At 11:40 eastern time, 10:40 central, yesterday, a small gathering of Panoland expatriates grew into a full-scale mob of immigrant freaks. The mutants were maddened over increasing potato prices and a riot ensued in the Crooked Corners neighborhood that has in the last few months become known as Mutant Town.

"They're burning their own neighborhood," said Mr. Chief, head of the local constabulary. "But the looting has generally been kept to french fries and hash browns, the kinds of things regular folks can live without for awhile." Mr. Chief and the other member of the town's law enforcement team, Officer Harold, have done about all they can to quell the violence, including using a loudspeaker to politely ask the rioters to stop.

Mutants depend on starchy foods as a staple of their diet, Professor James Jeheezeblat Gramlich explained in a hastily presented press conference. "Without potatoes or a processed variation of that fine tuber, mutants get cranky," he said.

While the survival rate of most genetically mutated Panolandians has risen due to increased public awareness and limited advances in health treatment for those afflicted, many do not expect to live long. It has proven difficult for science to tackle such a wide range of deformities.

Those Panoland natives who managed to escape their radiation-ravaged homeland found little to improve their lives in Crooked Corners outside of the previous availability of inexpensive potatoes. But that has changed.

Asked why a shortage of potatoes exists in this county, when furrowed fields of the fleshy-rooted plant once stretched from one's feet to the horizon, some local politicos were quick to place the blame on the mutants themselves. "They moved here, they took up the space that the farm fields used to fill, they ate all the potatoes, and now they complain," said one anonymous state representative. "Now there's not so much as a Ruffle to be found."

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Council members question Mayor's service

By Liza Rowls, beat reporter

Noting that posthumous mayor Leonard Marx, deceased now for 15 years, has not attended one city meeting or even campaigned to hold his own position of authority since he died, two city council members have written a public manifesto calling for his impeachment.

"Now more than ever," the manifesto reads, "this town needs strong leadership to help guide us into the future without losing our ties to the past. The ethereal escapee of a corpse can hardly meet this challenge."

The two-page document calls for an immediate vote of no confidence, followed by a quick impeachment trial and a new election to be held early next year. Only living candidates would be placed on the ballot.

"On numerous occasions where major policy decisions were at stake, Leonard Marx has not even bothered to vote by absentee ballot," the manifesto states. "What's worse, the mayor's secretary admits that her boss has never once called in to check his messages."

The increasingly aloof Marx could not be reached for comment; however, soothsayer Fortune Florence claims to have dreamed that the Mayor is fuming in the afterlife.

Because of alarming population increases and the collapse of Crooked Corner's downtown economy, many longtime residents have had a positive reaction to the manifesto and hope to have the infamous miser's ghost dethroned by January.

"We need a return to our past without being dragged down by it," businessman and philatelist Ronald Flint said. "The situation we're mired in now is horrible. Just horrible." He then repeated the word "horrible" a few dozen times.

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Reader blames book for bizarre cat-like behavior

Play money returned to local child