ANAHEIM--In court filings Monday, Orange County District Attorney Bruno Chen alleges that the death last April of actor Matthew Perry was the result of months of "coerced labor and forced detention" in "sweatshop-style facilities dedicated to the production of interactive situation comedy programs." Declining to comment on the ongoing investigation, DA Chen announced the formation of a specialized taskforce committed to investigating and prosecuting the owners of sweatshops who "[exploit] actors in pursuit of a quick buck." (full story)

NEW YORK--A U. S. Treasury Department spokesperson confirmed Wednesday the existence of an elite team of economists, financial experts, and government prosecutors dedicated to hunting down and eliminating zombie corporations. "The threat posed by zombies is quite real," explains the unidentified Treasury spokesperson. "Zombie companies have been terrorizing the Wilshire 5000 for long enough. We've assembled a dedicated search-and-destroy team. The days of the zombies are numbered." (full story)

REDMOND--A bundle of feature updates and add-ons released Monday to subscribers of Microsoft's popular word-processor service Word includes a new digital rights management, or "DRM", feature designed to facilitate the use of copyrighted material in documents written using the service. "We're very excited about the new [copyright advisor] tool," explains Microsoft VP of Circumstantial Features Edmund Raunch. "For hundreds of years there's been a lot of legal uncertainty surrounding the writing process. How would you know, for example, if what you were writing was infringing somebody else's copyright unless you knew everything that had already been written. Well, we've tackled that uncertainty and just blown it away." (full story)

WASHINGTON, DC--In a closely watched proceeding, DC District Court Judge Natalia Wimbley ruled Friday in favor of claims by a coalition of media companies to rights to the 'attention' of consumers. "This ruling is crucial to the continued vitality of American art and culture," explains RIAA President-elect Richard Mound. "Recognition of attention rights goes a long way to guaranteeing that artists and musicians will have access to sustainable revenue streams." (full story)

NEW YORK--ABC news magazine "20/20" reporter John Stossel, accidentally decapitated late last month while shooting a segment "debunking the myth of wind power," returns to the air Wednesday in a special interview with 20/20 anchor Barbara Walters. "It's really an amazing story," explains Walters. "Most people wouldn't even survive decapitation, let alone have the guts, the determination, to keep doing their jobs. It's a real triumph of the human spirit." (full story)

BOSTON--In a paper published recently in the journal Science, MIT Professor Marguerite Fury reports establishing experimentally the existence of 'anti-money', a bizarre economic phenomena linked by Professor Fury to a host of hypothesized 'quantum economic' processes underlying all matter. "Experimental confirmation of at least one of my theoretical predictions tells me I'm on to something," notes Professor Fury. "This result will feed my thinking for some time." (full story)

WALVILLE, ARK.--Representatives of the Wal-Mart corporation on Friday opened the first of many planned in-store trading 'pits' for the buying and selling of futures contracts on more than 1,100 consumer and household goods carried by the retailing giant. "This is about injecting some new excitement into the shopping experience," exclaimed Wal-Mart VP of Marketing William Foursby. "It's about capturing some of the energy of a bazaar, of an open marketplace, and, at the same time, extending our value chain that last mile to our retail customers." (full story)