Author: Press Room
A body found in the Whanganui River this morning is thought to be that of a man missing since Thursday last week.Police said in a statement that a body was located in the water near the City Bridge. The man went missing at around 2.25pm on November 7.”While formal identification procedures are yet to be completed, it is thought that the body is the man who went missing in the Whanganui River.”Police have notified the family who were present at the scene.A three-day rāhui was in put place for the river from Sparrows Cliff to the river mouth from Thursday…
Pharmac has decided to disestablish its Māori advisory group.In a statement, the chairperson of the drug funding agency Paula Bennett said the board made the decision to disestablish the group in order to put more focus on other partnership arrangements already in place.These include the four Māori health professional bodies, iwi Māori Partnership Boards, and the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee within the Ministry of Health, she said.”Pharmac wants to ensure all New Zealanders have access to the medicines and medical devices they need. Engaging effectively with Māori continues to be a priority for Pharmac, and Pharmac’s Board has been considering…
A rare Adélie penguin that washed up at Petone last month has begun its journey back to Antarctica with the help of police, the Department of Conservation and Wellington Zoo.The penguin had been taken to the Ōrongorongo River east of Wellington on November 1 to a release point but did not go into the ocean.However, Monday’s release on the Cook Strait with the help of the police vessel Elizabeth IV and the Department of Conservation was successful.Wellington Zoo said the penguin dove straight into the sea as soon as the crate holding her was opened.”She immediately started swimming south towards…
A lending company has been ordered to pay $200,000 for breaching consumer credit laws while charging interest rates of up to 182.5% on high-cost loans.It is the Commerce Commission’s first case enforcing rules applying to high-cost lenders.Eagle M.A.N Group Limited was ordered to pay a pecuniary penalty of $200,000 in the Christchurch High Court yesterday “for providing high-cost loans which breached multiple aspects of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act”.Likely breaches occurred across the business’ high-cost loan book in a period from May 2020 to August 2022, according to the Commerce Commission.The agency’s deputy chairperson Anne Callinan said it…
An Auckland man has claimed the $30.2 million Lotto prize after finally checking his ticket which he had stashed in the top of his wardrobe for weeks following the draw.Lotto NZ said the man brought some of his children with him to Lotto HQ as he claimed the seventh-equal largest prize in Lotto history yesterday.”I still can’t believe this is actually real,” said one of the man’s daughters. “It feels like someone’s going to pop their head in at any moment and tell us it’s all a big joke.”The man is a regular player who picked up his usual ticket…
New Zealanders chomped through over $1 billion of potatoes last year – mostly in the form of chips or frozen fries. The stat comes from Fresh Facts 2024, an annual report from pan sector group United Fresh which outlines eating and exporting trends. Total annual potato production decreased by 72,800 tonnes between 2019/20 and 2023/24, a drop of 13.7 percent. Domestically consumed processed chips and frozen/fries potatoes made up 61.3 percent of the total domestic industry value in 2023/24. The report also looked at eating trends of other fresh produce. Data showed Taiwan consumed $44 million worth of New Zealand cherries, and royal…
Megan Fox is pregnant.The 38-year-old actress — who already has Noah, 12, Bodhi, 10, and Journey, eight, with her ex-husband Brian Austin Green — has confirmed via social media that she’s expecting her first child with Machine Gun Kelly.Alongside photos of her growing baby bump and her positive pregnancy test, Fox wrote on Instagram: “Nothing is ever really lost. welcome back [baby and heart emojis]”Fox previously opened up about her experience of suffering a miscarriage, admitting that she didn’t know how to cope with the tragedy.During an appearance on Good Morning America, she explained: “I’ve never been through anything like…
House values in New Zealand remain largely flat, according to new data from QV, with the average home worth 0.3% less than at the start of 2024.QV operations manager James Wilson said, despite interest rate relief, the housing market remains largely flat “with essentially no growth to speak of during the month of October itself – neither up nor down”.”Home values have flattened out again after some more sizeable yet still relatively modest reductions throughout the winter months, but they are still showing no signs of taking off anytime soon.”The October QV House Price Index showed the average home value…
When Sarah Clarke was a therapist she noticed an alarming amount of women were coming to her feeling depressed and anxious because they had lost touch with their friends. She says many of them had friends who had moved away or were too busy and they hadn’t replaced those social relationships. “A lot of the stuff could have been cleared up with a friend over a coffee and here they are paying for me and so I thought we’ve got a major problem on our hands.” So she took it upon herself to create Find Your Tribe to help women…
Since Kent Marshall was a boy, he has been dismantling, fixing and rebuilding all kinds of electrical equipment – even the family oven – all without electrocuting himself. But recently, the 25-year-old Dunedin electrical apprentice got the shock of his life when he won the industrial category at the New Zealand Master Electricians Apprentice Challenge in Auckland. The win has qualified him for the WorldSkills Competition in Germany next year. “I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands. “Back in the day, I would pull things apart. “It started with normal toys, then it moved to anything electrical that I could…