VATICAN CITY – Now that a new Pope, Francis I, has taken his place as the head of the Catholic Church, details are beginning to leak as to just how the new Pope was elected.

WASHINGTON, DC – With the presidential election well in the past, most republican Christians are relieved that they can finally go back to being skeptical and suspicious of Mormons.

WASHINGTON, DC – Republican’s in Congress are scrambling to pass a new law before the upcoming presidential election that will allow dead people to vote.

If passed, the new voting law will allow a church representative of the dead to cast a vote on their behalf.

“We firmly believe that all people should vote, even people that are no longer with us. Of course I’m talking about dead people,” said Cory Gardner, Republican from Colorado.

WASHINGTON, DC – After two years of informal classification and diagnosis, the American Psychiatric Association has added a new mental disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – White Male Panic, or WhiMP.

“Let’s face facts, white men are going crazy, in the clinical sense, all over this country,” said APA President Suzanne Bennett Johnson, PhD.

ORLANDO, FL – Although her family members and friends have tried to explain it, local Grandmother Helen LaFornte doesn’t understand “the Kony thing.”

COLUMBUS, OH – Faced with a budget shortfall and a refusal to raise taxes, the Ohio state government voted to sell the state to Google.

With the shortfall estimated at more than three billion, the Ohio state government was faced with limited options to reduce the deficit.

“We thought about everything, except raising taxes,” said president of the Ohio Senate, Tom Niehaus.

WASHINGTON, DC – Earlier this week temporal scientists announced some good news and some bad news today regarding time travel.

WASHINGTON, DC – As the Republican Party struggles to identify a viable presidential candidate, party leaders have summoned the Council of Nine.

The Council of Nine, an ancient and powerful order of Republican leaders, will now convene to pick, or if need be, conjure, a new Presidential candidate.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Republican strategist Gabriel Henderson.

WASHINGTON, DC – Despite protests from the North Pole and Keep Christmas Free, Congress passed a set of new laws aimed at reducing Santa Claus’ role in Christmas.

Under the new laws, presents can no longer be delivered by chimney, reindeer can not fly within 300 miles of a major metropolitan area and if stopped by police, Santa Claus must provide documentation proving his legal authority to travel within the United States.

LEESBURG, VA – A local homeless man says that he has developed a plan for balancing the budget and addressing all of The United States of America’s current financial concerns.