Lebanon is days away from a “social explosion”, said the country’s caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab.Mr Diab appealed for help with a long-running economic crisis that has seen the value of the currency plummet and left much of the population short of food, fuel and medicine.The state legislature in Texas prepared to meet in a special session.Republicans are trying to pass a bill on election procedures that critics say is intended to curb voting by blacks and Hispanics.The Republicans have the wind in their sails.The federal Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, recently limited the scope for challenging state voting laws on racial grounds.Eric Adams was deemed to have won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York, maintaining a lead over his rivals in a ranked-choice tally.Mr Adams, a black former police captain, ran on a law-and-order ticket; he soaked up votes in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and north Manhattan.Less than a week after it opened the resort island of Phuket to fully jabbed international visitors, Thailand recorded its first case of COVID-19 in a tourist.Thailand hopes its “sandbox” model, where visitors can avoid quarantine if they stay in Phuket for 14 days,will allow it to reopen more parts of its tourism-dependent economy.Indonesia’s COVID-19 outbreak worsened as daily cases doubled from a fortnight ago.
