Author: Press Room

A High Court trial for the man accused of murdering Christchurch real estate agent Yanfei Bao begins today.Bao disappeared from the suburb of Hornby on July 19, 2023 when she was going to show a house to a prospective client.Her body was found just over a year later on July 31, buried in a shallow grave along a treeline on a Greenpark farm.Chinese national Tingjun Cao, 53, was arrested at Christchurch Airport days after her disappearance.One of Bao’s friends Jin Tian, who spoke to her on the morning she vanished, said Bao promised to call her back but never did.In…

Many universities are reporting an increase in applications for halls of residence next year.Students told RNZ competition for accommodation at Canterbury University was especially hot and many were on wait lists.Other universities also expected to be fully or over-subscribed for 2025.It is a sharp turn-around from this year, when most universities had empty spaces in their accommodation.Canterbury said it received 4097 applications for 2800 accommodation places next year, while Otago said it had 4700 applications for 3755 places and Victoria 4424 for 2741 places.The universities said the numbers included students who had applied to other universities and might not take…

The rally comes just a week ahead of parliamentary elections, set to take place on 26 October, which are widely seen as a bellwether if Georgia returns to Russia’s orbit or continues on its pro-European path. ADVERTISEMENTTens of thousands of Georgians have marched through the streets of the capital Tbilisi in a show of support for their country joining the European Union.The rally comes just a week ahead of parliamentary elections, set to take place on 26 October, which are widely seen as a bellwether to determine if Georgia returns to Russia’s orbit or continues on its pro-European path.”It’s the…

The head of embattled dairy company Synlait Milk has resigned just weeks after the company secured its near term survival. Chief executive Grant Watson has resigned after just under three years with the company, during which it has gone to the brink of collapse and been saved by a rescue package from by its major shareholders. Synlait chair George Adams said Watson has led the company through a tumultuous time. “Recent months have seen a long list of urgent challenges for Synlait, and Grant’s ably led the team through them. His achievements are extensive and notably include our balance sheet’s…

Health NZ spent $60,000 on catering for 300 top leaders at a conference.This came a week after crucial to-and-froing between it and the government over its collapsing finances.The agency says the workshops it ran are still relevant, even though several leaders who ran them have been disestablished.Three hundred Health New Zealand leaders ate $9000 of canapés at a national conference as the current financial crisis engulfing hospitals was looming.Leaders flew in for the three-day conference at Wellington’s Sky Stadium in late March.The bill for canapé finger food was $9200, and it was $60,000 for lunch and breakfast.Health Minister Shane Reti…

Aucklanders are facing monthslong waits and some are having to travel far out of town to sit their driving tests amid a massive backlog.Brayden Harrison recently got his full licence but endured a four-month wait and a drive from Auckland to Thames so he could sit the test.”I checked North Shore, East, West, and South and couldn’t get anything,” he said.”It was a long, long process.”Keen to get a full licence so he could drive at night after a work shift, he checked for a test slot every day.”And every day, it was just nothing, nothing, nothing,” he said.”It seems…

There’s been a message of hope for those attending Australasia’s first-ever conference dedicated to cults in Christchurch today.Decult has attracted people from all over the world intending to open more conversation and better support for those who escape coercive groups.World-renowned expert Dr Janja Lalich, who has studied cults for 38 years and written several books on the topic, was the keynote speaker for the first day of the conference.Lalich, who was a member of American cult the Democratic Workers Party in the 1970s, spoke to 1News prior to the conference about how she did “horrible things” as a leader.”As an…

Consumption of methamphetamine and cocaine has increased in almost every single district of New Zealand, according to the latest results of a quarterly country-wide wastewater study by police.Wastewater from around three-quarters of New Zealand’s population is tested for several drugs, including methamphetamine, MDMA, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. However, only the first three are routinely detected in sufficient quantities to report on.Drug use was calculated by the concentration of each drug biomarker detected in the wastewater. It did not include fillers, binders, or adulterants.The latest study analysed samples collected once a week for each month during the Q2 period between April…

Tourism is the main economic engine of the islands, but it has also priced locals out of the property market, and it is damaging the environment too. ADVERTISEMENTAround 30,000 people took to the streets of the different cities and towns of the archipelago on Sunday under the banner “The Canary Islands have a limit.”In 2023 over 16 million tourists visited and it’s likely that number will be higher when 2024 is over. Tourists spent more than 20 billion euros in 2023, but it comes at a price.And whilst the protesters concede that tourism provides crucial jobs, they say most of…

Public Service Minister Nicola Willis recently announced that the government wanted to see more public servants come into their place of work each day, and is taking steps to make this expectation clear to its chief executives. “Updated guidance for the public service will make clear that working from home is not an entitlement and must be agreed and monitored”. The focus in some recent media articles is that this move is intended to return workers to the CBD, bringing a much-needed boost to the hospitality industry. However, the minister also stated, there are good reasons why employees have traditionally…