Wheelie bins have been blown over and on to roads across Central Otago. Photo: Supplied Southerners are being urged to take care on roads and prepare for heavy rain as wild weather hammers the area this morning.
By John Gerritsen of RNZ A group of 89 secondary school principals are calling for an immediate halt to plans to replace the NCEA school qualification.
One of Wellington’s most successful breweries, Fortune Favours, is ending operations and closing its brew bar only a day after winning first place at the country’s biggest beer festival. After nearly a decade brewing in the capital, owners Shannon Thorpe and Dale Cooper announced the business was no longer financially sustainable. “Unfortunately, the cost of living crisis has proven too difficult for us to navigate. We’re down 20% on last year, which was already 25% down on the year before,” a post on the company’s social media read. Since starting in 2016, the company has brewed over 500 unique blends, including New Zealand’s strongest beer. On Tuesday, its Wairarapa IPA was named the top-praised beer at Wellington’s Beervana event. The inner-city brewpub on Leeds St will close its doors for the final time on August 31. “We’ve loved our 8 years here [...] without your support Fortune Favours would not be the brand that it is,” the post said. Fortune Favours craft beer bar featured on a Wellington craft beer tour. Photo / Nicola Edmonds The brewery started when Thorpe quit his day job to move to the capital with his young family to start brewing craft beer. Award-winning brewer Cooper then joined and the business expanded, winning awards in New Zealand and Australia and being stocked around the country. The pair also opened a bar in Wellington Airport in 2019. In 2022, the brewery made a splash with its Hyper Fuel brew, the strongest beer in the country at 31% ABV. Fortune Favours’ move is just the latest in a string of recent sector closures. A number of popular hospitality venues have shut up shop in the capital over the past year, citing a range of factors including the public sector cuts, loss of car parks, and general economic conditions. Craft breweries across the country from Brothers Beer to Deep Creek, Epic Brewing and Boneface Brewing have all faced financial trouble in recent years. It also comes as new economic figures show 177 Wellington businesses closed down in the year to the end of the June quarter. Business counts, meaning the number of business units in an area, is down -2.3% in the capital, a greater drop than the country’s average of 0.9%. Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said the capital’s struggles “in large part stems from the cuts in the public sector”. Ethan Manera is a New Zealand Herald journalist based in Wellington. He joined NZME in 2023 as a broadcast journalist with Newstalk ZB and is interested in local issues, politics, and property in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.
US chip designer has become world’s most valuable company off the back of the artificial intelligence boom
Immunisation Advisory Centre medical adviser Professor Nikki Turner says many people are "over" Covid. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver By Ruth Hill of RNZ Fewer people are bothering to get Covid-19 boosters, which some experts warn could put the population at risk from future strains of the virus.
Have you ever felt slightly short-changed by a salad mix or bag of shredded cheese?
'I heard [my partner] yelling and wailing, "No, not my boy, stay with me, my boy".'
OPINION: Productive whole farmlands conversions into forestry are becoming a thorny issue for the Government. Last week the Government was served a stern message by sheep and beef farmers - get your policy settings right or forget about reaching your ambitious target of doubling exports by 2030. The ire of the red meat sector was triggered when the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme - Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill returned from the environment select committee. Instead of listening to farmers and extending the moratorium on whole farm conversions to all land classes, the select committee extended the moratorium to land use capability (LUC) classes 1-5. However, 89% of whole farm conversions to date have occurred on LUC 6-8. Since 2017, at least 300,000 hectares of sheep and beef farms have been sold to forestry interests, with another 50,000 hectares expectec before these rules take effect. Without fixing these gaps, we will likely lose a million hectares by 2050, slashing stock numbers by more than 20%, and rural towns across the country will be hollowed out, according to Beef + Lamb NZ. B+LNZ chair Kate Acland says New Zealand is one of only two countries in the world - alongside Kazakhstan - that allows unlimited forestry offsets in its ETS. "We're not against forestry - our proposals don't stop planting for harvest, they simply prevent the ETS from distorting land use decisions in ways that undermine food production and rural communities," she says. Read More: Government policies threaten NZ's 2030 export goals, farmers warn Select Committee 'blew it' - Feds B+LNZ warns proposed ETS changes still allow farmland to become carbon farms New Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Richard Dawkins warns that if the Government don't resolve these issues, carbon farming on classes 6 and 7 will accelerate over the coming months and years. He has a message for the Government - take farmer concerns seriously - because if they don't, this will undermine the viability of the red meat sector. We say forestry is important to NZ, but the sector's growth shouldn't come at the expense of sheep and beef farming. Productive whole farmland going into forestry is not the way to go. #FORESTRY_CONVERSIONS
'The cost of living crisis has proven too difficult for us to navigate.'
A black-clad gunman has killed two children and wounded 17 other people, after opening fire on students attending Mass at a Minneapolis Catholic school, authorities say.
A gunman opened fire on school children attending a church service in Minneapolis, killing two pupils and wounding 17 children and adults, police said, in the latest violent tragedy to jolt the United States. City police chief Brian O’Hara told a media briefing that the shooter sprayed bullets into the Annunciation Church as dozens of students were at a Mass marking their first week back to school. The church sits next to an affiliated Catholic school in southern Minneapolis, the largest city in the Midwestern state of Minnesota. “Two young children, ages 8 and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews,” O’Hara said, adding that 17 people were injured, including 14 children. Two were in critical condition, he said. The gunman fired a rifle, shotgun and pistol before he took his own life in the parking lot, according to the police chief. Bystanders and media look on near the scene of a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / Tom Baker, AFP He said the shooter was in his early 20s, did not have an extensive criminal history and was believed to have acted alone. Investigators were probing “information left behind” to try and determine a possible motive, O’Hara said. Two adults and nine children, aged 6 to 14, were being treated at the Hennepin County Medical Centre, doctors told reporters, with at least four people requiring immediate surgery. “Minnesota is heartbroken,” Governor Tim Walz wrote on X. “From the officers responding, to the clergy and teachers providing comfort, to the hospital staff saving lives, we will get through this together,” he said, adding: “Hug your kids close.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks to the media following a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / Getty Images Video footage from outside a police cordon showed panicked parents hurrying away with their young children dressed in a school uniform of green polo shirts. Wednesday’s tragedy comes just over two months after a top Democratic lawmaker and her husband were killed outside Minneapolis, prompting a major manhunt across the state. A country of school shootings O’Hara called the church attack a “deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping”. “The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” he said. The mass shooting is the latest in a long line of deadly school attacks in the United States, where guns outnumber people and attempts to restrict access to firearms face perennial political deadlock. This year, there have been at least 287 mass shootings – defined as a shooting involving at least four victims, dead or wounded – across the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive. A parent runs toward the school during an active shooter situation at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / Getty Images At least 16,700 people were killed in US firearms violence last year, not including suicides. Among the many shocking school shootings was a rampage in 2022 when an 18-year-old gunman stormed a Uvalde, Texas elementary school and opened fire, killing 19 students and two teachers. ‘Don’t just say... thoughts and prayers’ “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters. “They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.” President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the FBI was responding. “The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation. Please join...
Fine-voiced high school students will be singing their hearts out in Aotearoa's largest choral contest this weekend.
Leo Darin Goodwin has been recalled to prison after police charged him with breaching conditions by approaching teenagers.
Leo Darin Goodwin has been recalled to prison after police charged him with breaching conditions by approaching teenagers.
Some experts warn it could put the population at risk from future strains of the virus.
The Education Ministry has added less than half the extra classrooms it said would be needed in high-growth areas, but more in other parts of the country.
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