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Leading Economic Indicators

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published July 19, 2016

 Leading Economic Indicators

(1) As China's real-estate construction boom fades, tempers have flared, and according to a local government officer in Hebei province, two companies' officials angling for a contract wildly dueled each other in their bulldozers in an incident captured on video. The losing driver was seen running from his toppled machine.

(2) Italy's top appeals court ruled in April that a homeless man stealing cheese and sausage from a grocery story in Genoa, and who received a six-month jail term for it, was actually not guilty of criminal behavior at all. The court set him free using a traditional Italian legal principle that no one is required to do the impossible -- which, the court surmised, would be to allow himself to starve. [Sky News (London), 4-18-2016] [New York Times, 5-4-2016]