Monday Spotlight, ADVISORY

EDITORS:

The following story will move Sunday as this week’s Monday Spotlight, a feature showcasing the best off-the-news enterprise in the AP report:

LEBANON-COUNTDOWN TO DISASTER

BEIRUT — For years, nearly all the population of Beirut were simply unaware of the massive bomb festering inside their seaport. They could not know about the stockpile of ammonium nitrate warehoused since 2013 on the side of a busy motorway in the heart of a densely populated residential area — a danger that had only grown with every passing year. They were not privy to the warnings that authorities had received, again and again, and ignored: Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive, used in fertilizer and sometimes to build bombs. The stockpile was degrading. Something must be done. They knew, of course, that they lived in a dysfunctional country, its government rife with corruption, factionalism and negligence that caused so much pain and heartbreak. But they could not know that it would lead to the worst single-day catastrophe in Lebanon’s tragic history. By Bassem Mroue, Sarah El Deeb and Zeina Karam. UPCOMING: 2,600 words, photos, 900-word abridged version.

—The AP