When the manuscript expert Paul Mirecki discovered half of a Torah scroll—ripped asunder mid-verse—in the University of Kansas collections, he began a quest for the other half. Some two years later, he has found it and reconstructed the story of the scroll, thought to have been written sometime in the 18th century. Jon Niccum writes:

Last Friday, yet another mysterious explosion rocked a military site in the Islamic Republic, in what seems to be a coordinated attempt to sabotage Iranian nuclear ambitions—although there remains a possibility that these incidents could be accidental, and related only by coincidence. For their part, the ayatollahs have blamed Israel, and not unreasonably. Eli Lake comments on what this all means for the future of American attempts to limit the Iranian nuclear program: