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• Flooding from rains in August tore down a basement wall of the Connellsville (Pennsylvania) Church of God, wrecking and muddying parts of the building and threatening the first-floor foundation, but under the policy written by the Church Mutual Insurance company, flooding damage is not covered, as rain is an "act of God." (Church Mutual apparently uses a standard insurance industry definition and thus recognizes, contrary to some religious beliefs, that not everything is caused by God.) [WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh), 8-31-2016]
• In 2005, India enacted a landmark anti-poverty program, obligating th government to furnish 100 days' minimum-wage work to unskilled laborers (potentially, 70 percent of the country's 1.3 billion people). Programs often fail in India because of rampant corruption, but a recent study by a Cambridge University researcher concluded that the 2005 law is failing for the opposite reason --anti-corruption measures in the program. Its requirement of extreme transparency has created an exponential increase in paperwork (to minimize opportunities for corruption), severely delaying the availability of jobs. [Phys.Org News, 7-21-2016]