How a wind gust triggered high-speed Auckland SailGP crash

February 25, 2026

A sudden increase in wind speed caused the Black Foils to lose control of their boat moments before their high-speed crash with Team France in this month’s SailGP regatta in Auckland, an investigation has found.

The horrifying crash, which unfolded just 15 seconds after the start of the third race on day one, left two sailors hospitalised, and significantly reshaped the seasons of both teams, with the two boats suffering extensive damage.

Black Foils grinder Louis Sinclair sustained compound fractures to both legs in the incident, while France strategist Manon Audinet suffered internal abdominal injuries after the French F50 catamaran ploughed into the out-of-control Kiwi boat at speeds approaching 90 km/hour. Both sailors have since left hospital and are recovering at home.

SailGP officials on Wednesday released the findings of its technical review of the incident, revealing its engineers had found “no evidence of system malfunction”.

Alex Reid, SailGP’s director of performance and engineering, said the incident occurred after the Black Foils’ boat Amokura hit a gust of wind as it charged towards the first mark at 90 km/h. The extra wind pressure caused the foiling catamaran to accelerate rapidly and lift higher out of the water.

That increased “ride height” proved critical.

Black Foils SailGP Team and DS Automobiles SailGP Team France collide during Race 3, on Race Day 1. Simon Bruty for SailGP

As the hull rose, the leeward hydrofoil pierced the surface – a phenomenon known as ventilation – destabilising the boat. What followed was, according to Reid, “a very fast chain of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic events” that unfolded within seconds.

Data from onboard telemetry, high-rate performance systems and simulator recreations show the F50 began to sideslip, generating lift in unintended ways. Despite control inputs from flight controller Blair Tuke, the boat could not be brought down quickly enough.

As the crew fought to regain control – increasing rudder angle while trying to avoid nearby boats – the rudder briefly lost effective flow. The windward bow then dipped, the boat rounded sharply into the wind and decelerated hard.

Immediately behind, the French F50 was travelling at roughly 86km/h. At those closing speeds, there was no time or room to avoid impact.

“There is no evidence of a system malfunction or structural failure prior to the incident,” Reid said.

“What we see in the data is a very fast chain of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic events that pushed the boat beyond its controllable envelope at that moment.”

A penalty review has upheld the on-water decision that New Zealand breached rule 14 (avoiding contact) handing the Black Foils an eight-event-point penalty. France was deemed to have had no reasonable opportunity to avoid the crash.

Speaking to media last week after Black Foils driver and team boss Peter Burling described the incident as “horrific”.

Black Foils driver Peter Burling and team are expected to be off the water for some time after the crash caused significant damage to Amokura. Alan Lee/Photosport

“We started off race three and were going down reach one to windward of the Italian boat. We ended up high on the foil and ended up sliding sideways.

“We hit a system limit, which drastically escalated that situation, and had to take quite drastic action to avoid the Italian boat to leeward, which resulted in us touching down. Obviously, the incident followed that.”

Both teams have since been ruled out of the upcoming Sydney Sail Grand Prix as repairs continue.

SailGP says it is now examining potential mitigations to help crews better manage similar gust-driven scenarios in future regattas.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Sharlene Smith homicide: Vehicle of interest identified

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

The vehicle of interest in the Sharlene Smith investigation. Supplied / NZ Police

Police investigating the death of a grandmother whose body was found at a Hawke’s Bay worksite earlier this month have identified a likely route taken by a vehicle of interest.

Police have issued a fresh appeal for help from the public in the investigation into the death of Sharlene Smith, 64, from Rotorua.

Smith’s body was found at a property on Taihape Road in Omahu, near Hastings, on 3 February.

Police earlier described the incident as the “tragic and avoidable death of a much-loved mother, grandmother and sister”.

In a statement released this afternoon, Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Kris Payne said police had identified a likely route taken by a vehicle of interest.

“We know this vehicle was used on the day Sharlene’s body was left at the worksite, and officers have carried out extensive work to locate and review CCTV footage from the relevant timeframe.”

