Baldheaded, but not slick enough, moments before the raid

A local hoodlum and criminal yesterday found out that after a lifetime of fast living, "bling and bitches" (platinum jewelry and loose women), crime really does not pay, after he was sent down for a long time, with no option of parole. Well-known local weapons dealer and firearms expert, 8-Ball, had long been believed to be a major player in organized crime in Liberty City. Now he's doing a little organized time, after he was convicted of 85 charges of owning a gun without a license.

No longer running guns, 8-Ball gets some exercise behind prison walls.

State prosecutor, Philip Hedges, was overjoyed at the result. "This man has profited out of bringing misery and mayhem to our streets for too long now. While he was off partying and enjoying his ill-gotten gains with women in night-clubs, drinking champagne and driving fast cars, others were cleaning up the blood from our streets from the bullets fired by guns he sold."

The court heard how 8-Ball had links with various crime families in town, including the Leone crime family, and how he was seen as a Mister Fixit for crime lords, able to supply them with the firepower they needed to continue their reign of terror in our city. "We've been after this guy for several years and finally we got charges that would stick. We know he did a lot of other stuff, and we even thought about making up some evidence so we could lock him up and throw away the key, but eventually we just busted his premises and found a lot of things no one outside the military or a regulation gun club should own."

When police raided his home, their haul included missile launchers, flamethrowers, hand grenades and a wide array of assault weapons. In a short struggle, the criminal's hands were badly damaged when a policeman accidentally poured hot fat on them. He appeared in court with both hands wrapped in bandages. Now he's going to be wrapped up in a prison cell.

Strange, old Asian man.

The elderly Asian man who had caused a lot of confusion at our over-worked immigration service is due to be deported later this month after failing to satisfy the INS that he had a valid reason for entering the country.

As we reported, he turned up on a private plane from an unknown departure point somewhere in east Asia, without any of the necessary documentation, having neither a passport, nor a visa, nor a platinum credit card to bribe his way through customs. He has refused to claim asylum, or ask for refugee status, and speaks only three words of English, repeatedly to all questions -- "Love and Death." The man is not believed to be a Woody Allen fan, and the problem has baffled some of our finest government minds. As a result, the man is being transported to a high security penitentiary before being deported later in the month.

"This guy is clearly bad news" said Ray Mathers, Head of Immigration at Francis International. "He couldn't even show us where he was from on a map. What kind of idiot can't find where they live on a map? We don't need his kind in our country, thank you very much."

Have YOU seen her?

FBI sources claim a well-known female bank robber and stick up merchant may now be operating in the Liberty City area. Police believe the above picture is of a mysterious and very dangerous female connected to a number of bank robberies in the southwest over the past three years. The FBI have been after this woman for several years now, following a string of robberies in Texas and New Mexico, and now believe she may have relocated to Liberty City, possibly with an accomplice.

The woman, of mixed Dominican and Colombian descent, is regarded as extremely dangerous, especially if you are a bank teller with a shot gun in your throat. She has, to date, avoided capture or apprehension by the security forces and is to be approached with extreme care.

Asked why they thought she was now living in Liberty City, our sources said, "We raided her apartment last week in one of those funny towns down south with a Spanish name, Los Something or other, or San Somebody, and we found a ticket with a flight to Francis International Airport. It didn't take us long to realize this was the airport in Liberty City, but just to make sure, we rang up and checked and then looked on the internet. However, this extra research meant she slipped through our fingers again, and is now still at large. We ask ordinary citizens not to worry. The full power and might of our incredible investigative team will be brought to bear on this woman, just as soon we find her. If you do see her, we suggest keeping very calm, before screaming 'Help, I'm in the presence of a dangerous psychotic lunatic. Please call the FBI right away!' In order to expedite this, we suggest ordinary citizens practice this whenever they are out and about."

The Liberty tree has been rightly rewarded again for our standards of excellence and commitment to delivering a quality newspaper to your door every day. This time we've won the very prestigious "Most Absorbent Newsprint Award" at the Cleaning and Tidying Association of America annual awards ceremony. Our newsprint was deemed by top scientists to be the best at absorbing a wide variety of common household spills and messes including red wine, ketchup, blood, pus, and baby sick. Following last year's investigation into the source of our newsprint, when a rival newspaper claimed our suppliers were getting our paper from non-renewable sources in Canada, rather than being part of the government agreed, environmentally-friendly campaign others subscribe to, we have gone one better. Now all of our newsprint comes from Brazil, where we are assured it is providing a much higher standard of living for everyone involved and helping a lot of Amer-Indians relocate from the rainforest to hill-side dwellings in glamorous Rio. We say "Stick that in your recycled pipe and smoke it!"

If there's one thing you'll never see fouling the streets of Liberty City, it's a dog. City council has voted overwhelmingly to uphold the ban on dog ownership in our city. Not for us, the yuppies scraping up its designer-poodle's-less-than-designer-doings with his hand covered only in a plastic bag. Nor for us, the small baby, clamped by the neck in the jaws of an angry rotweiller who only wanted to play. Nor even the seeing eye dog who runs amok dragging a sightless person under a bus or off a cliff. These, and other canine horrors - eating, urinating, ritualistic sex acts and tail wagging - haven't been seen in our town for nearly five years now, and Council agrees the ban has really improved the quality of life for people in Liberty City.

Of course, ours is a town rightly proud of its reputation as an animal lover's home - a local historian comments, "Our founding fathers used to meet and enjoy an afternoon of bear baiting and cock-fighting, and were not immune to the pleasures of lemmings marches, when they would cheer as thousands of rodents leapt to an early death, and since then, we've kept up the tradition of animal loving, with our healthy and thriving pet food industry." Liberty City may be the home of dog food, but thankfully, for all who want safer city streets, it is no longer the home of any dogs. And who said Liberty City wasn't a safer, more vibrant town than many others?