The Finance Minister Grant Robertson has sought to reassure businesses struggling with the Covid-19 crisis; and the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is urging people to stay home from work or large gatherings if they are sick, even if they think it’s just a cold.
1.The Finance Minister Grant Robertson has sought to reassure businesses struggling with the Covid-19 crisis. Promising wage subsidies will be rolled out as quickly as possible but the Opposition says more urgency is needed.
2.The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is urging people to stay home from work or large gatherings if they are sick, even if they think it’s just a cold. The World Health Organisation is now classing the disease as a global pandemic, meaning its spreading in multiple countries at the same time.
3.Donald Trump is reported to be considering a crackdown on American travelers returning to the US from Europe. Public health officials in Washington are urging him to require those people to isolate themselves for two-weeks.
4.In Italy, the Government has announced all shops, restaurants and bars have been closed, as it tries to contain the worst outbreak of the coronavirus outside China. Only essential services such as food stores and pharmacies will remain open.
5.Farmers are hoping a cyclone forming over Australia may bring some relief to drought-stricken areas here. The Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has declared the drought conditions in much of the country to be a large scale adverse event.
6.An explosion at a Transpower substation left 63,000 households in the Hutt Valley and Wairarapa without power. A loud bang was heard about 8.20am and smoke was visible above the substation. Fire and Emergency said crews attended but there was no fire to extinguish.
7.The Southland Regional Council is considering legal action against the producers of potentially toxic dross dumped at various sites around the region. About 22,000 tonnes of so-called Ouvea Premix were left at site in Southland after Taha Asia Pacific folded in 2016.
8.House prices have had their strongest lift in more than four years reflecting “underlying confidence coupled with strong economic fundamentals”, the Real Estate Institute (REINZ) says. All regions captured by the REINZ house price index reached record highs in February with a year-on-year increase of 8.7 percent.
9.A new commuter rail service between Hamilton and Auckland will start in August. There will be two early morning trains from Hamilton and two return trips in the evening on weekdays and a single return on Saturday.
10.A failed Dunedin financial adviser has pleaded guilty to 11 charges relating to fraud and theft. Barry Kloogh is facing 12 charges laid by the Serious Fraud Office which accuses him of running a Ponzi scheme, estimated to have cost investors more than $15 million.
11.The jury in the trial of a Samoan chief, Joseph Matamata accused of slavery has been told it must decide whether the 13 complainants were treated like his property.
12.The jury in the trial of a police officer accused of raping his collegue has now heard a third version of what happened that night. A 29-year-old policeman is on trial at the Auckland District Court this month accused of raping a female officer while she slept.
13.Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for his sexual assault and rape convictions. A jury in February found the one- time influential Hollywood producer guilty of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi and raping former aspiring actress Jessica Mann.
14.The police have seized a car wanted in connection to the suspicious death of a man at an Auckland brothel this week. The man’s body was found by a member of the public at the Epsom address in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
15.Young New Zealanders will have to pay more for a UK visa. The British Government has announced an extra $6 billion pounds for the national health service and is hiking the immigration health surcharge to pay for it.
16.Protestors wearing masks and hazmat suits marched into the Christchurch City Council this morning to oppose the proposed expansion of a waste plant. Waste Management New Zealand wants to extend its plant, 13km southwest of Christchurch and discharge contaminants into the air.
17.A million seagrass plants are being planted off the Wales Coast to try to save the plant which is thought to have traits for fighting the effects of climate change.
18.A new study has found crocodiles produce a balanced number of male and female offspring by keeping their eggs at a constant temperature which could make them more resilient to climate change.
