The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2021 from our premium syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Times of London and The New Zealand Listener.

Today we look at a young Kiwi entrepreneur, the exoneration of Amanda Knox, the lawyer going after Prince Andrew, the day the Space Station went for a spin, and the Beatles like you've never seen before.

Kiwi teens banks his first million

When Sam Richards tripped and smashed a tray of glasses while carrying drinks to his parents by the pool, the then 12-year-old had no idea the minor accident would lead, three years later, to his becoming a millionaire.

"My only thought was the world really needs some beautiful, unbreakable glasses."

Fast forward a few years and the young Kiwi is now settling back into his homework after banking his first million.

Read the full story here.

Sam Richards working on his home-built computer. Photo / Supplied

Amanda Knox was exonerated. That doesn't mean she's free

You remember her story, right? Amanda Knox was the Seattle college student cemented in the public psyche as "Foxy Knoxy" — jailed for four years, along with her Italian boyfriend of a week, for the rape and murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.

Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were ultimately acquitted of that crime, with Europe's top human rights court ruling that she had been deprived of adequate legal aid during an interrogation and that the DNA evidence used to convict her was flawed.

By then, Rudy Guede, an acquaintance and known burglar who was convicted of the crime, had served eight years of a 16-year sentence.

But most people don't remember that part of the story.

Ten years after being cleared, she is still trying to tell her story on her own terms.

Read that story here.

Amanda Knox appears on on Good Morning America. Photo / Getty Images

Meet the American lawyer who has Prince Andrew in his sights

The 80-year-old lawyer David Boies has a reputation for taking down America's great and good. Now he's intent on forcing the Queen's favourite son to answer Virginia Giuffre's accusations of sexual abuse.

Read the full story here.

Prince Andrew speaks during a television interview at the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge, Windsor. Photo / AP

It was his day off. Then the Space Station went for a spin

The International Space Station, with a mass of more than 408,233kg and spanning an area as large as a football field, is not designed to do back flips like an Olympic gymnast. But when a newly attached Russian compartment suddenly fired its thrusters earlier this year, Nasa said on Twitter that the station tipped by 45 degrees.

Actually, it was much more.

In seven years as a Nasa flight director, this was the first time Zebulon Scoville had to declare a "spacecraft emergency."

Read the full story here.

Zebulon Scoville, Nasa's flight director. Photo / Robert Markowitz/Nasa via NYT

Know how the Beatles ended? Peter Jackson may change your mind

For Beatles fans or any student of 20th-century pop culture, Peter Jackson's new documentary gives an astonishing glimpse into the band's working life and the tensions that surrounded them.

The Kiwi director's three-part documentary Get Back explores the most contested period in the band's history and reveals there's still plenty to debate.

Read the full story here.

The Beatles capped a challenging January 1969 with an impromptu lunchtime performance on a London rooftop. Photo / Apple corps via Disney