Author: Press Room
By Susan Edmunds of RNZ Finally, some good news for butter lovers: global prices are falling. But there remains some bad news: any fall in the price you see at the supermarket is not likely to be as fast, or as large, as the increase you experienced when prices were on the way up. The price of butter has been one of the big consumer issues of this year. In July, the price of butter was up about 50 percent over a year. In October, Stats NZ said the average price of a 500g block of butter was $8.50, up from $6.67…
In Auckland, businesses near the new IKEA store are steeling themselves for a stampede to the homeware giant’s opening on Thursday.Traffic experts have run their numbers and expect crowds of up to 20,000 a day, with a 40-minute crawl on the nearby motorway and another 40 to find a car park.IKEA’s three-storey blue box consumes a whole block at Mt Wellington, with 544 car parks, close to 37 bike racks and 28 motorbike bays – for those not taking home the flat packs.Just a few doors down, Cloud 777 Cafe manager Vicky John is expecting local roads to be a…
Shoppers tightened budgets appear to have led to a drop in spending on Black Friday, a payment company says. Still, the highest spending day of the year so far – but Black Friday 2025 fell short of the previous year. Worldline linked EFPOS machines with bank accounts and card holders and was formerly known as Paymark. The company said payments for non-food goods across it’s network reached $55.6 million during the pre-Christmas sale day. That was a jump from this year’s previous high of $49.1 million on Easter Sunday. The drop was 6.2% from the day last year and down…
Advanced tracking technology from the Netherlands to trace hornets back to their nests is set to be introduced by Biosecurity New Zealand in the next phase of the eradication project.More than half of the 30 queen hornets found by Biosecurity New Zealand on Auckland’s North Shore showed evidence of having a nest.But the Ministry of Primary Industries will soon be able to turn the pests’ insatiable desire to build nests against them.North commissioner Mike Inglis said high tech tracking technology from the Netherlands has arrived after advice from international and domestic experts.In the latest update on Tuesday, 19 of the…
Canterbury Regional Council staff are bracing themselves for “Crate Day” on Saturday.Participants of Crate Day, which is held on the first Saturday in December, get out in their four-wheel-drives and spend the day drinking with friends on local riverbeds and beaches.Canterbury’s braided rivers are also home to some of the world’s rarest birds and nesting season is well under way.Environment Canterbury parks team leader Karen Elliott said nests of species such as the wrybill, black-fronted tern (tarapiroe) and the black-billed gull (tarapuka) are camouflaged and almost invisible to the human eye.”We want people to enjoy summer and enjoy their rivers,…
Published on 03/12/2025 – 16:59 GMT+1 •Updated 17:18 The European Union is considering whether to classify ethanol, a disinfectant widely used in hospitals, as a dangerous product, with the decision currently on hold due to a lack of consensus among scientific groups at the EU’s chemical agency. The decision was discussed today between European lawmakers and the European Commission, but the debate has been overshadowed by the decision’s potential implications for healthcare facilities. Klaus Berend, director of food safety at the Commission’s department for health and food safety, told lawmakers in the European Parliament that unless there are proven risks…
A former district health board employee who says he wanted to be a priest is instead off to jail for fraudulently obtaining just more than $1.8 million of government Covid-19-response funding.Alister Thorby said he gave some of the money to Māori wardens, but he also bought a property, vehicles, a motorhome and overseas travel.The 28-year-old was arrested in July 2022 at Auckland Airport as he was about to leave New Zealand.He said that was funded by a Lotto win, but his fraud was real as he double dipped on the taxpayer.In the Palmerston North District Court today, he was sentenced…
A crop of online outlets which look just like French local media outlets are fooling internet users by sharing articles with alarming headlines, spinning genuine news reports with the help of AI, as part of a pro-Russian campaign peddling anti-Western narratives. Researchers from Recorded Future identified at least 200 new fictional media websites registered online between January and September — flagging 141 outlets which present themselves as French outlets — which they attribute to Russia’s Storm-1516 network. This sophisticated propaganda campaign, also known as Operation Doppelgänger, relies on an apparatus of photo and video montages relayed across social media, as…
Mouldy and liquefied mince served to students at a Christchurch school had likely been left out for days without refrigeration before being re-served alongside freshly-delivered meals, according to a New Zealand Food Safety investigation.The meals were served to several students at Haeata Community Campus on Monday as part of the Government’s free lunch programme.Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows told 1News all lunches had been recalled but some had already been eaten by students.She said staff members usually ate with the kids and that, when a staff member opened one of the lunches up, they found it mouldy and liquefied.A…
The European Union will ban Russian gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from entering the bloc by the end of 2026 and mid-2027 but with exceptions for Hungary and Slovakia, which will be allowed to tap Moscow’s gas in case of supply disruption, EU co-legislators agreed on Tuesday evening. With the law in force, by the end of 2027, no more Russian LNG or pipeline gas should be entering the bloc. The EU co-legislators established that for short-term supply contracts concluded before 17 June 2025, the ban will apply from 25 April 2026 for LNG and 17 June 2026…