The route taken by a vehicle of interest in the Sharlene Smith murder investigation. Supplied / NZ Police

Anybody who saw a white 2005 Mazda 3 sports hatchback between 8am and midday on Sunday 1 February 2026, – travelling from the Awatoto area, through Taihape Road/Omahu Road and the Fernhill area, and into Marewa, Napier – is urged to contact police.

“We are asking anyone who saw this vehicle, or who has home, business, or dashcam CCTV footage from those areas during that time, to please contact Police if not already spoken to,” said Payne.

Two items belonging to Smith are believed to have been discarded along the same route: a handbag and a Samsung Galaxy A06 mobile phone.

A handbag that is being sought as part of the Sharlene Smith murder investigation. Supplied / NZ Police

Anyone with information can contact police by calling 105 and referencing file number 260203/9739. Information can also be provided anonymously through Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Meridian warns households could face power bill increases up to seven percent

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Meridian Energy CEO Mike Roan. Meridian Energy

Meridian Energy says households could face power bill increases of up to seven percent this year, mostly due to lines and transmission charges.

The country’s biggest power generator returned to profitability in the half-year ended December, posting a bottom-line profit of $227 million, compared to the previous year’s dry-year-driven loss of $121m.

Chief executive Mike Roan said “unfortunately” some cost increases would be passed through to households again this year.

“I had assumed they might be in the order of around 5 percent earlier as we came back from Christmas,” he said.

“But the lines and transmission component has come in higher than expected, so my 5 percent has lifted to more like 7 [percent].”

Lines and transmission cost increases are regulated by the Commerce Commission, and they have been increasing to fund infrastructure improvements.

“The energy component of those increases is just above the rate of inflation, so we are doing a good job of limiting the increases in price driven by electricity costs, but that lines and transmission component is challenging, and it will flow for the next few years through consumers’ bills.”

Roan acknowledged it was “really tough” for customers to hear.

Asked whether companies the size of Meridian could cushion the impact on households, Roan said it did cushion households when it came to energy prices.

“That was evident materially last year given our result where we did buy a whole lot of insurance to protect the electricity system, but we try to pass through those line charges to consumers,” he said.

Meridian has remained competitive in the household market, with the company recording a 12 percent increase in retail sales volumes from a year ago.

LNG will help dry-year risk but no ‘silver bullet’

Mike Roan said the government’s move to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) would help the energy system during dry years.

“The combination of the Huntly strategic reserve, the big demand response agreement we’ve got with the Tiwai aluminium smelter down south, and LNG, will help us navigate future droughts successfully as a country,” he said.

“There’s no question about that.”

Roan said early indications showed forward pricing had also moved lower following the government’s LNG announcement and various power companies’ results.

“Interestingly – and there aren’t many coincidences in financial markets – is those forward prices have come off over the last couple of weeks and since that announcement,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those prices have started to think about the amount of investment that’s coming to market because we’ve just been through the interim announcements by ourselves and our competitors.”

Roan said forward prices had fallen by around $10 a megawatt hour.

Along with the country’s other major generators, Meridian has extensive projects underway to build new electricity generation.

Meridian said it continued to move at pace towards its goal of having seven generation projects in construction ready by 2030.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Investigation underway after body found near vehicle in Westland

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

A police officer found the body near Parkers Creek. Google Maps

Police are investigating after a person was found dead near a vehicle in Whataroa, north of Franz Josef.

Detective Senior Sergeant Brent Lyford said a police officer found the body near Parkers Creek.

“At this time, the death is being treated as unexplained,” he said.

Lyford said members of the Whataroa community can expect to see an increased police presence as investigations continue.

A postmortem examination is due to be carried out later in the week.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

70 years of ‘the Doll’: how Ray Lawler’s trilogy offers a strikingly bold vision for our future

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Starner, Lecturer in Drama, Australian Catholic University

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, a 1955 play by Ray Lawler is as canonical an Australian play as you can get. On its premiere, it was credited with ushering a new era of assuredness in Australian theatre: telling Australian stories, with Australian accents.

Barney and Roo work as cane cutters for seven months of the year. In the off-season, they travel to Melbourne to spend time with working class women Olive and Nancy.

This summer, in the 17th iteration of the layoff, Nancy has unexpectedly entered into a conventional marriage. This causes the remaining characters to reconsider their own roles in this unique ménage à quatre.

Daringly, Lawler figured these layoffs as periods of sustained pleasure and emotional fulfilment for the men, while also highlighting Nancy and Olive’s agency and independence in their paradoxically proto-feminist act of electing to be their layoff gals.

17 dolls and 11 hours

The “doll” of the title does not refer to the women, but to a novelty item first purchased at the Luna Park fair ground. Each year, as a sign of his renewed commitment, Roo bestows one on Olive. The uncanny kewpie dolls eventually festoon the living room of their shared boarding house, more characters in the on-again, off-again performance of domesticity.

In the mid 1970s, Lawler wrote two additional plays – prequels to the Doll, crafting a trilogy of stories set over 17 years: Kid Stakes, set in the first summer of their relationships, and Other Times, set at the conclusion of the second world war.

The Doll remains the most popular of the three plays, and is typically staged alone. The trilogy of works have not been staged together since 1985, but now Red Stitch Theatre is playing them in repertory, including a marathon Saturday session that lasts nearly 11 hours (with breaks).

Production image: Olive sits in a chair, kewpie dolls on the walls. — A kewpie doll is bestowed every year, to eventually festoon the living room of their shared boarding house. Chris Parker/Red Stitch

The fact that the plays were not written in chronological order, and the two ealier-set plays came 20 years later, underscores Lawler’s interest in memory, how we sustain ideas over time and how we contend with loss and change.

The same quartet of performers play the characters as they progress through the cycle, a unique acting challenge. Here Ngaire Dawn Fair, playing Olive, and Emily Godard, playing Nancy (and, in the final part, Pearl), do an especially fine job of ageing before the audience’s eyes.

The revival is well-plotted, lavishly acted, beautifully lit and features stunning costumes.

I had the experience of seeing the three shows run together on a sunny late summer day in Melbourne, where the audience spilled out onto a lawn and garden surrounding the theatre, almost as if we were stepping into the Carlton back garden the characters enter when they leave the stage.

Spending that length of time together with other spectators creates a strong feeling of camaderie and led to good-natured jokes at times about how hard we, the audience, were working, and whether or not we would be able to bear up.

The nature of work

Across the three works, Melbourne itself is a central character: its pubs, restaurants, parks and beaches. The city serves as a resource that sustains the interior lives of the characters, albeit without providing for their material needs (at least in Roo and Barney’s instance).

Instead, the characters in the play rely on an infusion of outside capital – eerily prescient from the perspective of our era of drastic cuts to arts funding. And so the central element of a play comes into view: its relationship to work.

Barney and Roo are itinerants, performing the role of husband or suitor but without also adopting that of provider.

The work that the men do in the cane fields rhymes with the experience of jobbing actors or musicians, who can’t rely on steady employment. Actors know firsthand the experience of unreliable, precarious work and the havoc it wrecks on relationships.

Production image: two men fight. — The violence and raw emotions of the final play are all the more striking thanks to the time we’ve spent with the characters. Chris Parker/Red Stitch

And yet, the characters in the Doll have somehow found a way to build enduring connections and find meaning and satisfaction in a world that is always subject to change.

The trilogy invites us to think not just about our relationship to the period it depicts from the late 1930s to the mid 1950s, but about temporality and timescapes more generally.

By the time we reach the ultimate play, the violence and raw emotions it showcases are all the more striking thanks to the time we’ve spent with the characters.

The audience viscerally shares in the sense of brokenness and interruption Nancy’s departure has caused, and keenly feel the disillusionment and uncertainty of the characters left behind.

If anything, the 70 years that have passed since Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’s first performance should serve as a powerful vindication of the optimism felt by the younger characters in the play.

But Australia’s sustained postwar economic miracle and its growing artistic and cultural legacy aside, The Doll Trilogy at Red Stitch comes at an ambiguous and fearful time. Climate change threatens the health of the cane fields that Roo and Barney rely on, and rapid technological advances threaten to put us all out of work.

Lawler’s plays, by reordering the social contract – especially around marriage and work – suggests that the old model might not be worth mourning much. In that respect, these old classics offer a strikingly bold vision for the future.

The Doll Trilogy is at Red Stitch, Melbourne, until April 11.

– ref. 70 years of ‘the Doll’: how Ray Lawler’s trilogy offers a strikingly bold vision for our future – https://theconversation.com/70-years-of-the-doll-how-ray-lawlers-trilogy-offers-a-strikingly-bold-vision-for-our-future-275081

ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for February 25, 2026

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 25, 2026.

What is a ‘cancer gene’? How genetic mutations lead to cancer
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) An estimated 170,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer in 2025. Many people know the causes of cancer are partly genetic. But how do your genes, which contribute

Extreme weather is transforming the world’s rivers. We need new ways to protect them
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Tonkin, Professor of Ecology and Rutherford Discovery Fellow, University of Canterbury In the summer of 2022, extreme heat and unprecedented drought drove parts of the world’s third largest river, the Yangtze, to dry up. The impacts for hydropower, shipping and industry in China were severe, immediate

AI companies promise to ‘fix’ aged care, but they’re selling a false narrative
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Barbosa Neves, Senior Horizon Fellow, AI and Ageing, University of Sydney Australia’s Royal Commission into Aged Care found a broken system. Now, technology companies are promising artificial intelligence (AI) will fix everything, from staff shortages to older people’s loneliness. This is known as agetech, an industry

How ‘smart’ rainwater tanks can help keep platypus habitat healthy
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Russell, Research Fellow, Urban Stream Geomorphology, The University of Melbourne A growing number of new housing developments feature a little known but powerful bit of tech: smart rainwater tanks. That’s where the rainwater tank next to each house is fitted with a little computer to open

Trump’s plan for strikes on Iran carries major risks – and the US military knows it
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University As the US continues to assemble military assets in the Middle East and Europe ahead of a possible strike against Iran, Donald Trump is running up against two problems that have plagued American presidents before him. The

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel – and never aspired to be a painter to begin with
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Swartwood House, Associate Professor of Art History, University of South Carolina When a 5-inch-by-4-inch red chalk drawing of a woman’s foot by Michelangelo sold at auction for US$27.2 million on Feb. 5, 2026, it blew past the $1.5 million to $2 million it was expected to

Pauline Hanson’s no ‘good’ Muslims comment shows how normalised Islamophobia has become in Australia
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research Fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made headlines last week following an interview with Sky News in which she suggested there are no “good” Muslims. The comment was outrageous by any measure, but the response relatively muted, reflecting a

Ivermectin was touted as a cure for COVID, now it’s being tested for cancer. But what can it actually treat?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Ivermectin was originally celebrated as a revolutionary treatment for parasitic disease in humans and animals. It has since evolved into a focal point of misinformation and heated debate. During the early part of the COVID pandemic, it was

Climate change is drying out the ‘forgotten rivers’ that keep the Murray-Darling alive. We need a new plan
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Avril Horne, Research fellow, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne If you stand beside Seven Creeks in Victoria or Spring Creek in Queensland, they might seem small and unremarkable. But these creeks flow into the mighty Goulburn and Condamine Rivers, and punch far above their

Victorian public school teachers want a 4-day week trial. What could this mean for schools?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Longmuir, Senior Lecturer – Co-leader Education Workforce for the Future Impact Lab, Monash University When we think about jobs you can do from home, you may not immediately picture a school teacher. But as Victoria debates a new right to work from home, the state’s teachers

China’s dancing robots are a wake-up call for Australia on policy and productivity
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor, Technology and Innovation, University of Technology Sydney Chinese state television rang in the Year of the Horse with humanoid robots doing kung fu, comedy sketches and mass choreography. They made complex martial arts choreography look easy. Social media was flooded with memes

Brontë’s Heathcliff wasn’t white. Jacob Elordi is. Is that a problem?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ellie Crookes, Lecturer in English Literatures, University of Wollongong The race of Heathcliff, the brooding antihero of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, is a much-discussed element of the classic tale. Brontë variously describes him as “a little lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway”; “that gipsy

