1843

World in a dish
Why the baked bean divides America and Britain

The controversial contents of a can

Film
From Pinochet to Princess Di: Pablo Larraín won’t stay in his lane

The director won international acclaim for his films about Chile’s dark past, but is he the right person to tell those stories?

Food
Mash hits: the land that spawned the supermarket spud

Most potatoes can be traced to a single Chilean island

Childish things
Santa Claus ain’t coming to town: is childhood innocence worth preserving?

Our new parenting columnist’s anxious struggle to protect his son

Behind the news
Voices from Belarus: “The situation is like a boiling cauldron”

Hanna Liubakova reports from the streets of Minsk as Belarusians demand an end to the rule of Alexander Lukashenko

Stranger things
Hands up: coronavirus has made touch my enemy

Gloves used to be a symbol of primness. In a world with covid-19, they are the first line of defence

Sport
Over and over and over again: Jimmy Anderson keeps on running

England’s cricketers have had to navigate a strange summer of bio-secure sport. But the country’s greatest-ever bowler remains focused on the stumps 22 yards away

Rewind
Covid-19 is changing lift etiquette

What the history of the elevator can teach us about social distancing

The science of fashion
Vanity can be fatal

The long and deadly history of skin foundation

Behind the news
Lebanon: a country in free-fall

Gregg Carlstrom reports on the emotional impact of last week’s explosion and, in a second dispatch, Lina Mounzer describes the bewildering months of living with spiralling inflation

The way we live now
Nothing to speak of: the horror of a world without gossip

The pandemic has put paid to the thrill of recounting illicit activities. And we’re all the poorer for it

Behind the news
Homeless at the Holiday Inn

When coronavirus hit Britain, thousands of rough sleepers were moved to hotels. What happened next?