The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2020 from our premium syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times and The Times of London.
Today we look at the devastating explosion at the Beirut port, the little ballet school thurst into the world spotlight, why we were caught unprepared for the coronavirus, the strangest NBA season ever and Martha Stewart's venture into CBD gummies.
The making of the perfect bomb
Thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate.
15 tons of fireworks.
Jugs of kerosene and acid.
In Beirut, Lebanon, a dysfunctional and corrupt system let every ingredient for a devastating bomb sit in the port for years.
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• Beirut blast hit three disparate neighbourhoods. Now they're united in rage
• Funerals and fury in Beirut as scale of devastation comes into focus
• I was bloodied and dazed. Beirut strangers treated me like a friend
In Lagos, a homegrown ballet academy leaps into the spotlight
In June, a minute-long video featuring a young ballet student dancing in the rain began circulating on the internet. As the rain falls, forming puddles between the uneven slabs of concrete on which he dances, Anthony Mmesoma Madu, 11, turns pirouette after pirouette.
Though the conditions for such dancing are all wrong — dangerous, even — he twirls on, flying barefoot into an arabesque and landing it.
The wide reach of the video has turned a spotlight on the unlikely story of a ballet school in a poor suburb of Lagos, Nigeria: the Leap of Dance Academy.
The New York Times talks with the founder.
Comment: Why we fail to prepare for disasters
We were warned, both by the experts and by reality about the likelihood of a pandemic. Yet on most fronts, we were still caught unprepared.
Wilful blindness is not confined to those in power. The rest of us should acknowledge that we too struggled to grasp what was happening as quickly as we should.
The Financial Times looks at why we do nothing in the face of danger.
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• I used to make fun of Silicon Valley preppers. Then I became one
An NBA season like no other: 'One of the worst, strangest years'
Nothing about the 2019-20 NBA season was normal. There were tragedies and triumphs, setbacks and highlights. When play finally resumed in July after a four-month hiatus brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, it began in a so-called bubble: a self-contained, spectator-free campus at Walt Disney World near Orlando as the league — at no small cost — fought to the finish line.
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• Why Kobe's Bryant's death means so much to us
• The bridge between Michael Jordan and LeBron James: Kobe Bryant
Martha Stewart, blissed out on CBD, is doing just fine
America's foremost domestic goddess put out a new line of CBD gummies this year.
"I pop 20 of them and just feel OK," Martha Stewart said, "but some of my friends do two and feel high."
