Today marks the birthday of Guy Fawkes, executed for having tried to blow up Parliament. Had he lived, he would be 453 years old.

A lot of other interesting things have happened recently, many while you were distracted by other things, some involving Donald Trump and other truly unimportant issues. Why you pay attention to trivia like that is beyond me. Then again, some people juggle geese; who am I to judge?

So without further ado, I present to you a list, not comprehensive, of a few things you may have missed since our most recent Update:

– In the Andorran Parliamentary elections, the coalition government has won its fourth majority, and Prime Minister Xavier Espot has been confirmed in his role. Andorra is a minuscule principality bordering France and Spain, one of the smallest countries in the world, and to us little more than a spot on the map. The Prime Minister is said to have won on a promise to “Xave your eh-spot”.

– Senator Diane Feinstein is looking for a temporary replacement in her role as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Feinstein, now 89, is the oldest serving senator, and has been recuperating her California home from a bad case of shingles. Ambitious members of her own party, salivating over the apparent power vacuum, have called for her replacement, and interested parties have started a rumor that she will either step down from her Senate seat or be forcibly replaced. Feinstein has successfully fought off ageist critics for more than a decade now, but, according to new vaccine Shingrix, “Shingles doesn’t care!”

– President Biden has declared that “nothing of great consequence” was actually leaked during the recent headline-grabbing online event that sent Federal authorities in pursuit of a young Air National Guardsman who allegedly spilled classified data to the general public on his Discord account. Nevertheless, the authorities would still like to talk to him, at least according to one unnamed officer carrying a black silk hood, a cattle prod, and a tranquilizer gun.

– National Public Radio, an American broadcasting service funded in part by the government but largely through member donations, has decided to stop using their Twitter account after having been accurately branded “Government Funded Media” by the social media service. In a related story, following a protest by the BBC, which is funded by consumers through involuntary licensing fees (but not technically taxes), their account has been re-labeled as “Publicly Funded Media”. Queries from The Not Fake News have fallen on deaf ears with respect to our account’s not being labeled as media at all.

– Syria and Saudi Arabia are taking the first steps toward normalizing relations following a twelve-year breach. A preliminary agreement has been reached which will, if all proceeds according to plan, eventually see flights resume and ambassadors re-exchanged. At issue was which nation has the right to behead the millions of Syrian refugees presently living in Saudi Arabia.

– Fearing acts of reprisal from the public, police in Iran have taken to installing cameras to identify and prosecute Iranian women who refuse to wear hijabs. In unrelated news, acts of public anti-camera vandalism have reached an all-time high in Iran. Iranian authorities have blamed America, and have urged the general public to temporarily change their evening chants from “Death To America” to “Death To Spray Paint”.

– Satellite launch service provider Virgin Orbit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following a failed launch from Spaceport Cornwall. The company has made four successful launches and two failed attempts in the past three years, and has posted hundred-million-dollar losses every year since its founding. As a result, this isn’t really news, but it’s still interesting so we’re going with it anyway.

– Finland has officially joined NATO and voted out the party of popular Prime Minister Sanna Marin. The two events are evidently unrelated, as both the outgoing progressives and incoming conservatives share a deep antipathy for Russia. However, policies have been said to be mixed, as the progressives intended to field farm tractors to salvage abandoned Russian equipment, whereas the conservatives plan to increase the number of Finnish snipers per acre.

– In Chicago, the mayoral elections were won by progressive candidate Brandon Johnson, prominent member of the Chicago political machine, in a run-off against long-time Democrat Paul Vallas, also representing the Chicago political machine. Outgoing mayor Lori Lightfoot, of the Chicago political machine, was soundly defeated in the first round of voting. Total votes cast exceeded six hundred thousand, nearly a third of eligible voters. This marks the first election in nearly 180 years where live Chicagoans outnumbered the dead in exit polls.

And that’s all the news that is news plus, as always, some that isn’t. Stay tuned for—

– LATE-BREAKING STORY: Preliminary reports have arrived indicating that, contrary to expectations, Epstein is still dead. More on this breaking news story as reports come in.

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