Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel leave court after hearing the terms of his bail in Chicago in 2010. Photo / Getty Images
Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel leave court after hearing the terms of his bail in Chicago in 2010. Photo / Getty Images
Welcome to the weekend.
Settle down with a cuppa and catch up on some of the best content from our premium syndicators this week.
Happy reading.
'I was toxic': From billionaire wife to prison widow
The private jets! The mansions! The celebrity parties! Barbara Amiel became instantly rich when shemarried newspaper proprietor Conrad Black. Then, in 2007, he was jailed for fraud. Overnight, Lady Black's hairdresser and friends all shunned her.
Will America tear itself apart? Photo / Getty Images
'We were bulletproof': As child soldiers grow up, legacy of war lingers
Just before the turn of the century, Luther and Johnny Htoo, then not even 10 years old, took command of a Karen militia hundreds strong that aimed to protect the ethnic group from incursions by the Myanmar army.
The boys were barely taller than their rifles. But their followers, descendants of Baptists converted by US missionaries, worshipped the twins. Each, they said, could use prayer to conjure up a battalion of invisible soldiers sent by God.
The boys were expected to join the Karen National Liberation Army, the largest Karen militia, as their father had. Photo / Getty Images
The ultimate guide to Schitt's Creek: From the wigs to the accents
There were two possible reactions to Schitt's Creek's record-breaking win of nine Emmys last month. Either, "Wow, my secret show is now loved by everybody else!" Or, "Schitt's what?"
Eugene and Dan Levy's Emmy-sweeping sitcom about a rich family forced to move to a small-town motel finally has its moment in the spotlight.
Schitt's Creek won a record-breaking nine Emmys this year. Photo / Supplied
Inside the wreckage of California's worst wildfires on record
California has this year seen the worst fire season on record — and there are several weeks of it to go. More than 4.1 million acres have burnt this year — double the amount scorched in 2018, the previous record. Firefighters are still battling another 26 blazes that have left behind hellscapes of melted cars and skeletal forests of black, leafless trees. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated and 31 have died.
Nowhere has been hit harder than Berry Creek. The sparsely populated community of 1,200 has lost 15 people to the so-called Bear Fire.
Apocalypse now: the Bear Fire burns beyond Bidwell Bar Bridge in Oroville, California, last month. Photo / AP
Put to the test: The Kiwi working on a game-changing Covid test
Scientist Anne Wyllie fully realised the gravity of Covid-19 only when young, fit athletes started producing harrowing test results usually associated with old and seriously ill patients.
The University of Auckland graduate is one of the leaders of the team at Yale's school of public health who developed SalivaDirect, a test that is being hailed as a game changer in the fight against Covid-19.
Dr Anne Wyllie, based at the Yale School of Public Health, has helped develop a test that's being hailed as a game changer in the fight against Covid-19. Photo / Supplied
The President's taxes: The swamp that Trump built
Campaigning for president as a Washington outsider, Trump electrified rallies with his vows to "drain the swamp." But he did not merely fail to end Washington's insider culture of lobbying and favour-seeking. He reinvented it, turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway's new backrooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.
As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organisation and recuse himself from his private company's operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern US politics.
Trump vowed to "drain the swamp". Instead, he build a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
She was going into labour. But she had a bar exam to finish
When Brianna Hill, a recent law school graduate in Chicago, felt what she thought might be her water breaking as she took the bar exam in her home office on October 5, she did not leave her chair.
She knew that if she moved outside the vision of the artificial intelligence proctor, she could be disqualified.
Instead, she continued writing a legal argument, and she went to a hospital only after she had completed the two sections administered on the first day of the two-day online exam.
Brianna Hill gave birth to Cassius Phillip Hill Andrew between sections of the bar exam. Photo / Brianna Hill via The New York Times
US election: Is Biden on course for a blowout victory?
With just over three weeks to go until US election day, Joe Biden has a significant polling advantage over Donald Trump, pointing to a potential blowout victory for the Democratic presidential challenger on November 3.
But few Democrats or election pundits are willing to predict a win for Biden, having been stung by his rival's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. They warn that even small changes in voter turnout, or an unexpected plot twist in an already tumultuous year, could tip the scales back in Trump's favour.
Several polls have recently shown Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump by double digits. Photo / AP
'I feel like I have dementia': Brain fog plagues Covid survivors
After contracting the coronavirus in March, Michael Reagan lost all memory of his 12-day vacation in Paris, even though the trip was just a few weeks earlier.
Several weeks after Erica Taylor recovered from her Covid-19 symptoms of nausea and cough, she became confused and forgetful, failing to even recognise her own car, the only Toyota Prius in her apartment complex's parking lot.
Lisa Mizelle, a veteran nurse practitioner at an urgent care clinic who fell ill with the virus in July, finds herself forgetting routine treatments and lab tests and has to ask colleagues about terminology she used to know automatically.
It's becoming known as Covid brain fog: troubling cognitive symptoms that can include memory loss, confusion, difficulty focusing, dizziness and grasping for everyday words.
Michael Reagan at home in New York City. Lingering cognitive and neurological symptoms have forced him to take a leave from his job. Photo / Hiroko Masuike, The New York Times
From peak city to ghost town: The urban centres hit hardest by Covid-19
The few people on the streets of the City of London or lower Manhattan have got used to a familiar sight in recent months: empty shops, boarded up storefronts and cafés struggling for survival in once bustling financial districts.
Their eyes do not lie — city centres have become ghost towns. London and New York have seen a dramatic drop in visits to restaurants and retail venues since the start of the pandemic.