New police powers to ‘move on’ rough sleepers only mask NZ’s deeper homelessness problem
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brodie Fraser, Senior Research Fellow in Housing and Health, University of Otago The government’s plan to empower police to “issue move-on orders as a tool to deal with disorderly behaviour in public places” will effectively apply to people as young as 14 who are experiencing homelessness and

‘I am the enemy of death’: Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir is a remarkable tale of survival
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Kevin, Associate Professor in Australian History, Flinders University Gisèle Pelicot’s compelling and moving memoir begins with the day she learned that over the course of at least nine years, she had been raped by her husband Dominique and around 80 other men, while she was drugged

The Palestine Chronicle: Roger Fowler’s legacy – a Palestinian tribute
The Palestine Chronicle New Zealand activist Roger Fowler, a longtime Gaza solidarity organiser and Palestine Chronicle contributor, who died last Saturday, leaves a legacy of principled resistance. Roger Fowler was a beloved figure in the global solidarity movement and a steadfast advocate for justice in Palestine. He leaves behind a legacy defined by courage, compassion,

West Papuan filmmakers expose Merauke rainforest destruction in ‘siege’ doco
Pacific Media Watch A world premiere of a new documentary revealing the devastation of rainforest in the southeastern part of West Papua is one of two films being screened in Auckland next month. Billed as “Sinéma Merdeka: Stories from West Papua”, the programme is showing the heart of a hidden Pacific conflict and will be

Science knows of 21,000 bee species. There are likely thousands more
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong It’s a question that has sparked the curiosity of scholars and bee lovers for decades: how many species of bees are there in the world? This might, at first, seem like a silly question. But it is

How Tourette’s causes involuntary outbursts – and what people with the condition want you to know
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Licari, Senior Research Fellow in Child Disability, The University of Western Australia Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson has explained he left the British Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs) ceremony early on Monday night, aware his outbursts were causing distress. Davidson was attending the ceremony to support

High-speed rail from Sydney to Newcastle is a step closer. But what about Sydney to Melbourne?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Laird, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Wollongong The federal government will spend A$230 million towards a high-speed rail line between Newcastle and Sydney, promising the project will be “shovel ready” for a final decision on construction in 2028. The government also released a partly redacted business

Punch the monkey isn’t the first lonely zoo animal to capture our hearts – or raise troubling questions
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ruby Ekkel, Associate Lecturer in History, Australian National University For weeks, the story of Punch the monkey has tugged at heartstrings around the world. Videos of this lonely baby monkey at Japan’s Ichikawa Zoo have triggered global outpourings of empathy, grief and outrage. Abandoned by his mother,

What is a ‘cancer gene’? How genetic mutations lead to cancer

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)

An estimated 170,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer in 2025.

Many people know the causes of cancer are partly genetic. But how do your genes, which contribute so much of what makes you you, change what they do and cause a cancer?

Where do these “cancer genes” come from? And are they ticking time bombs?

Cancer is caused by DNA mutations

DNA is called the “instructions for life”, but what does it do? Your cells can read DNA like an instruction manual, and use those instructions to make proteins. The section of DNA with the instructions for a particular protein is called a “gene”.

A cell is like a tiny machine, and proteins are the cogs and gears that keep everything running smoothly – that is, keeping your cells healthy and functioning normally. There’s a protein for every job in a cell.

But what happens if there is a mistake in the instruction manual – a DNA mutation?

Incredibly, cells have proteins whose job it is to identify and fix DNA mutations. But if a DNA mutation can’t be repaired, a cell might make too much or too little of a certain protein, or maybe a protein that doesn’t actually work.

So, a common pathway to cancer is when a protein responsible for fixing DNA mutations is itself non-functional – its gene is mutated.

One of the most famous (or infamous) of these repair proteins is BRCA1. If you have a mutation in the BRCA1 gene, and your cells stop making BRCA1, other DNA mutations you get won’t be repaired properly. If you got another DNA mutation, you’d be stuck with it.

One mutation might be manageable, but maybe you get another. And another.

And then, one day, a cell that started with a BRCA1 mutation has ended up with a mutation in a gene that makes it divide faster than all your other cells, as well as a mutation in a gene that would normally kill the cell if it started being abnormal.

Now your cell can’t die, can’t stop dividing, and keeps getting more mutations – it’s a cancer.

While the genes involved can differ, this example illustrates how most cancers arise. Accumulated DNA mutations, acquired either over time (ageing naturally leads to some DNA mistakes) or from carcinogen exposure (such as UV radiation, dangerous chemicals, cigarettes and alcohol), push a cell over the edge.

There are two main kinds of DNA mutation: those in the cells that produce eggs and sperm (germline), and those in any other cell type (somatic). It’s an important distinction, because only germline mutations found in eggs and sperm will be inheritable – that is, able to be passed on to children.

Inheriting a gene mutation

If you have bad luck, and a BRCA1 mutation spontaneously occurs in a regular cell, that’s still only one cell with a BRCA1 mutation. But what if one of your parents had a germline BRCA1 mutation, and you inherited it?

In this scenario, every single cell in your body would have one copy of a busted BRCA1. (Your cells have two copies of every gene – one from each of your parents.)

Of course, every single cell will also have one copy of functional BRCA1, which can still repair proteins. But still, over the trillions of cells in your body, the odds of something going wrong will be much bigger.

For example, by the time a woman with an inherited mutation in BRCA1 reaches 70 years of age, there is a 65% chance she will have breast cancer and a 39% chance she will have ovarian cancer. In contrast, only 9%-12.5% of women with no family history of breast cancer will develop breast cancer by age 75.

Women with mutations in another DNA repair gene called BRCA2 face similarly poor odds.

Men with mutations in either gene also have higher cancer risks, particularly for breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Scientists have discovered dozens of “cancer genes” like BRCA1. Another example is a gene called TP53, which usually helps kill abnormal cells.

Inherited TP53 mutations are associated with perhaps the highest cancer risk. Inheritance of a TP53 mutation is the cause of Li-Fraumeni syndrome, which gives a person a 90% chance of developing some kind of cancer by age 60.

What can we do about these cancer genes?

You can’t change your genes. If you inherit or acquire a mutated form of a so-called cancer gene, you simply face a higher risk of developing certain cancers than someone who does not.

The best thing you can do is lead a healthy lifestyle. Don’t smoke, avoid alcohol, exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, and stay safe in the sun.

If you have a family history of cancer, you should consult your doctor. They can direct you to genetic testing and counselling if necessary.

If you do have an inherited genetic mutation, you may be advised to participate in cancer screening programs at an earlier age than the general population or, in more extreme cases, undergo preventative surgeries. As with all cancers, catching them early, when treatment is most effective, is key.

– ref. What is a ‘cancer gene’? How genetic mutations lead to cancer – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-cancer-gene-how-genetic-mutations-lead-to-cancer-276272

Multiple injuries after bus crash in Auckland

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

File photo. RNZ / REECE BAKER

Multiple people have been injured after a bus crash in the Auckland suburb of Grafton this afternoon.

Hato Hone St John said three ambulances and one rapid response unit were sent to the scene on Carlton Gore Road / Park Road, shortly after 2.30pm

“Four patients have been assessed and are being transported to Auckland City Hospital, three in moderate condition and one in minor condition.”

The crash involved a construction truck, according to a witness.

– more to come

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

National and New Zealand First go head to head over Hauraki Gulf

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

NZ First’s Shane Jones and National’s Tama Potaka. RNZ

New Zealand First has hit out at National after its coalition partner promised to campaign on stronger fishing protections in the Hauraki Gulf.

National’s conservation spokesperson Tama Potaka laid out the position his party would take to the election campaign over the weekend.

He said the coalition’s decision to allow commercial fishing in two of the 12 High Protection Areas (HPAs) in the gulf had caused “widespread concern” from the public.

Last year, the government passed legislation establishing 12 HPAs, where most commercial and recreational fishing were prohibited, and five sea floor protection areas.

