The Animal Liberation Front nearly took over the Corner Market last week when broad community concerns about how some of the shops were treating animals blew up into full conflict.

Police were deployed to the Market and the adjacent Lower-3 core park in response to both the build up of ALF members and reports of supposed animal attacks, first in the park, then in the Market itself. Claire Guimara, EPD Sector Chief for the area, denied any animal abuses and refused to comment on the ALF presence.

At the center of the conflict, the idea that a store owner was harming rare live animals.

HC representatives were also on the scene. They claimed the activity had damaged the nearby fiber tunnel that power Virtual access for Lower-3.

"While we're all happy to support animal welfare, ALF apparently broke into the fiber storage and access system on some wild and unproven theory. As a result they may have damaged some of our equipment. We've not yet dismissed the question of legal action, something we need to consider when anyone enters our property illegally," said Official HC Spokesperson Cu Graves.

ALF denied the damage, attributing it to helpful bystanders who were forced to defend themselves against some sort of weapon created by alleged animal abuser and taxidermist Lawerence Beech.

Read the rest of our in-depth report in our Virtual Space…

When Congress passed the Superior Tools for Americans Beset by electoraL Emergency (STABLE) act in 2045 it had more unfortunate consequences beyond making presidential terms a once-per-decade disaster. It also forced a lot more qualifications and certifications on anyone who wanted to be a journalist covering politics. But we're here to help you and our first batch of electoral correspondents!

You should already have a profile registered with the authorities. Once that's done and you've got the initial work under the belt, you'll likely have to register your new higher level of experience! You'll have to register the new stats that come with joining our great adventure of reporting on morons every day for the next two years.

Here's how it works:

Add +1 to a rating : You can mark permanent changes to a specific rating, though your profile should note a limit beyond which you can't go. Consider what each rating can do for your character and choose carefully. You can't go beyond your registered limit.

Take another Move from those available on your profile : Everyone's profile has a variety of moves you can make. If you're going up a level you can take one of the moves that you haven't already marked as having.

Take a Move from those available on another profile : All the profiles we've supplied show what they can do under the Moves section. You can learn something new and unusual though! If you do you can take a Move that describes your new skill from any of the other profiles below, just check their Full Descriptions to think about what you'd like to do.

Gain an Ally/Gain a Team : You can gain some support staff that will be registered as working with you! You may already have some people you know that you're picking out, or just putting it out there that you're recruiting and getting some folks to show up. Allies and teams work similarly, they both are organized around a single motivation, even if a team comprises of 2 to 6 people. However, members of your team may have their own motivations outside of the team's requirements.

The motivations you can register for your new Ally/Team:

• Subordinate (motivation: to follow your exact instructions)
• Lieutenant (motivation: to execute the spirit of your instructions)
• Friend (motivation: to provide emotional support)
• Bodyguard (motivation: to intercept danger)
• Confidante (motivation: to give you advice and perspective)
• Backup (motivation: to stand with you)

Ally/team membersshould have names registered along with what their background is too, how they look, and any special skills they bring.

Register a Haven Feature : Have you got a serious home base to operate out from? Are you intending to improve it? Then you need to add that information to your profile! Select a new haven option from the list in the Expert profile. You have added this facility to your haven.

Don’t bother trying to register a new feature if you don’t already have a haven!

Grafiti hits both Vert and IRL | The Enclave has been hit with a sudden explosion of graffiti tags on both physical objects and Vert storefronts, all are identical tags YS/x and while we can all agree that grafiti is pretty cool, they also seem to be accompanied by various break-ins or unlocking program failures. Is this a viral marketing campaign? Or are we seeing a new gang to challenge the Tall Poppies?

Drama on Thwip | The vainglorious stars of the Vert App Thwip gathered together two months ago to head to Thwip House, a rental supplied by app-maker Silverton. Despite being outside the walls in shitty drowntown Upland Cay the crew has got along well on drone delivered goodies (sponsor logos prominently shown) and endless production of the short Vert sims that make users sub. But yesterday Aiden "ExtraA" Logan fell into a coma… maybe. Thwip stars love their fast, often in bad taste, "pranks". We'll believe it when we can poke him with our own fingers.

What mundane object will be a Pokémon next?! | After the record installs for Pokémon Wheelies, in which our favorite classic cars joined the ranks of 'inanimate objects transformed into cute creatures', you could be forgiven for thinking that there's no where left to go in the next Vert App in the series, but we've seen the announcement that a new sim is coming and that means there's yet more Pokémon to enter into our Pokédex.

"Flare" Up at South Central Wall | One window to the wall has never been an easy living situation here in The Enclave. However, it's only become harder with the rumored "Flares" arriving with high frequency at SoCentWa. When not trying to keep the lights on, residents have reported that Vert screens have been throwing out disruptive ad sims that wreck havoc when they appear to cross the screens from Vert to IRL. If this is some new HC stuntware it's going too far. We'd recommend filing a complaint but the support queue is always full.

Vert Fails Have Us All Falling Flat | Tech overlords HC remain mum on instability ripping into regular Vert operations. We're not the only VSpace to fall back on flat UI, a number of major media apps are now supplying old-style access options to bypass bad Vert connections. Whatever is going wrong with The Virtual no one seems to want to report anything but the party line of "momentary downtime, be back soon". We visited the newly rebooted news flatsites. The closest we saw to a real explanation was a HC release blaming technical issues on a break-in by fired processor technician Farrah Price. Price could not be found for comment.