This Just In . . .

In a move that sent shock waves through the international community, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher announced yesterday that, in contrast to Us Weekly's July 21 cover headline"Demi & Ashton: It's Love!"it is not, in fact, love. The much-publicized couple, speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles that included most of the world's major heads of state, informed gathered journalists that newspaper and glossy magazine coverage of their affair has been nothing but sentimental speculation.

"Sorry," said Moore, 61, from a podium. "But we're just screwing."

Kutcher, 12, then approached the mike and added, "Yeah. Totally."

"I don't know where people got the idea that this was serious," Moore continued, casually reaching over to wipe a long string of drool from the corner of Kutcher's mouth. "I'm just aging and no longer have a career in Hollywood, so I took the opportunity to mount a pistol-hot adolescent while I still could. Like you wouldn't?"

"Yeah, right," Kutcher assented, snorting. "Like, she's old and I'm not. And I'm totally screwing her."

Moore, currently appearing in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, seemed simultaneously amused and horrified by the misperception of what she labeled "an extended one-night stand." Responding to the Us claim that she felt right at home during Kutcher's recent Fourth of July partywhere the guests reportedly included Ashley Olsen and at which, according to the magazine, "revelers sucked on ring pops"the former Mrs. Bruce Willis began to howl.

"Oh, God!" she laughed with her trademark rasp before suddenly settling into what seemed a pensive recollection of past trauma. "I've never wanted to see anything go into the mouth of either Olsen twin, so you can imagine how much sleep I've lost in the past few weeks."

"Harsh!" Kutcher exclaimed.

The star of Fox TV comedy That '70s Show and his own MTV prank show, Punk'd, Kutcher did take a moment to display a more serious side during the proceedings.

"Um, I just wanna say that, like, no matter how much I am now totally screwing Demi, it does not mean that I cannot love," he said. "I love many things, and I think many thoughts. I both love and think, and I believe this to be of great importance." He then told a curious InStyle magazine writer what brand of jeans he was wearing. Moore was, by this point, flipping through the "Naked Bartenders" spread in the July Cosmopolitan.

Reaction from both the press and the assembled statesmen was immediate.

"I knew this was probably the case, but I allowed myself to think otherwise," said Bob Woodward, on special assignment for The Washington Post. "I guess I just so badly wanted to believe in something good and true in this world, I let my heart get the better part of my judgment."

"I don't blame her," said Nelson Mandela. "I've seen St. Elmo's Fire. When you've suffered in the past, you do what you can just to go on living each day."

Speaking from the White House earlier today, President Bush was adamant in his support.

"She was good in Ghost," he said. "Wasn't she in Ghost? Yes, she was. And she was good in that. So the American people should support her right to do as she pleases. I see in her a kindred spirit."

swiecking@seattleweekly.com