Author: Press Room

A once-in-a-lifetime comet has been spotted over New Zealand skies this week.Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas), which last visited the Sun about 180,000 years ago, is expected to continue to be visible for the next few nights for those with clear skies.On its return, the influence of gravity as it travelled the solar system has curbed its trajectory, making it appear bigger, the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ) said.But RASNZ comet section director John Drummond said the comet was going to be “headless wonder” now, getting dimmer as the effects from passing near the Sun about a week ago…

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ The country’s biggest bank is cutting a range of shorter-term interest rates. ANZ Bank said it would drop its special interest rates by between 15 and 25 basis points. The six-month rate drops from 6.24 percent to 5.99 percent. The one-year rate drops from 5.79 percent to 5.57 percent. The two-year rate drops from 5.59 percent to 5.44 percent. Standard rates, which are usually available to those without at least 20 percent deposit, drop by a similar margin. Rates have been trending lower since the middle of last year. The Reserve Bank is expected to…

Beauty brand The Body Shop’s New Zealand business has appointed voluntary administrators. It comes after its UK parent company was placed into administration in February last year, with its international assets largely sold – but the sale excluded the New Zealand business. Administrators Daniel Stoneman and Neale Jackson of Calibre Partners said a buyer had not been found for the New Zealand business, leading to the appointment of administrators. “We are working closely with the management team to develop a strategy to sell all stock and begin to wind down the business,” they said. The Body Shop New Zealand has 16 stores…

New Zealand’s largest bank has cut home loan rates, ahead of quarterly inflation figures being released today. The standard rate six-month fixed-term home loan at the bank has been reduced by 25 basis points to 6.59% per annum. The special rate was now 5.99%.The standard rate for a one-year fixed-term home loan has been reduced by 22 basis points to 6.17% per annum. The special rate is now 5.57%.The standard rate for 18-month and two-year fixed-term home loans were also reduced by 20 and 15 basis points respectively, to 5.99% and 6.04% per annum.The special equivalent of these rates was…

Mystery and intrigue is rippling through a Lower Hutt community, where random letterboxes have been stuffed with romantic literature over the past week.Erotica and romance — or smut — has been soaring in popularity amongst Generation Z, but the books being delivered to letterboxes from Eastbourne to Lowry Bay are no modern reads.They mostly appear to be tales from the 1980s, like Lovestorm by Barbara Benedict, in which the protagonist is “stripped of her pride by a dashing rogue” and learns “the sweet fury of passion’s tempest”.Recipients of the smut dropper’s kindness have been throwing around theories about why they…

Although hardly a surprise, President Trump’s executive decision to exit the international effort to halt global heating for a second time has been met with dismay on this side of the Atlantic. ADVERTISEMENTA global agreement to limit global temperature rise remains “the best hope for all humanity”, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a day after Donald Trump ordered the US out of the Paris Agreement on his first day back in the White House.“All continents will have to speed up the transition towards net zero and deal with the growing burden…

NZME, owner of The New Zealand Herald, plans to cut 38 jobs as it reorganises its news operations. It called staff into a meeting this morning and told them its plans to “reorganise and resize” its news operations across the national newsroom, including the NZ Herald, BusinessDesk, and Newstalk ZB. It says it will publish and produce fewer stories, to focus on those that engage audience. It said it would also further invest in video. Journalists would be grouped into a team-based structure across live news, business, sport, lifestyle and politics. The cuts are understood to be across 14 reporting and…

The union representing journalists is urging the Government to protect the media industry, with more possible job losses for editorial staff at NZME outlets New Zealand Herald, Businessdesk and Newstalk ZB.In a Media Insider column published on the NZ Herald’s website on Tuesday, NZME editor-at-large Shayne Currie wrote that journalists and editorial staff fear there may be job cuts after being called to a meeting on Wednesday morning “to provide details of some proposed newsroom changes”.E tū union negotiator and former Labour MP Michael Wood told RNZ he was aware of the meeting, but did not know the shape of…

This article was originally published in German The party was rebuffed in an appeal to the Saxon Higher Administrative Court against its designation as a “far-right extremist” group by Saxony’s domestic intelligence agency. ADVERTISEMENTThe Saxon Higher Administrative Court has rejected the AfD’s appeal against being designated as far-right extremist, with the court finding the party’s counter-arguments were insufficient. This means that the AfD’s local party organisation in the state of Saxony can now be categorised as right-wing extremist by Saxony’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which acts as the state’s domestic intelligence agency.The Saxon State Office for the Protection…

WorkSafe has filed a charge against a scaffolding company – one year after a scaffolding wall crashed onto a busy Auckland road.At the time, 1News spoke to a motorist on Peach Parade in Remuera who described their “shock”. Dash cam footage showed cars swerving out of the way of the falling platform, with a black Tesla being struck.This week, one year after the incident, WorkSafe confirmed it had filed a charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act on January 20, 2025.In a statement, WorkSafe said the nine-metre-high scaffolding collapsed on a busy road, striking and “severely damaging” a…