Here are the must-read stories from around the world.
1. The first presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden was, as CNN’s Jake Tapper put it, a “hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a trainwreck.” The only good thing to come out of it was a meme, writes Angela Watercutter in the WIRED.
2. A combination of the famously sclerotic Greek justice system and circumstance held up the trial for years and the pandemic and the lockdown that followed it pushed the verdict back even further. But now, at last, the biggest Nazi-related trial since Nuremberg will come to a close next week. Yiannis Baboulias uncovers its murky trail in The Spectator.
3. Armed conflict has long meant tragedy but has also contributed to the emergence of everything from penicillin and highways to universal suffrage and the welfare state. Ours is a world that war has made, writes Margaret MacMillan in The Wall Street Journal.
4. In the Scroll, Vandana Menon paints a portrait of Zohran Mamdani, the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, who will make history in 2021 as one of two South Asians in the New York Assembly for the first time.
5. Why do certain gems hold such an emotional significance for so many? How did jewellery get personal? Andrea Marechal Watson uncovers its intriguing history for the BBC.
6. When the pandemic closed the borders, it stirred a longing for home, writes Elisabeth Eaves for the WIRED.
7. National Geographic's Jackie Snow asks: Is the office obsolete? As the pandemic drags on, remote workers see unexpected opportunities to become digital nomads.
8. Will India drive the fourth wave of coffee, asks Prachi Joshi in the Vogue as new artisanal coffee brands mushroom in India creating exciting new ways of drinking your morning java.
9. Gillian Flynn is obsessed with conspiracies, writes Shirley Li in The Atlantic. In her new series, Utopia, the Gone Girl author examines the tricky relationship between fact and fiction in the age of disinformation.
10. The Crown Season 4: Exclusive first images including a first look at Diana and Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher in Vanity Fair. The Crown S4 premieres on Netflix November 15.
