Hello again and welcome to another exciting edition of The Not Fake News Update, where we concentrate not on the news items everyone already knows about but instead on those items that probably got drowned out amid all the noise. Thus, while it’s newsworthy that Raphael Warnock won the runoff Senate race in Georgia and that Kirsten Sinema has departed the Democratic Party after they had decided to primary her from the left, these are the last mentions of such items you can expect to see here.

Instead, let’s look at some less well-known items, such as:

– Dateline: Qatar — In sportsball today, the Argentinian team defeated that from the Netherlands in an overtime kickoff thingie after the Dutch demonstrated that very large soccer players can foul convincingly against very short football stars. Meanwhile, Eva Kaili, a vice president of the European Parliament, was just arrested in Belgium on corruption charges relating to Qatar and the World Cup, with literal bags and suitcases of cash found both at her apartment and on her father’s person. This follows a series of some seventeen coordinated police raids and multiple arrests on related charges. Kaili’s recent speech on the steps of the Parliament was notable for its praise of Qatar in the areas of labor relations, international diplomacy, and unstinting generosity to otherwise penniless corrupt politicians.

– Iran has announced the first publicly acknowledged execution of a protestor in the recent and ongoing Mahsa Amini protests. The man was found guilty of “waging war against God” after blocking a street and attacking government-backed morality police with a machete. Less formal numbers make this man the 509th to die as a result of government response to the protests, during which nearly 20,000 Iranian citizens have been arrested and detained. The government has also encouraged several spontaneous counter-protests among the populace, allegedly by threat of violence.

– Former President of Peru Pedro Castillo has been arrested and removed from office following his recent attempt at a self-coup. Castillo, who had been facing impeachment, attempted to dissolve the legislature without the support of the armed forces. “It was a classic blunder,” said one expert, “right up there with entering a land war in Asia or going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.” Former Vice President Dina Boularte has been sworn in as Castillo’s replacement, making her the seventh president in just over two years.

– Basketball player Brittney Griner and arms dealer Viktor Bout have been exchanged by Russia and the United States respectively. Both were convicted of major crimes and sentenced excessively, the Russian for attempting to arm terrorists and the American for attempting to smuggle empty vape containers containing traces of cannabis oil. In response, Russian armed forces have seized and forcibly detained two senior officials at the Zaporhizhzhiya Nuclear Power Plant, citing their need for more prisoners to exchange.

– The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act, previously approved in the Senate, which enshrines protections for same-sex marriage and interracial marriage into federal law, in a 258–169–1 vote. The one “present” vote was made by Utah representative Burgess Owens, who had previously voted in favor, following an amendment that made it impossible for the bill to protect polygamy (just a coincidence, we’re sure – Editor). President Biden plans to sign the bill into law shortly.

– The first new coal mine in England in thirty years was just approved. The Woodhouse Colliery in Cumbria is expected to produce reliable supplies of top-grade coking coal for the next fifty years, freeing up significant supplies of lower-grade coal for use in heating and electrical production. Critics objected generally (not unexpected), but also in specific over the danger of high concentrations of methane known to exist in subsurface deposits in the region. Meanwhile in Sheffield, natural gas distribution networks have remained offline for over a week during sub-freezing temperatures following a leak of more than a hundred thousand gallons of water into the system from a burst pipe.

– The People’s Representative Council of Indonesia has passed a law criminalizing extra-marital sex. Enforcement is expected to be straightforward and simple; however, it has been admitted that the evidence will be difficult to tag. The law also assigns criminal penalties for cohabitation and other moral offenses. “You will be bribing your way out,” said one member of the Bali Tourist Board (not an official body – Ed.).

– A Keystone pipeline rupture near Topeka, Kansas reportedly spilled some 14,000 barrels of oil into a rural creek, exceeding in total all other spills from that pipeline system combined over its nine year lifetime. (By comparison, cumulative spills from trains in this country, which presently transport one twentieth the volume as pipelines, exceed this amount by 25% annually.) The oil has reportedly been contained by a vast earthen dam which was constructed about a mile downstream, and cleanup and recovery efforts are proceeding.

– THIS JUST IN: Epstein is still dead and his legacy more so, as efforts to sell off his Caribbean island holdings to pay off legal penalties assessed by the U.S. government continue to proceed. Meanwhile, the Trump Organization has been found guilty of tax fraud, and Omar Ashmawy, chief of the Congressional Ethics Office, has just returned to duty following a DUI event where he crashed his car into a private house in Pennsylvania. Ashmawy, who surprisingly enough is not an elected official, is expected to face no criminal penalty.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print, plus as always some that’s not which we added for humorous purposes. Any complaints as to the factual and/or humorous quality of this report should be addressed to Diamond Joe, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington.

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