With storms battering the US and Donald Trump back in court claiming immunity this week, light relief comes in the form of a news story we didn’t know we needed: the discovery in Brooklyn of a secret tunnel, apparently dug by a faction within the ultra-religious Chabad-Lubavitch community. The tunnel, which runs for 15m (50ft), starts under the synagogue and peters out beneath a ritual bath house several buildings along. When cops arrived on Monday to fill it with concrete, they met with strong resistance from the tunnellers. What can only be described as a melee ensued.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with “illegal tunnelling”, which, with all due deference to a group of worshippers in distress, triggers in the abstract a bolt of joy at the sheer range and eccentricity of human behaviour. The tunnel in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighbourhood was reportedly dug by a group of young male students, characterised by Hassidic leaders as “extremist”, for purposes that remain obscure. What is known is that........

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