I thought 2024 would be grim and predictable, then I saw the words ‘secret illegal tunnel under Brooklyn’ | Emma Brockes

Even to hardened New Yorkers, a tale of renegade religious diggers pursued by shovel-wielding police officers is irresistible

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 residents in homes neighbouring the synagogue reported suspicious sounds coming from beneath the floor. When city officials turned up to investigate, they unearthed some kind of religious take on The Shawshank Redemption that contravened - big New York obsession, up there with homicide - various building regulations and codes. It's not a prohibition many of us have had cause to test, but I guess you need a permit to dig a tunnel in the city?

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist