In Israel as in America, ḥaredi communities have been among those hardest hit by the coronavirus, as members were slow to abide by social-distancing recommendations, and some rabbis insisted on keeping synagogues and schools open. The disease has spread so extensively in the ḥaredi city of Bnei Brak that the government has sealed it off, and sent in hundreds of police officers to enforce prohibitions on public gatherings. Meanwhile, Yaakov Litzman, the head of the Ashkenazi ḥaredi party and Israel’s health minister, has tested positive for the illness, and faces allegations that he attended prayer services after the government forbade such public gatherings. David Horovitz writes:

According to the Lebanese government, the explosion in its capital city on Tuesday that left over 100 dead and many more injured or homeless was caused by the accidental detonation of some 2,750 of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer often used for making bombs. (Less than one-thousandth of that amount was used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.) Previously, police have discovered Hizballah warehouses in London and Germany storing many tons of the same explosive. Hussein Ibish comments: