Our cartoonist KAL draws vice-presidential candidates Mike Pence and Tim Kaine. The gloves were off. And on

Overheard on the campaign trail. Can you guess who said it?

Third-party and undecided voters reckon that Hillary Clinton won the debate

All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, Jobs once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. The Apple co-founder, who died on October 5th 2011, spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy to use products

Ethiopia's new $4bn railway line, built and mostly paid for by China, opens on October 5th. As China’s involvement in Africa deepens, Western policymakers are concerned about whether they can compete with a flood of Chinese cash. From the archive

Google's head of HR argues that a top-notch engineer is worth "300 times more than an average engineer"

To young voters turned off by party politics, the popular first lady makes a powerful surrogate for Hillary Clinton

A new speech by Britain's prime minister’s does not fill our columnist with confidence about her ability, or even willingness, to find the right balance as she sets the country’s post-Brexit course

Guterres will take over from Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean, whose ten-year term has been widely considered a flop. The job was described by a previous incumbent as “the most impossible on earth”

No one would reconstitute California in its current form if starting from scratch. But unravelling the creation would be immeasurably more painful than dealing with its flaws. What would happen if California was split up?

Prime Minister Turnbull last month announced that the public would vote on whether to legalise gay marriage in February. But many argue that parliament, not the public, should decide

Tim Kaine and Mike Pence avoided insulting each other at the vice-presidential debate on October 4th, but the show revealed how America’s two parties struggle to agree on a common set of facts about the state of the nation

Unlike the sex museum in Amsterdam, Iceland’s phallological museum, which ranges from biology to folklore, is more than a tawdry tourist trap. From The Economist’s 1843 magazine

Companies are by nature competitive. That is mostly to be welcomed, but sometimes their competitive instincts play out in less welcome ways as they engage in some of the darker arts of management

In 1967 Van Morrison released "Brown Eyed Girl". In 2016 his voice still sounds like fresh air. The Economist’s 1843 magazine reviews the latest new music

Setting up shop in a remote location runs counter to conventional thinking about the gains from industrial clusters. But there are benefits from sticking operations in remote spots

In the Ryder Cup, form and experience will give you only the slightest edge

What matters in schools is teachers. Fortunately, teachers can be taught #WorldTeachersDay

Wading down a flooded street in the commune of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on October 4th 2016. �Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti, triggering floods and forcing thousands to flee the path of the storm in the poorest country in the Americas. The presidential election is due to be held on October 9th 2016.

Bores, chores and bedtime stories. How parenting has changed in half a century. From the archive