Author: Press Room

A body has been found in the search for a man missing after being swept into a river in Canterbury this afternoon.Emergency services were called to the Boyle River on Lewis Pass Rd in Hurunui around 2pm after a report a person may have been swept into the water, police said. A St John spokesperson told 1News it responded with one helicopter, a first response unit, an ambulance, and one operations manager at 2pm.Police said they were notified that a helicopter assisting with a search in the area found a body around 3.15pm. “While the formal identification process is yet…

Published on 05/06/2025 – 17:51 GMT+2ADVERTISEMENTAn organised crime gang posing as taxpayers stole £47m (€55.8m) from Britain’s tax office, after accessing more than 100,000 customer accounts, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has admitted. HMRC published details about the phishing scam, which occurred last year, on the UK government’s website on Wednesday. The UK’s tax authority said it will write to affected customers, but stressed that they have not lost any money. “This was an attempt to claim money from HMRC, not an attempt to take any money from you,” HMRC said.After accessing the accounts, the scammers managed to fraudulently…

Nelson’s ability to provide enough homes over the next 30 years is now uncertain after the city council’s housing density plans were largely rejected.For almost two years, Nelson City Council has been working on Plan Change 29 – a controversial overhaul of its planning rules to make it easier to build high-density housing across the city.But many of the council’s goals have since fallen over after the hearing panel that oversaw the process recommended that most of the plan change’s proposals be rejected.Nelson’s elected members accepted the panel’s recommendation today which saw many elements of the plan formally scrapped.Opposition to…

Published on 05/06/2025 – 17:05 GMT+2ADVERTISEMENTEurope is past the worst of its peak migration flows but cannot afford to calm its efforts to deal with the issue, the head of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) has told Euronews in an interview.The ICMPD is an international organisation that supports governments and institutions in developing and implementing long-term strategies to manage and govern migration.”We’re not in an exceptional situation anymore,” said Michael Spindelegger, reflecting on the peak migration flows of 2015–2016 in the Vienna office of the agency, adding: “But with nearly one million asylum applications again last year,…

Published on 05/06/2025 – 13:26 GMT+2•Updated 13:33ADVERTISEMENTDanish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has called on Thursday for stricter measures limiting religious symbols and rituals in education, asking for a ban on full-coverage veils worn by some Muslim women to be extended to schools and universities.The country’s overall ban on burkas and niqabs in public places, introduced in 2018, has not been applied to educational institutions. However, Frederiksen, who is also the leader of the country’s Social Democrats party, wants to change this, stating that limiting the ban in this way had been a mistake.”There are gaps in the legislation that allow…

A deepfake video involving Q+A’s Jack Tame and one of the country’s leading diabetes researchers has been circulating online, swindling unknowing New Zealanders out of their money. The clip, posted online and shared on social media, purported to show the TVNZ presenter and Professor Rinki Murphy discussing a supposed medical breakthrough. “I feel horrified that I would be saying these sorts of things and people would be believing them or spending money on them or just being confused in general,” Murphy told 1News. The video was also convincing those with diabetes to stop taking important medications, prompting a warning from…

Published on 05/06/2025 – 15:11 GMT+2ADVERTISEMENTRussia could “decide to attack us in three to five years,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says, and Europe needs to be prepared.In response, NATO countries are finalising plans to dramatically increase defence spending from 2% of GDP to 5%.Meanwhile, NATO allies are focusing on strengthening their defence through new capability targets, based on the evolving global security concerns and, in particular, the threat from Russia.NATO’s Griffin Lightning military exercise is one of the most extensive tests of the alliance’s capabilities and readiness for war.The training includes a wide range of hardware, including tanks, howitzers,…

Canterbury University researchers are using human tears to develop a world first rapid home test for the detection of Alzheimer’s disease.Experts in engineering, chemistry and biology are working on the project that could be life changing for those in the very early stages of the disease. The aim is to create portable, easy-to-use devices that can be used on-site without needing expensive labs or long processing times. Lead researcher Professor Renwick Dobson, from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, said the technology could generate up to $371 million a year for New Zealand companies. The tests were…

ADVERTISEMENTThe European Commission plans to launch a vast operation to clean up PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances), also known as “forever chemicals” in water through the creation of public-private partnerships.These were the conclusions of the European Water Resilience Strategy, adopted on Wednesday in Brussels.In 2022, out of 1,300 monitoring sites in Europe, 59% of rivers, 35% of lakes and 73% of coastal waters exceeded the environmental quality standard for perfluorooctanesulphonic acid (PFOS), a type of PFAS, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).In Europe, only 37% of surface waters are in good or very good ecological health and 29% have…

Property prices in the regions may be set to grow more quickly than the main centres.Cotality, formerly Corelogic, has released its latest data, which shows property values nationwide dropped 0.1% in May and are now 1.6% lower than a year earlier.Hamilton prices were up 0.1% in the month but Dunedin and Tauranga were down 0.1%. Auckland was down 0.3% and Wellington 0.4%. Christchurch was down 0.8%.Invercargill was up 0.5% in the month, Queenstown 1.2% and Rotorua, New Plymouth and Hastings also reported growth.”I don’t want to make too much of it but I think we’ve seen that little bit of…