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 David Seymour's rise in the political polls, a brother's desperate plea, the crazy world of cryptocurrency, Johnny Depp's status in Hollywood and how to help stave off dementia.
The rise and rise of David Seymour
He was once a social media joke. Now, the polls tell us, he's second choice for PM. Could the Act leader really lead New Zealand one day?
Michele Hewitson of The Listener talks to Seymour.
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• The National Party's identity crisis
Where is her body? Murderer's brother calls on him to confess
In June 2001 Alix Sharkey's mother called him in tears. "She said, 'The police have been here asking about Stuart,' " he says. Sharkey, a freelance journalist who was living in Paris at the time, couldn't understand what the police wanted with his younger brother, Stuart Campbell. Nor could he understand why his mother was so upset.
She kept saying that the police wanted to talk about "that girl". It was only after he reassured her and put the phone down that he remembered seeing a story on the BBC News website a few days earlier. A schoolgirl had gone missing from East Tilbury, Essex. There had been a photograph; a young girl in school uniform with butter-blonde hair and a self-conscious smile. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, but now he logged back on and read the story properly. "And then, of course, the ground shifted underneath me," he says.
Sharkey tells Rosie Kinchen about the horror of finding out that his sibling had murdered a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Twenty years on, can he finally persuade Stuart to reveal what he did with her body?
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• Kidnapping or hoax? 45 years later, a lawyer's deathbed confession
• To solve three cold cases, this small county got a DNA crash course
• Long-buried secrets: The serial killer and the detective
Crypto crazy: My attempt to become a bitcoin billionaire
The rollercoaster ride that is cryptocurrency is absurd, but it is also ruthlessly logical. The more people want something, the more value you can attach to it. It's supply and demand — the oldest rule in the economics textbook and the only way to explain Jack Vettriano. But when everyone wants something because some people on Reddit say they want it, that's when you get the sort of price fluctuations that would make a Venezuelan finance minister blush.
How hard can the latest money-making craze be? Matt Rudd leaps aboard the rollercoaster.
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• The crypto capital of the world
• How criminals are cashing out of bitcoin
• Going for broke in Cryptoland: Creating your own cryptocurrency
Johnny Depp: 'I'm being boycotted by Hollywood'
In the 1990s Johnny Depp was a sensitive heart-throb. Cooler than DiCaprio, edgier than Pitt. In this past year he has been stripped of his status and dignity.
From pin-up to pariah - can the actor make a comeback?
Dementia danger: How changing your diet may help
Cognitive decline starts early, so the sooner we stave off the damage through healthy eating and exercise, the better.
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• What your driving says about your risk of dementia
• Sleeping too little in middle age may increase dementia risk, study finds
• Earlier diabetes onset could raise dementia risk
