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Miami, FL - Experts from the Miami Police Department's Sleep Victims Unit (SVU) have issued a warning to the public over the dangers of improperly handling tryptophan during the preparation and consumption of turkey this holiday season. Miami tryptophan victim Paula Myrtleson, shown here finishing a second bottle of wine before polishing off an entire turkey, would go on to sleep through a full season of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix "Everybody loves to have turkey served at these special occasion meals," Police somnologist and SVU Chief Mort Fishman, MD, explained. "But if you don't take the right precautions, you are going to be passed out on the couch before granny serves her famous sweet potato pie and Uncle Steve starts complaining about immigrants again." Tryptophan is an amino acid. Though not as well-known as the bananamino and obamamino acids, amino acids function as building blocks in the formation of proteins required for a variety of important life-sustaining processes like enzyme activity, immune responses, metabolism, and watching television. Tryptophan serves an important role in cell membranes and is a biochemical precursor for melatonin, a powerful sedative found in a number of over-the-counter herbal remedies and health supplements. The Miami Police Department's SVU was established last year when Dr. Fishman got really tired after eating six Swanson's individual turkey pot pies on an overnight stakeout. According to Fishman, he didn't want others to suffer the same fate. "I didn't wear gloves or even use a fork, I just held them in my hands and the contaminated sauce got everywhere. I'm urging anyone who comes into contact with tryptophan, even if only a small amount splatters on their skin, to bring the pot pie, or whatever the source happens to be, directly to our lab for safe analysis and disposal."

Philadelphia, PA- Chaos broke out today at the studios of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia when a caller refused to turn down his radio resulting in a tear in the very fabric of space and time, and the death or disappearance of hundreds of studio employees. Fresh Air host Terry Gross, shown here mere seconds before evaporating into quantum foam, possibly because of the appearance of a strangelet in her recording studio “I don’t know what the heck happened over there”, Rick from Tuscon explained. “One minute I’m asking that guy from Ted Lasso where he got his motivation from and then suddenly all hell is breaking loose.” Scientists are scrambling to piece together what may have happened, and are thus far baffled as to why many of the people working at WHYY-FM that day are now dead or missing without a trace. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku of the City University of New York believes that there are a number of possible explanations. “The infinite feedback loop caused by the callers radio may have somehow elevated the harmonics of the missing individuals, carrying them fully, or perhaps only partially, into a higher dimension. Also this may just be a big coincidence and a black hole simply formed in the middle of the building. This isn't an exact science.” Maggi Leyden, Executive director of Donor Relations at WHYY-FM and one of the few survivors of the horrific event, remains hopeful about the future of public radio. “I can’t say that I’ll ever truly get over seeing Dave Davies being ripped in half at the waist, but I can say that now would be the perfect time for listeners out there to support their local NPR stations. Unfortunately all our tote bags are covered in liquefied interns.”

Fremont, CA - Elon Musk, the billionaire social media user, business purchaser, and head of President-elect Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, has announced that he is close to making one of the greatest sources of biological inefficiency a thing of the past. Neuralink test subject 345A "Sir Silly Britches", shown here one week after rebooting and just prior to eating a lab techs face, will serve as an animal ambassador for the project once he can be located "I was honored when President Trump tasked me with solving the problem of governmental waste," Musk explained. "But I had to ask myself what I was going to do with the other twenty three hours and thirty minutes of my day. And then it came to me. What if I also focused on reversing the ultimate cause of lost productivity? What if I put an end to death itself?" Musk has been an expert on neurotechnology, and the use of implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to treat neurological disorders, ever since he learned that two neuroscientists were working on it in 2016. He courageously bought the rights to the Neuralink name and immediately began supervising a team of scientists and engineers as they worked on the project. Though initially designed to help with problems such as paralysis and blindness, the genius idea collector claims that this powerful system will one day allow workers in a variety of employment sectors to continue in their current role long after the brain's ability to maintain voluntary purposeful action has been lost. "Neuralink will initiate a reboot and take over once the initial version of an employee has gone offline," Musk revealed. "At that point, as long as there hasn't been any significant damage to the spinal cord and musculoskeletal system, work-related activity can resume with guidance from Neuralink AI, but only until the unit's shell has degraded beyond a certain point. But we are working on that problem." Neuralink Corp., is counting on a combination of both the desire to continue providing for family after death, by earning a percentage of their previous salary, and government mandates to ensure that millions of Americans will undergo the implantation process once testing has confirmed reasonable effectiveness. According to CEO Jared Birchall, support from the Trump administration will be key from a logistical and motivational standpoint. "It would be a huge confidence boost after so many people mocked us for all the regulatory rejections and animal murders. Alleged animal murders. Who said murder? I didn't say murder. Those monkeys were dead when we found them!"

