen a canyon that wasn’t filled with skin-dissolving acid?  Some planets have plants that literally shoot spikes at you for looking at them funny.  Some places are just painful, and they want to relax.”

    If the federal government does loosen restrictions, then several cities could follow Vegas’s lead.  New York and Los Angeles are obvious contenders for spaceport, but cities like Nashville and Salt Lake City have also expressed interest in bringing in space tourists (the latter is a proposal not by the city but by the Church of Latter Day Saints).  So far, the federal government hasn’t commented on Vegas’s proposal.

  • Buzzfeed Creates ‘Disney Princess Team’ to Generate More Disney Princesses Lists

    Buzzfeed Creates ‘Disney Princess Team’ to Generate More Disney Princesses Lists

    buzzfeed

    By Julia Crumpleman

    NEW YORK – In a bid to keep their place atop the internet with “Disney Princesses as” lists, Buzzfeed has officially created a “Disney Princess Team” to generate more such lists.

    “Our team excels at generating lists,” said Buzzfeed CEO, Jonah Peretti, “and our most popular lists are the Disney Princesses lists.  They’ve been pop culture icons, they’ve been superheroes, they’ve had realistic hair and waistlines, they’ve been Game of Thrones, they’ve been so many things, but it’s not enough.  Our audience’s thirst for more Disney Princesses lists is insatiable, so with that, we’ve created a dedicated team of highly skilled individuals to generate more lists about Disney Princesses.”

    “And yes, they’re already working on a list as to which Disney Princess they, the new team, all are, so we’ve got that one covered.”

    Buzzfeed’s home page regularly contains at least three list articles about what Disney Princess would look like as bears or My Little Pony characters or whatever other random pop culture thing is in the current zeitgeist.  Considering they make money based on traffic, it stands to reason that having more of these types of lists would be good for business.

    “Based on what I can see,” said Mike Perrera, a freelance social media columnist, “Buzzfeed generates 10% of their income from Disney Princess lists.  That’s a lot.  They’re a huge website with lots of articles, like hundreds of new articles a week.  And they make 10% of their income off of what Jasmine looks like as a rock and what Mulan’s Gemsona would look like.  Pretty soon Disney is going to want a cut of that.”

    “But seriously, Disney Princesses as ‘lukewarm bowls of water’?  How is this a thing?”

    Disney only commented that they were “looking into the matter,” but as it could be interpreted as parody, there may not be much they can do.  Regardless, Buzzfeed doesn’t seem too worried, about Disney or about oversaturation.

    “People say they’ve had enough of these lists,” said Peretti, “but people keep coming back.  And in this market, we have to give people what they want.”

    Peretti would not give the names of the new “Disney Princess Team,” but sources inside Buzzfeed say that they were not given a choice about their participation.  They are also expected to generate three lists a day and aren’t allowed to leave the office until they do so, graphics and all.

    Peretti declined to comment on this, though he was said to be spending a lot of time at his desk lately, sitting silently, staring off into the distance since forming the team.

  • Dr. Amazing Assures Mulitverse Isn’t Collapsing

    By Packie Williams

    Dr. Amazing (file photo)
    Dr. Amazing (file photo)

    Despite wild speculation from fringe news sources, Dr. Amazing assured the public that the multiverse is not collapsing in on itself.

    “I know some of my colleagues have been putting out dire warnings here and there,” said Dr. Amazing, “but they’re drawing too steep a conclusion from a small sample size.  Yes, some alternate universes have disappeared, but this is a natural occurrence.  They either escape detection, or they get merged with other universes, or yes, they sometimes die.  Nothing has changed so dramatically though to merit such a sweeping conclusion.”

    In the past few weeks, several scientists from New York and London have detected a decrease in the number of alternate universes they normally keep tabs on everyday.  Led by Professor Richard Reeds of the Hayden Planetarium, the scientists monitor the specific frequencies and resonances of over 1,000 alternate universes.  In the past three months, 24 have disappeared altogether.

    “This is very troubling,” said Reeds.  “Some universes just blipped out all of a sudden, and then we had a string of five go out one right after another.  I’m not trying to alarm anyone, but well, this is alarming.  The disturbing part is that we have no idea what’s causing this.”

    Reeds, however, denied that he claimed the multiverse was collapsing in on itself.  “That’s absurd,” he said.  “We’d have to see a higher, more consistent rate of collapse than this, but it is cause for concern.  What if our universe is next?  We have no way of knowing.”

    Dr. Amazing and ATOM Labs also monitor alternate universes, and while they don’t dispute Reeds’s findings, they don’t like how he’s spreading fear to news outlets.

    “Professor Reeds is a good scientist,” said Dr. Amazing, “but he likes to exaggerate.  He says these things, and news outlets pick it up with little understanding of what’s actually going on.  He’s going on about superheroes in other universes battling out with different versions of themselves as if he can actually see that happening.”

    “No matter what he says, our universes aren’t folding together like if you ‘smooshed two pizzas together’,” said Dr. Amazing.  “That’s just absurd.”