UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

Italian court: Manager barred from f-word

ROME, July 25 (UPI) -- Italy's highest court issued another ruling Friday in its continuing quest to define when the use of the Italian equivalent of the f-word is acceptable.

The Court of Cassation found that a manager cannot use the word to swear at underlings, the Italian news agency ANSA reports. The court rejected a claim by a supervisor at a company in Catania that the word is now socially acceptable.

''The hierarchical relationship linking the manager to the employee ought to have led the former to a more careful expressive control,'' the court said.

The manager, a company director identified only as Sebastian C., told a worker he did not know a "f---ing thing."

In May, the court ruled that mayors can use the f-word to describe the work of contractors, apparently finding either no hierarchical relationship or one that goes the other way.

In the case heard Friday, a lower court had thrown out an employee's complaint on the technical grounds that he waited too long to go to court. But the court allowed the case to remain on file, so the manager, not content to leave well enough alone, sued to have it removed.

Cat search puts man in psych ward

NEW YORK, July 25 (UPI) -- A New York contractor was committed to a psychiatric ward when he broke through walls to retrieve a lost cat -- an animal doctors thought was a delusion.

Chris Muth got out of the hospital after four days, the New York Post reported. The lost cat, Rumi, spent somewhat longer, 15 days, in the bowels of a Brooklyn church being converted into apartments.

Muth said he panicked at the thought of losing Rumi when the cat wandered off because he was caring for it for a friend. After going through a hole in a wall, Rumi fell down a shaft.

When Muth broke several walls down, the superintendent called police, who took him to the hospital. There, doctors found that he had a "bizarre delusion" that he was trying to rescue a friend's cat, The Brooklyn Paper said.

A professional cat rescuer was finally brought in to get Rumi out of the building.

Muth told The Brooklyn Paper he "panicked" because he thought the cat might starve to death. "I can fix holes, but I can't bring a cat back to life," he said.

IRS issues stimulus check to dead man

ROSWELL, Ga., July 25 (UPI) -- A Georgia man says he isn't sure what to do with the economic stimulus check sent to his late friend by the U.S. government more than a year after his death.

Richard Hicks, a Fulton County magistrate, says the $600 check arrived in Roswell this week and was made out to George A. Coker DECD, which, of course, stands for "deceased."

Coker obviously won't be able to do his bit to spur the consumer economy, which has Hicks puzzled and somewhat miffed.

"There's a $9 trillion national debt and our government's giving away money to dead people," he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "As a taxpayer, it offends the hell out of me."

The Internal Revenue Service in Atlanta told the newspaper it didn't know how many other DECD checks have been written nationwide since the 2007 returns are still being processed.

Coker died in May 2007 at the age of 87. Hicks filed the final 1040 on behalf of his friend of 37 years earlier this year.

'Extreme Makeover' home faced foreclosure

LAKE CITY, Ga., July 25 (UPI) -- A bank moved to foreclose on a Georgia house that got a luxury upgrade three years ago from the TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

Patricia Harper of Lake City in Clayton County near Atlanta, told WSB-TV that she and her husband took out a second mortgage 15 months ago to finance a construction business. Unfortunately, their timing was bad with the housing crisis getting started.

Harper said the couple had reached an agreement with Chase Home Finance to avoid foreclosure.

Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt said that he is confused by the Harpers' dilemma. Oswalt worked as a volunteer on the makeover, which was sponsored by Beazer Homes.

"Beazer gave them $100,000 cash, paid their mortgage off and they still can't make it," Oswalt said.