New York, NY—Actress Natalie Portman is pregnant with fraternal twins, one male and one female.  Upon hearing the news, she immediately asked for a private conference with Frank Oz, the voice of Yoda.

“I just didn’t know if naming them Luke and Leia would be wise under the circumstances,” said Portman. 

Her doctor has the actress on the highest amount of anti-depressants allowed by law.
“We just don’t want to take any chances this time,” said Dr. Monrad Curry.  “We will do everything we can to keep her from losing her will to live.”

Portman reports being “pretty happy” but agrees that, “In this situation, we should err on the side of fiction.” 

When asked about her husband’s recent erratic behavior and his tendency to ruminate darkly about his karate instructor, Portman stated, “Anakin—I mean, Benjamin—is going to be a great father.  He’s a good man, well beyond the corrupting influence of that creepy senator he keeps hanging around.”

Portman refuses to identify the senator in question. 

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, does not want this to turn into a witch hunt.

“Without more information there’s no way to identify the Sith Lord, as most of my colleagues are decidedly creepy,” said Reid.

The news broke when a part time nurse and avid Star Wars fan over at Saint Vincent’s Hospital Tweeted: OMG! Two Jedi buns in Portman’s oven! 

Portman is denying claims she plans to separate the children at birth and send them to different planets for their own safety. 

Philadephia, PA—CEO of the Daily Discord, Pierce Winslow, is throwing his weight around again by trying to push out prospective owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, Matthew Hulsizer, by planning to purchase the NHL team out from under him.

When asked how he plans to finance the team, Winslow replied, “I’m using bailout funds…oh, um, I mean, I’m putting it on my credit card.”

When asked why the Coyotes, he said, “You can get Guinness on tap at Jobing.com. That’s about it. Who cares if there’s a hockey team there? Have you ever been to West Gate? Right outside of Glendale Arena there’s over 100 different beers on tap at the Yard House. The place is awesome!”

Winslow has only a few rules for his new team, the most controversial remains: the team is not permitted to take any points from the Detroit Red Wings, home or away. Also, Winslow will be playing right wing when he’s in town.

“I used to play ice hockey on the Phantoms here in Philadelphia. I was pretty good. Oh, and I played intramurals in college with Zano and Atsals. We made it to the finals one year—F-ing Lambda Chi’s.”

NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, denies any deal in the works with the eccentric e-zine owner.

“I don’t know any Pierce Winslow,” said Bettman. “If he is interested in the Coyotes he needs to go through the normal vetting process.”

Winslow told Bettman “Stop living in denial. As soon as I outbid Lemieux and Burkle on you, I’ll be a shoe-in. You’ll be my little bitch just like everyone else around here. Zano, make me a sandwich and FedEx it to me 2^nd day.”

He also warned Coyote coach, Dave Tippett, “The Coyotes are going to need to feed me the puck a lot or I’m benching someone’s ass. And where’s my &*^%ing sandwich!?!?!?”

Kandahar, Afghanistan—Family members of Lieutenant Lee Williams, of the 2^nd Infantry, are puzzled by today’s holiday greeting from abroad. Lee has never had homosexual tendencies, remains sexually attracted exclusively to females, yet he openly announced his gayness while wishing his family in Plattsburgh a Merry Christmas during a live video feed from Kandahar earlier today.  

When asked why he made the erroneous announcement, Williams replied, “I guess I got caught up in the moment.  It’s such a huge deal for the gay and lesbian community. I just wanted to feel more a part of what was happening.” 

“It stunned us at first,” said his mother, Emma Williams of Plattsburgh.  “Until I remembered the time he not only joined the Save the Whales movement, but became a whale himself for nearly eight months.  He ordered a water bed and, during that time period, was content to sift through seven or eight buckets of krill each day for sustenance.”  

Despite being raised in a conservative household, his father, Jacob, believes Lee suffers from liberal tendencies with regards to social issues.

“I’m going to sue that shrink for every penny,” said Jacob.

Lieutenant Williams also announced his future plans to show his solidarity with the shrinking polar ice caps by spending his post-military life nearly motionless along the Norwegian coastline, periodically sloughing off pieces of himself into the North Sea.

Hoover Dam, NV/AZ—A group of environmentalists have won a major court battle this week.  Only two months after the opening of the seventh highest suspension bridge in the world, it must come down!  The newly constructed Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, with a price tag of over 240 million, is in the process of being dismantled to save a species of flying salmon indigenous to the Colorado River.

“When they built the bloody thing, planners did not take into consideration the flight plans and migratory habits of the flying salmon, volaticus pisces,” said Dr. Sterling Hogbein, of the Hogbein Institute and Bistro.  “Since the span’s completion, thousands of fish are flying into steel girders and cables, raining terror and sushi onto unsuspecting commuters below.”

Gambling addict Jake Johnson of Tempe, AZ has a different view.

“Yeah, well environmentalists haven’t taken into consideration the flight plans of people who want to get from Phoenix to the black jack tables.”

When asked directly, Mr. Johnson admitted the scaly projectiles are a problem.

“The last thing I want is to lose all my money in Vegas and then have a flying fucking mackerel bouncing off my windshield on the way home…damn, flying fucking fish.”

The state of Arizona tried to work out a compromise with the environmentalists by dangling a sixty-foot silver fishing hook from the span, a move designed to disrupt the salmon’s normal flight path.  But, at the end of the day, commuters lost and the volaticus pisces won.  Flying fucking fish.

Philadelphia, PA—Fallout from the above picture has left The Daily Discord seeking legal counsel.  A recent post led readers to believe Discord reporter, Cokie McGrath, was on the scene in Afghanistan conducting a survey on The Mating Rituals of Hunky Military Types.   But, if you look closely at the top of the image, you can clearly see the bottom of the lettering for The New York Times.  In fact, the picture is identical to a Times story from December 13th.

“It looks as if someone just snapped a shot of our newspaper cover and called it their own,” said Bill Keller, the NY Time’s Executive Editor.  “This isn’t the first time we’ve had a run in with this group, although this is brazen even for them.  They’re a menace to the world wide web.”

“Preposterous!” replied the Discord’s CEO Pierce Winslow. “I have the receipt for McGrath’s plane ticket, her bar tab from Kabul, and several prescriptions for Oxycodone.”

But when pressured, Winslow was unable to produce this documentation—except the prescriptions.  Despite the overwhelming evidence, Winslow remains unwilling to make any retraction for The Discord’s controversial post, nor is he willing to stop exploiting hunky military types.   

“We’re on the side of the truth,” said Winslow.  “When we say we’re on location, we’re on location…and, apparently, sometimes we’re on booze and opiates.”