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 life inside the Nxivm cult, how to tame big tech, Paul Henry's latest book, Covid-19's impact on the Amazon and brain injuries in athletes.

Inside the Nxivm sex cult and how the survivors escaped

To the outside world Nxivm was an exclusive wellbeing programme for the rich and famous. In reality it was a brutal and abusive sex cult.

Laura Pullman of The Times speaks to the men and women who escaped.

Actress Allison Mack was charged with sex trafficking for her involvement with a self-help organisation for women that forced members into sexual acts with their leader. Photo / Getty Images

Reining in the horsemen: Can we tame the internet giants?

Virtually from the outset, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, the Stanford University computer science students who designed the earliest version of Google's search engine in 1996, had a fundamentally better way of trawling the web for information.

But what has kept Google No 1 in search by a vast margin year after year ever since? Continuous innovation plays a big part.

But the US Department of Justice claims, in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Google last month, there is more to Google's supremacy. It alleges that the California-based company has used "anticompetitive and exclusionary practices" to maintain an unlawful monopoly in the search and search-advertising markets.

It's the first major salvo in the US against tech companies, variously known as the Big Four, the Four Horsemen or simply GAFA – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon.

Peter Griffin of The New Zealand Listener looks at if the unbridled wealth and power of the internet giants can be tamed without destroying them and slowing us down.

The four horsemen: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo / AP

Naked Truths: Paul Henry on life as a recluse and a nudist

Paul Henry's new book, his third, I'm in a United State, is about his love affair with the United States (as with all love affairs, there are quibbles and quarrels). It is also about how little he wanted to write the book and how much he tried to get out of writing it.

Controversial broadcaster Paul Henry talks to the Listener about his new book, living as a recluse, and the enjoyment he gets from being a nudist.

Paul Henry has released a new book where he discusses living as a recluse and the enjoyment he gets from being a nudist. Photo / Michael Craig

The Amazon, giver of life, unleashes the pandemic

Brazil has been battered by the pandemic, with the second-highest death toll in the world.

The Amazon has been hit particularly hard. Even in remote towns, people have been as likely to get sick as in New York City.

A New York Times photographer, Tyler Hicks, travelled the river for weeks, documenting how the virus spread.

Graves dug during the coronavirus pandemic at a cemetery in Manaus, Brazil. Photo / Tyler Hicks, The New York Times

Sledding athletes are taking their lives. Did crashes damage their brains?

On May 3, Pavle Jovanovic, a former bobsledder, took his own life

Jovanovic, an Olympian, was just 43, but experiencing the shakes and tremors often associated with Parkinson's disease. He was also the third elite North American bobsledder to kill himself since 2013.

The New York Times investigates if brain-rattling rides and high-speed crashes damaged their brains.

Thomas Florschuetz of Germany drives a two-man bobsled during a training run at Sanki Sliding Centre during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Photo / NYT