Weekend reads: 11 of the best international premium pieces

Sweden's state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell says "you probably can't open and close restaurants ...too many times" in response to other countries' varying public policies. Photo / Getty Images

Welcome to the weekend.

Settle down with a cuppa this weekend and catch up on some of the best content from our premium international syndicators this week.

Happy reading.

Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment

At the start of this year, Anders Tegnell was just a low-profile bureaucrat in a country of 10 million people, heading a department that collects and analyses data on public health. Today, he has become one of the best known — and most controversial — figures of the global coronavirus crisis.

The epidemiologist believes lockdown is 'using a hammer to kill a fly'. Could he be proved right?

The Financial Times reports.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist. Photo / AP

Kanye West's perplexing run as a potential 2020 spoiler

Kanye West wants to bring back prayer in schools, give more government support to religious groups and has even asked his campaign staff to refrain from "fornicating" outside of marriage, according to people aiding his candidacy.

West, the billionaire hip-hop artist and fashion mogul turned Christian revivalist, is not running for president but "walking," as he puts it.

As The New York Times reports, even those around West struggle to explain his motivations for a presidential candidacy.

Kanye West during a meeting with Trump in 2018. A number of Republican operatives have aided efforts to add his name to ballots in various states. Photo / Gabriella Demczuk, The New York Times

A pastor, a school bus and a trip through a scorched town

In a season that has seen fast-moving fires lay waste to millions of acres along the West Coast of the United States, perhaps no town has seen the destructive fury that levelled parts of Phoenix, Oregon.

In the span of a few hours September 8, the Almeda Fire burned through large parts of not only Phoenix but the neighbouring town of Talent, together home to 11,000 people.

The ruin was so widespread that a week later, authorities still would not allow residents to return home to see what was left.

Locals have been left to wonder whether the town can rise from the ashes.

"There's nothing left to sift through," one resident told the New York Times.

Izel Ramos-Gonzalez looked at the damage in her grandmother's backyard in Phoenix, Oregon, after the Almeda Fire swept through last week. Photo / Alisha Jucevic, The New York Times

What happens if Trump loses but refuses to concede?

As Americans prepare to cast their vote in the US election, a nightmare scenario looms large: what if Donald Trump were to lose the presidency but refuse to accept defeat?

Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the election outcome, predicted widespread fraud, and claimed that the results from postal voting — which is expected to surge because of the coronavirus pandemic — might not be known "for months or for years".

The Financial Times looks at how a contested result and the risk of civil unrest would pose a dilemma for Congress, courts and the military.

Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the election outcome. Photo / AP

The search for life on Venus could start with Rocket Lab

Elon Musk wants to settle humans on Mars with his rocket company SpaceX. Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, wants a trillion people living in space. But the chief executive of one private space company is approaching space exploration differently, and now aims to play a part in the search for life on Venus.

On Monday, scientists announced the astonishing discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. This chemical could have been produced by a biological source, but scientists won't know for sure without sending a spacecraft to the planet.

The New York Times look at how Kiwi company Rocket Lab may be able to send a small spacecraft to probe the clouds of Venus long before Nasa or other space agencies are able to do so.

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket on its Launch Complex 1, in Mahia, New Zealand. Photo / Kieran Fanning/Rocket Lab via The New York Times

Fleabag director on his star-studded new film, Enola Holmes

Director Harry Bradbeer helped Phoebe Waller-Bridge shape Fleabag into an award-winning show.

Now he's moved on to Sherlock Holmes's sister.

Jonathan Dean of the Times talks to the director about his latest film.

Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer has taken on Sherlock Holmes's sister in his latest film Enola. Photo / AP

Vaccine-makers keep safety details quiet, alarming scientists

It is standard for drug companies to withhold details of clinical trials until after they are completed, tenaciously guarding their intellectual property and competitive edge. But these are extraordinary times, and now there is a growing outcry among independent scientists and public health experts who are pushing the companies to be far more open with the public in the midst of a pandemic.

The New York Times looks at how drug companies need to be more open about how vaccine trials are run to reassure people who are skittish about getting a coronavirus vaccine.

Researchers say drug companies need to be more open about how vaccine trials are run. Photo / 123RF

Who is Paris Hilton, really?

Lounging cross-legged on her bed at home in Beverly Hills, California, and wearing a turquoise hoodie, Paris Hilton appeared at ease. There were none of the affectations that have defined her public image for two decades: the flat baby voice, the tiny, shimmering outfits, the faux ditziness, the stance that everything cool was "hot."

"I built this kind of shield around me and kind of this persona, almost to hide behind, because I've been through so much where I just didn't even want to think about it anymore."

The heiress and proto-influencer says that she spent nearly two decades playing a character.

Now, she tells the New York Times, she's ready to be herself.

Hilton in her Beverly Hills backyard. Photo / Daniel Jack Lyons, The New York Times

Disney wanted to make a splash in China with 'Mulan.' It stumbled instead

Executives at Walt Disney Studios were celebrating. Mulan, a $297 million live-action spectacle five years in the making, had arrived on Disney's streaming service to strong reviews, with critics lauding its ravishing scenery and thrilling battle sequences.

The abundant controversies that had dogged Mulan over its gestation — false rumours that Disney was casting a white lead actress, calls for a boycott after its star expressed support for the Hong Kong police — had largely dissipated by September 4, when the film arrived online. Success looked likely around the world, including the crucial market of China.

Then the credits rolled.

The New York Times looks at how a political controversy over a filming location was a rare blunder for one of the world's savviest companies in dealing with China.

Yifei Liu in the title role of Mulan. Photo / AP

He invented the Rubik's Cube. He's still learning from it

The first person to solve a Rubik's Cube spent a month struggling to unscramble it.

It was the puzzle's creator, an unassuming Hungarian architecture professor named Erno Rubik. When he invented the cube in 1974, he wasn't sure it could ever be solved. Mathematicians later calculated that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to arrange the squares, but just one of those combinations is correct.

When Rubik finally did it, after weeks of frustration, he was overcome by "a great sense of accomplishment and utter relief." Looking back, he realises the new generation of "speedcubers" — Yusheng Du of China set the world record of 3.47 seconds in 2018 — might not be impressed.

Rubik talks to The New York Times about his new book Cubed.

Erno Rubik, who invented the Rubik's Cube, wrote his book Cubed, he said, "to try to understand what's happened and why it has happened. What is the real nature of the cube?" Photo / Getty Images

Martha Stewart, blissed out on CBD, is doing just fine

America's foremost domestic goddess has a new line of CBD gummies.

"I pop 20 of them and just feel OK," Martha Stewart said, "but some of my friends do two and feel high."

Stewart talks to The New York Times about CBD and how she was well prepared to spend many months at home.

Martha Stewart is putting her name behind a new line of CBD products, including pâte de fruit. Photo / Celeste Sloman, The New York Times