VATICAN CITY — A group of men pretending to be women were invited to the Vatican today to share a special lunch with a man pretending to be Catholic.

"It's a match made in pretend heaven," said local man Angelo Russo as he threw on a dress. "Let's go ladies!"

According to sources at the Vatican, Pope Francis personally scheduled the make-believe playdate. "Haha, look at me, I'm Catholic!" laughed Pope Francis as he welcomed the men in wigs. "Hee-hee, isn't this fun? Oh look! Here comes my favorite priest Father Rupnik, pretending to not be a serial abuser. What fun!"

With Christmas just around the corner, Mayor London Breed of San Francisco encouraged residents to get their shoplifting done early this year.

"Hard to believe the looting season is already upon us!" said Mayor Breed. "We are encouraging all residents to begin shoplifting for Christmas before everything, including the stores themselves, are shuttered and gone!"

Though typically last-minute shoplifters, local couple Jared and Stacey Adams said they would be committing grand larceny much earlier this year. "I waited until Christmas Eve last year and every store in the city had been cleared out and turned into safe injection sites for hobos," said Mr. Adams. "This year, I'm going out with my crowbar the moment Thanksgiving dinner is over. Gosh, it seems like the season for knocking over Apple Stores gets earlier every year, doesn't it?"

With many of San Francisco's hobos temporarily stuffed in closets due to hosting President Xi, the Mayor advised citizens to start burglarizing local businesses right away. "This is a rare opportunity for San Franciscans to perform coordinated smash-and-grabs on nice, clean streets," said Mayor Breed. "We hope everyone will take advantage of this rare chance for a less-crowded looting experience."

At publishing time, Mayor Breed was seen following her own advice as she carefully picked out $949 worth of Macy's merchandise for friends and family.

The food served on planes doesn't have the best reputation at the best of times, but even the most iron-stomached among passengers might think twice before ordering a mistranslated menu option on a recent flight.

A photo taken by a passenger on a China Eastern Airlines plane shows the menu for those flying in business class, which includes beef, seafood and soup dishes.

But one unfortunate English translation has got people talking. Among the choices for a starter is "imported dog food with okra".

Conrad Wu shared the image on Facebook, asking: "What exactly is it?"

A DAY AFTER occupying the Al-Shifa hospital, the IDF have finally gotten around to producing video evidence of the vast and extensive network of Hamas tunnels beneath the hospital which formed the basis of their justification for besieging Gaza's largest hospital.

IDF footage shows what appears to be a small crater in the ground to the untrained eye but is in fact far more sinister, as explained to WWN by an IDF spokesperson:

"As luck would have it we found Saddam Hussein's WMDs and they've been verified by Colin Powell's ghost, such a discovery would obviously strengthen the US administration's support for our actions in Gaza, not that we needed it," confirmed one spokesperson, who thinks Joe Biden deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his continuous refusal to support calls for a ceasefire.

"I know we promised a network of sophisticated tunnels over several floors, capable of supporting hundreds of fighters in a luxury Airbnb for terrorists but this little hole in the ground should be proof enough," added the spokesperson, who confirmed Hamas had conveniently written 'Saddam Hussein's missing WMDs' on the side of the missiles.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — On the freshly scented avenues of San Francisco, a summit was held today between one of the most feared communist dictators in the world and President Xi.

"Glorious, Most Excellent Chairman, meet President Xi," said aides as Gavin Newsom shook hands with President Xi. "Please allow us to escort you through the streets of our communist utopia, freshly cleaned of poo and poors."

The iron-fisted tyrant showed Mr. Xi around San Francisco, pointing out all the private property he had seized or destroyed. "The truly satisfying part is when you openly show how the rules crushing their lives do not apply to you," explained Newsom. "Yes, Mr. Xi - you are far too soft psychologically on your subjects, trying to sell them on the idea that you are all serving a common cause in union. You must force them to serve your cause, while openly flaunting that you don't even believe in the cause and will do whatever you wish. That, my friend, is how you truly break their spirit."

Oldschool Left: Israel is America's colonial spearhead! We need to support our comrades in the Klassenkampf against capitalist imperialism! Ho-Ho-Ho-Chi-Minh!

New Left: Palestinians are an oppressed people, but Jews are even more oppressed! Antisemitism is worse than Islamophobia! We stand with Israel!

Woke Left: Someone posted a Palestinian LGBT pride flag and there are climate change activists marching alongside Palestinians somewhere! They are our friends! We support them!

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for the immediate suspension of Presidential elections in his country, so that he may focus all his efforts on fighting to protect democracy in Ukraine.

"We must suspend democracy to save democracy," said Zelensky during his weekly fundraising telethon. "If we allow democracy to get in the way of fighting for democracy, we might lose our democracy. And our billions of sweet, sweet American dollars. And my superyacht in Dubai... anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, it's time to cancel elections so I may remain president indefinitely."

Sources say Zelensky can be trusted to resume the democratic process in Ukraine as soon as the war has ended in three to fifty years. "Zelensky is a paragon of virtue and spotless moral leadership, without the slightest stain of corruption," said a spokesperson from the State Department. "We totally trust him."

"We are facing the greatest evil the world has ever faced," continued Zelensky. "Putin is the devil incarnate. He cheats on elections so he can remain president forever! It's horrible!"

At publishing time, the Biden Administration had expressed support for the move, with some administration officials looking into the possibility of doing that in America as well.

"WE don't deserve this, seriously, we don't!" was just one of the comments from Palestinians praising the news that invading superpower Israel has vowed to look after Gaza's security when they've finished their military blitz.

The kind gesture from the occupiers comes after yet more positive news from Israel who have agreed to 'tactical pauses' to allow return of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas and deliver aid to the besieged territory of 2.4 million people. Update: latest figures indicate that with the death toll reaching 10,000 in just four week, the population stands at 2.390 million people. when you count the 10,000 murdered in the past four weeks.

Robotic romance, ransoms, and raccoon suits at the South Pole

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is a permanent scientific research base located at what is arguably the most isolated place on Earth. During the austral summer, the station is home to about 150 scientists and support staff, but during the austral winter, that number shrinks to just 40 or so, and those people are completely isolated from the rest of the world from mid-February until late October. For eight months, the station has to survive on its own, without deliveries of food, fuel, spare parts, or anything else. Only in the most serious of medical emergencies will a plane attempt to reach the station in the winter.

While the station's humans rotate seasonally, there are in fact four full-time residents: the South Pole Roombas. First, there was Bert, a Roomba 652, who arrived at the station in 2018 and was for a time the loneliest robot in the world. Since the station has two floors, Bert was joined by Ernie, a Roomba 690, in 2019. A second pair of Roombas, Sam and Frodo, followed soon after.

The following fictional story may or may not bear resemblance to events in real life.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a first-generation high tech gazillionaire. In fact, at one time you were said to be the richest man on earth, although that is no longer the case. Nevertheless, you remain unimaginably wealthy, with all the responsibilities and burdens that such wealth brings. (Given the extremely unusual circumstances of this tale, to make it more relatable, we will assign you a fictional name.) Your birth certificate reads Gilbert Harvey Bates III, but the world knows you as Gil Bates.

Gil Bates's erstwhile net-worth preeminence (stolen as it was by an upstart online retailer named Biff Jezos) is not the only important loss he has suffered. Also in the rearview mirror is his youth, his marriage, and his position as CEO of the behemoth tech company he created, MacroHard^TM.

After Gil Bates stepped down as CEO of MacroHard^TM, he focused on his philanthropic work. The centerpiece of this work is the immensely well-funded (and therefore immensely influential) Bates Foundation. The Foundation's scope may be mind-bogglingly broad, but one problem especially consumed Bates: there are far too many people on the planet.

In his youth, Gil Bates read a controversial book called The Overpopulation Bomb, written by a visionary scientist named Saul Derelicht. That alarming book, a huge bestseller in its day, described a neo-Malthusian hell on earth resulting from human overpopulation, and proposed mass sterilization and other aggressive population reduction techniques as the solution.

Gil Bates became convinced, and remains convinced - especially as the worldwide human population has soared beyond 8 billion units - that Homo sapiens have obscenely overpopulated the planet. Once Bates had sold software packages to the great majority of them, he vowed that this existential threat to the planet must be addressed.

But what was to be done? How could this great affront to Gaia be reconciled? When it comes to a responsibility so great, a task so immense, no single man - not even Gil Bates - could hope to accomplish it alone.