Two suicide bombers killed at least 41 people and injured 200 more Thursday evening in Beirut neighborhood considered a Hezbollah-stronghold, according to the Lebanese health minister.
A suicide bomber attacked a hotel in Beirut today, killing one (the bomber) and seriously injuring several others. The Associated Press reports that the bomber detonated on the fourth floor of the hotel while security officers were raiding the building in search of terrorists believed to be connected to ISIS militants.
Nerd Broville, a mesh-shorted seaside town with Call of Duty casinos and a high-speed party monorail, has a new Mayor. His name is Christian Reed, he's a member of MIT's Phi Beta Epsilon fraternity, and he has solved a problem that's plagued nerd bros for eons: the sticky balls (heh) and constant spillage (heh heh) that come along with those long, arduous nights of Olympic beer-pong feats.
So it's come to this: In an effort to get patrons to interact with the people seated in front of them, one restaurant is offering a discount to customers who agree to abandon their smartphones for the entire duration of their meal.
One of Lebanon's senior security officials, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was killed along with seven others this morning in a massive explosion in an affluent section of Beirut. According to the New York Times, the explosion—the origin of which is still unclear—overturned cars and shattered windows for blocks. To judge from the pictures, the death toll is likely to rise.
A Beirut-bound Air France flight en route from Paris had to be diverted to Damascus Wednesday night, ironically due to civil unrest in Lebanon.
The owner of a Beirut bargain store closed up shop earlier than usual on Friday after a crowd began protesting his sale of some cheap-ass flip-flops featuring this Halloweenish design: a bat-haunted graveyard dotted with cross-shaped tombstones. The crosses made the shoes offensive to Christians, the protesters said.
It wasn't long ago that Louis Vuitton was scrapping plans to open glitzy new stores around the world. But times have changed! The French luxury giant opened its latest outpost this week. And it just so happens to be located in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. (If you're headed in that direction and you'd like to stop by, ask your taxi driver to take you to Sukhbaatar Square. You can't miss it. Really.) To pay tribute to Mongolia's "strong horse riding culture," the company says it's putting some Louis Vuitton equestrian gear on sale. Does this mean residents of Beirut will finally get the LV-emblazoned falafel fryer they've been waiting for when the company descends on the Lebanese capital for the first time later this year? We will soon find out!
So. Chris Hitchens got beat up in Beirut by a bunch of thugs because he defaced a billboard of a maybe-Syrian nationalist political party. He is really, really proud of this fact.
Last night whilst we were pondering the finer points of coq a vin on 'Top Chef,' a small but serious contingent of Greenpoint hipsters (they're just like Williamsburg hipsters but taller, slightly less preposterous and more rugged) were enjoying a drink-laden and secret show by Beirut, Zach Condon's Balkans-Brooklyn indie-folk-whatever band. But the hipsters had a dirty secret.
Alcohol purveyors are rarely known for their sensitivity in terms of advertising, but the above Johnnie Walker billboard represents a "a new idiom in terms of how far you can go," according to one ad exec. The implacably perambulating Johnnie Walker mascot is shown crossing a broken bridge in a Beirut suburb, demonstrating that his thirst for Scotch will not be impaired even by the vicissitudes of war. And nor should yours, (non-Muslim) citizens of Lebanon! The ad exec went on to say that "the attention that the campaign had generated on the Internet proved its cost-effectiveness." Let's all join in the cost-effecting, and long live the new idiom.
Israeli journalist Lisa Goldman reproduces an interesting story regarding the friendship recently established between the respective editors of Time Out Beirut and Time Out Tel Aviv. Though TOB has ceased publication for obvious reasons, TOTA ran a July 20 cover (shortly after the more overt hostilities commenced) that's a variation-homage on the classic "View of New York from Ninth Avenue" cover from the New Yorker. Of course, the view across the river on the TOTA cover is a bit less sanguine than that which inspired it. Full image after the jump. (Bonus: Compare, contrast, and discuss Time Out New York's cover, "The War for Brooklyn.")