Maurice, LA -  Using recovered DNA to "genetically resurrect" an extinct species sounds like the plot of a science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton, but scientists at a genetics lab in Vermilion Parish are moving closer to making this fiction a reality by bringing back the wild turducken thousands of years after the last of the unusual bird hybrids disappeared from the swamps of South Louisiana. Celebrity Chef Gerry Firebottom, shown here next to a modern turducken culinary recreation in the kitchen of his flagship Las Vegas restaurant: Firebottom's Flavorblaster Express Train to Flavor City, USA and Grill Thanks to generous donations from Louisiana State University and Boudreaux's Meat and Seafood Market, Cajun biologist Pirogue Mamou, known for his pioneering work in nutria mating habits, believes that his lab will soon take the first steps into a new era where the majestic turducken's gobbles, quacks, and clucks can once again be heard throughout the bayous and other waterways of the Deep South. "This has been a dream of mine ever since my MawMaw first told me about them turduckens back when I was juste un petit enfant." What many people don't realize is that the turducken currently served on Thanksgiving and Christmas platters around the country is actually a culinary mash-up first popularized by Chef Paul Prudhomme in the 1980s and isn't a wild turducken. Instead, this holiday meal showstopper is created by stuffing a deboned chicken inside of a deboned duck and then stuffing both inside of a deboned turkey, often with cornbread dressing or pork stuffing added between the layers. It's delicious, but it never actually lived in the wild and strutted, waddled, or did that awkward thing where chickens hop around and flap their wings. The work being proposed by Dr. Mamou involves a hybrid created with the help of CRISPR-Cas9, a gene-editing tool that can splice bits of DNA recovered from frozen turducken specimens into a wild turkey, the turducken's closest living relative. The resulting animal, which is being called the chidurckey, won't be a true turducken in the genetic sense, but it would theoretically look and behave like one. And most importantly, it would taste like one. "First we created a turkey with a duck inside of it, mais c'était facile cher," Mamou explained. "The final hurdle will be much trickier, but with the gene editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 we are now very close to that thing being born with a chicken up its ass." Despite the promise of the return of the turducken, not all experts are on board. Some, like vertebrate paleontologist Beatrice Downer, see promise in perfecting the early steps of the process but question whether the turducken is a worthwhile focus for the technology. "Even if the researchers in Louisiana can bring back turduckens, and it isn't entirely clear that this will be successful, I have to ask...should they? Should they do this when there are so many delicious species that are still around but currently endangered, like the cowpigen or the Appalachian flying squirrel." Dr. Mamou isn't planning on letting the objections of other scientists slow down research that he sees as extremely important and highly personal. "Who are they to decide which species is more deserving of existence? Or whose culture is more deserving of a chance to return to its roots? They can do their own work and leave the turduckens to me and my team down here on the bayou. Laisse-nous tranquille!"

New York City - The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has announced an epic crossover event involving two of the network's most popular prime time programs planned for early 2025. A tense scene from the latest episode of Hider where the titular character is cornered in a small town library "When it comes to both action and suspense, you can't get much bigger than Hider and Seeker ," NBCUniversal interim CEO Mike Cavanaugh explained. "So it's a pretty big deal that these two are going to maybe share the screen for a few hour. A pretty damn big deal." Hider , in it's seventh season, takes the viewer through the ups and downs in the life of Steven Hider, who is on the run from authorities around the world after being framed for his family's murder and the theft of sensitive government documents. According to Cavanaugh, Seeker is an action-packed adrenaline-fueled thrill ride where professional finder Maxine Seeker searches for the world's most important missing persons. "Both of these shows have been hits for several seasons and I low-key feel like an idiot for taking so long to get them together." Hider and Seeker are two of the biggest hits that NBC has had in years, routinely pulling in million of viewers each episode. The buzz around the crossover event has taken social media by storm, and Cavanaugh and his team at NBC are expecting big results. "We are predicting that this multi-episode arc will have more viewers than the reboot of the Magnum, P.I. reboot on CBS did in 2019. I honestly haven't been this excited about a TV show since the team from Chicago Med went to space to take out that alien's appendix."

Morris, AL - As President-elect Trump's promised tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico loom on the horizon, some consumers have begun to stock up on their favorite items before prices skyrocket. Mike Singleberry, shown here learning about vaccine science from an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, right before ordering a 50-gallon drum of maple syrup from Quebec "I love guacamole," Trump supporter Mike Singleberry explained. "I'm buying as many crates of avocados as I can get my hands on now and just putting them down in the basement so I can have chips and guac whenever I want without breaking the bank. Wait, where do chips come from?" Though frequently discussed by Trump as a way to influence the behavior of other counties, many Republican voters are only looking into the potential repercussions of tariffs here at home now that the election has been decided in his favor. According to 28-year-old first time voter Singleberry, the road to a better future is paved with hard work and sacrifice. "Trump didn't say that making America great again would be easy. He said that brown people were eating our cats and schools were doing sex changes on kids during recess."

Indianapolis, IN - Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, a subsidiary of Elevance Health, Inc. and one of the largest health insurers in the country, has announced that it may reverse a recently instituted policy that link payments to the pressing of a button every three minutes during invasive procedures. A surgical team trying to find the Anthem BCBS button, which appears in a new location every morning, before Mrs. Gunderson has to pay out of pocket for her emergency appendectomy "This was all a big misunderstanding," Elevance Health, Inc. CEO Gail Koziara Boudreaux explained. "I want to be extremely transparent and say that this was never, and I mean absolutely never about avoiding paying for medically necessary surgeries. We merely wanted to streamline the process of ensuring that any procedures are done in an efficient and timely fashion according to well-established clinical guidelines." Since the new policy went into effect last month, physicians performing surgical procedures have been required to press a button every three minutes until completion. The percentage of the patient's bill covered by the insurance company decreases over time with more pushes of the button. If three minutes elapse without a push, any charges occurring after that point are not covered at all. Many experts speaking out against the policy change have called on Anthem to reverse the proposal amid a barrage of concerns and complaints from people across the country. According to Blake Lambswool, a physician and prominent online critic of insurance companies, and police departments for some reason, one strategy that may be playing an important role in the possible reversal is the notification of legislators in affected states. "The recent murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare might also help change some minds. I'm completely against public executions in all forms, but that guy was a monster and I'm not exactly upset that he's dead. Just sayin'. But seriously, murder is bad. Still, what do they expect people to do with guys like that? Not murder them? Anyway, I'm happy that Anthem might come around."

Leawood, KS - The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has announced a partnership with organizational consultant Marie Kondo aimed at tackling the widespread problem of inappropriate polypharmacy in older Americans. AAFP "Declutter your Pillbox!" campaign spokesperson Marie Kondo, shown here with the two children that made the cut during the Winter Tidying of 2022 "Adults over the age of 65 are more likely to have multiple medical conditions and a third of them are taking five or more prescription medications every day," AAFP president Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP explained. "More medications means a higher risk of side effects and unintended problems caused by interactions between drugs when taken together." Inappropriate polypharmacy refers to when patients are taking excessive or unnecessary medications, and it can lead to falls, cognitive impairment, and interactions where a medication aimed at treating one condition might worsen another or even cause a new one. According to Marie Kondo, many patients are prescribed medications that don't align with their life and health goals. "Patients and providers should ask themselves, does a prescription blood pressure medication spark joy when taken or prescribed? If not, maybe it's time for a change." One of the world's most influential people according to Time magazine, Marie Kondo invented the revolutionary KonMari Method™ as a simple but powerful organizing system. Though initially developed for dealing with household clutter and deciding which of your kids is your favorite, the system uses a criterion that is as universal as it is transformative: choose what sparks joy. Using this key metric, millions of people around the world have learned to listen to their inner voices, and Kondo expects that this will work for cholesterol lowering medications as well as it does for fondue pots and old sweaters. "Each patient has their own unique set of experiential variables that plays a role in determining what medications spark joy," Kondo revealed during a keynote address at the AAFP Family Medicine Experience (FMX) conference in September. "And healers will find that the KonMari Method™ can bring clarity to the medication reconciliation process whenever a patient is discharged from the hospital." The application of the KonMari Method™ to a patient's list of prescribed medications will involve gathering them all together to decide which, if any, spark joy, something Kondo describes as the feeling of warmth, positivity, peace, comfort, nostalgia, or excitement. According to the best-selling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011), which has been published in more than 30 countries, following this philosophy will acknowledge the usefulness of each medication and help patients to learn more about themselves. "Whether it's the bedroom closet or the pillbox, clearing space can raise self-esteem, shift energy, and make room for meaningful change in our lives."

Miami, FL - When police officer Chad Blaze was out walking the jet black 14-month-old Havanese he had recently adopted from a local animal shelter, the last thing on his mind was the possibility of a fentanyl overdose. But thanks to his training with the Miami Police Department, and the six doses of Narcan that he always keeps in the pockets of his relaxed-fit utility cargo pants, both Corporal Blaze and Chauncey survived. And today they are sharing their experience in the hopes of educating dog owners on the dangers of fentanyl exposure. "We had just gotten to the dog park near my condo when it happened," Blaze explained. "Chauncey began to act erratically after sniffing one of the other dogs, pulling on the leash and barking. He was afraid for his life and began to panic, and he was breathing faster than usual with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. I was scared, but that's when the training kicked in." In the line of duty, Corporal Blaze has had more than his fair share of experience with this dangerous and mysterious drug, which some police toxicologists believe is like heroin on crack, and then on steroids. In addition to suffering from one of the first known cases of mosquito-borne fentanyl overdose, Blaze continues to have chronic fentanyl overdose symptoms almost two years later. "I've come a long way, but knowing that there are traces of fentanyl still somewhere in my body that could strike at any moment is enough to give me a panic attack. And I worry about Chauncey because we just don't know much about the effects of fentanyl on dogs, because there aren't doctors for animals."

I'm at the Movies! by Zoo Knudsen We dodged a bullet last year. Thanks to the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023, the world came perilously close to never being able to experience the highly anticipated sequel to the 2022 smash hit The Pumpkids Movie: Rise of the PumpKing . Luckily disaster was averted, and I was invited to an exclusive preview of the what this critic is calling one of the best animated movies I've ever seen, and I've seen several. Don't worry though, I won't spoil any of the fun. And trust me, you don't want to know what happens until you see it up there on the big screen. You need the full IMAX experience. There won't be a dry eye, or a dry seat, in the house because this movie has as much heart as it does hyperrealistic graphic imagery involving the torture and murder of a number of the citizens of Pumpkinland and Turnip Mountain, including mashing, peeling, dicing, juicing, and carving. Yes, the pulp in this fiction definitely flies in this very kid-unfriendly cartoon masterpiece. I love Halloween! It's definitely my favorite holiday because I get wear clothing and make-up in public that might get me in a lot of trouble any other day of the year. And I love a good scary movie. To be honest, I am a little surprised at Pixar going the "hard R" route for the sequel of a beloved children's classic, but sometimes you have to take a big risk to get a big reward. And every scene rewards the viewer with a visual feast of humor, pathos, and eldritch horror. In The Pumpkids Movie: Rise of the PumpKing , the queen of Pumpkinland was voiced by Queen Elizabeth. Sadly, she died before being able to reprise her role. But thanks to the power of artificial intelligence combined with hundreds of hours of recorded speeches and interviews, you can barely tell that it isn't her shouting out everyone's favorite catch phrase, this time with about 15% more stank on it! Picking up where the last movie left off, with Jack Pumpkin having defeated the Pumpkin Witch Agnes O'Pumpkin, again voiced by Judi Dench's sister Trudi, rescued the pumpkids from the acid mines deep within the caverns of Turnip Mountain, and discovered the location of the Patch of Destiny, the true adventure is only beginning. In order to become the PumpKing and earn the right to wield the Pitchfork of Power, Jack must unite the pumpkins and the turnips by slaughtering everyone who stands in his way. But did he really murder all those innocent gourds and root vegetables? Was it only a vision of what might be? Could there be a better way, perhaps with the help of the pumpkids? Who, or what, are the pumpkids? And which of your favorite characters will survive to appear in the final installment of the Pumpkids trilogy? Hey, I said no spoilers and I meant it! Director Chazz Jonz has said in interviews that their intention was to combine the childish innocence of the source material with the cosmic dread and emphasis on forbidden and dangerous knowledge commonly associated with the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Charles M. Schulz. They wanted to explore madness, religion, and superstition in human society as an inevitable outcome, and the dangers inherent in unfettered scientific discovery. It's also a musical. I think they succeeded. The Pumpkids Movie 2: The Patch of Destiny will be in theaters this Friday!