Author: Press Room

An earthquake rebuild with a budget of just over $600,000 has been named New Zealand’s best house at the 2025 ADNZ Resene Architectural Design Awards. Mitchell Coll of Fabric took out the Supreme award for his redesign of the earthquake damaged villa in the Christchurch suburb of Somerfield. Working within the design and budget constraints, many elements of the original building were retained including the patinaed garage, fences and driveway.ADNZ judges said the ‘Red Pine Villa’ stands as a testament to sustainable design and contextual sensitivity. (Source: Supplied)”We considered the owner’s environmental based values and tight budget; our initial discussions…

1News weather expert Daniel Corbett explains what we can expect to see as a La Nina weather pattern takes over.It’s that time of year again – tropical cyclone season, which runs from November 1 to April 30.The recent, catastrophic Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean Sea has put the devastation major storms can bring back in the forefront of our minds. The continuing warmer than normal seas around the globe are adding fuel to the fire for the development of tropical cyclones.Elevated risk of ‘tropical troublemakers’ – Watch on TVNZ+The 2025-2026 southwest Pacific cyclone season could be an interesting one in…

The biggest Lotto draw of the year has a $33 million Powerball jackpot up for grabs this Saturday night.The prize pool swelled after Wednesday night’s draw when four players split a $1 million First Division win, while the Powerball jackpot rolled over once again.A central Auckland dairy owner told 1News it had been busy in his store.”When it’s over $20 million, everyone’s coming in to get Lotto tickets.”Despite the excitement, Lotto NZ urged players to keep their expectations in check.”Powerball always offers the same one in 38.3 million chance to win First Division per line, regardless of the jackpot amount,”…

Water Safety New Zealand (WSNZ) is asking people to play their part to prevent more tragedies, following 54 drownings this year.WSNZ acting chief executive Gavin Walker said while that was six fewer than this time last year, 54 was still too many.Heading into the summer months, when people spent more time in and around the water, he said it was important to make good decisions.”We remind Kiwis to do some pretty simple things.”If you’re out in your boat, wear a life jacket, and the same if you’re fishing from land, don’t assume that you’re not going to end up in…

The Prime Minister says he would “discourage” the US from starting nuclear testing again, saying New Zealand is a “proud anti-nuclear country”.Christopher Luxon said there’s been a programme of de-nuclearisation around the world, and New Zealand’s position was “pretty clear”.”We don’t want to see a nuclear arms race.”It comes after the United States President said he wanted to start testing nuclear weapons on an “equal basis” with Russia and China.Luxon indicated there were other ways to test armaments through computer modelling, rather than “having to actually fire them off”.Asked whether it was something he would raise with Trump, Luxon acknowledged…

The start of Great Walk season has been delayed by bad weather in the South Island, with a number of tracks damaged or at risk from avalanches.The Routeburn and the Kepler are partially closed, and the already-delayed reopening of the Milford Track has been pushed back by another week, again due to avalanche risk.The Department of Conservation’s (DOC) southern South Island operations director, Aaron Fleming, told RNZ there had been slips, flooding and track damage across many of Southland’s popular hiking spots.”So we’ve had quite a bit of snowfall, a lot of snow sitting up in the high alpine areas,…

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been transferred to a prison in New Jersey to serve out the remainder of his four-year prison sentence on prostitution-related charges.The hip-hop mogul is currently incarcerated at the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institute, located about 55km east of Philadelphia on the grounds of the joint military base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, according to his listing in the federal Bureau of Prisons inmate database as of Friday.It wa not immediately clear when Combs was moved from the troubled Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he had been held since his arrest last September.Lawyers for Combs and spokespersons for the agency…

The asbestos-filled and abandoned Fitz student bar in Palmerston North was burning, black smoke billowing on Thursday, around the same time that work safety experts were nutting out submissions on a Government move they warn will erode controls around the dangerous substance.”We don’t want a watered-down system,” said Helina Stil, president of the Demolition and Asbestos Association. “We told them [WorkSafe].”The Fitz fire was out just after midnight but several nearby schools kept children home on Friday, and were testing for any asbestos fibres that might have been released into the wind, and settled aroundabout.A text alert sent out widely…

A linesman working to repair Southland’s stricken power network following severe weather says the past week has been “apocalyptic”.Around 2200 customers are still without power following a freak storm on October 23, which threw the region into a state of emergency.PowerNet distribution team leader Rob Wylie is one of those leading the charge to fix that, and said the situation was like nothing he’d seen previously.“I’ve worked with a lot of guys in various depots that have been here a lot longer than I have, and they’re the same. I don’t think anyone in the company has seen sort of…

An “extensive” outage in the Far North district has left thousands of people without power this afternoon. A spokesperson for Top Energy told 1News the cause of the widespread outage was a fault on the 33 kV line to Mt Pokaka, near Kerikeri, after a tree fell on the power line. “Staff remain on site at our Kaikohe substation, and it appears the primary protection didn’t operate as expected, so backup protection tripped the station, causing a wider outage.”We will continue to check the equipment at the substation to confirm there has not been any damage arising from the station…