At the time, the opposition criticised the government for a late-stage amendment allowing commercial ring-net fishing operators exclusive access to two of the HPAs.

“National will look to reinstate the ban on all fishing in the High Protection Areas,” Potaka said over the weekend.

“A further decision, to allow bottom trawling in some designated trawl corridors in the Gulf has also been controversial so we will review that also.”

‘Who will pay for it?’ – Shane Jones

New Zealand First’s deputy leader Shane Jones said National’s decision risked $250 million worth of property rights secured in a major treaty settlement more than 30 years ago.

“Any suggestion that commercial fishing has to be terminated and trawling has to be outlawed in the Hauraki Gulf almost certainly lead to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property rights being cancelled.”

Jones said National’s policy would “lead to the unravelling” of the 1992 Sealord Deal – a significant fisheries settlement that gave iwi 50 percent of the Sealord company and a substantial quota of fish caught through the Quota Management System.

He said everyone weighing into the debate needed to bring a “level of even handedness” to discussions to avoid a massive taxpayer bill.

“We can float what we like as politicians in the election campaign but at some point in time, manifesto ideas will meet the sheer cold reality of who will pay for it.

“People who want to terminate commercial fishing in the Hauraki Gulf need to take account of who will bear the costs because we’re not a communist country that goes around summarily cancelling property rights.

“The advocates for terminating commercial fishing in the Hauraki Gulf are essentially saying they want to terminate property rights. Well, we’re not Venezuela.

“If you want to terminate property rights then you have to deal with compensation and no one who proposes the termination of fisheries is willing to explain or justify why a quarter of a billion dollars should be spent on turning the hierarchy golf into a mill pond.”

Potaka said National could protect the Gulf while also respecting fishery settlements.

“High Protection Areas were always intended to provide genuine protection, and if elected we will restore that integrity in a way that upholds our obligations and respects existing fisheries settlements.

“New Zealanders expect clarity and consistency in how marine protections are applied, and we are being clear that safeguarding the long-term health of the Hauraki Gulf is the responsible course for its future and for the country.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Government scraps its quarterly action plans

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon previously said the plans helped create momentum and drive focus. RNZ / Nathan McKinnon

The government appears to have scrapped its quarterly action plans, after not releasing one so far this quarter.

At the start of the term, the Prime Minister released the things the government planned to do in its first 100 days.

Once that was completed, the government moved to quarterly plans, starting in April 2024.

“Having a clear plan with specific actions and timeframes for delivery creates momentum and drives focus,” Christopher Luxon said at the time.

Each plan would contain about 30 to 40 actions within the government’s three pillars of ‘rebuild the economy and ease the cost of living,’ ‘restore law and order,’ and ‘deliver better public services.’

Its most recent one [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/575209/the-33-things-the-government-plans-to-do-before-the-end-of-year

from October 2025], for example, contained actions to introduce the planning legislation that will replace the Resource Management Act, pass the legislation to enable time of use charging, and release the English and Maths curriculum for Years 0-10.

Some commitments in the plans were more vague, such as “take policy decisions” around legislation that would appear in a future plan, or “raise the energy” of international relationships to signal Luxon would be taking an overseas trip.

Others were simply a product of timing, such as “deliver a Budget,” which happens the same time every year.

With the release of each subsequent plan, the government would also say which of the actions on its previous plan it had not achieved or which were still in progress.

On Monday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the plans were “slightly absurd” and had become “an exercise in managerialism” rather than setting the direction for the country.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Extreme weather is transforming the world’s rivers. We need new ways to protect them

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Tonkin, Professor of Ecology and Rutherford Discovery Fellow, University of Canterbury

In the summer of 2022, extreme heat and unprecedented drought drove parts of the world’s third largest river, the Yangtze, to dry up.

The impacts for hydropower, shipping and industry in China were severe, immediate and well-documented. Less visible were the ecological consequences for the many species that depend on the river.

The Yangtze is not an exception. Around the world, rivers are no longer changing gradually.

Rather, they are being increasingly transformed by extreme climatic events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves. Our newly published global review finds these events are pushing ecosystems beyond their limits and eroding biodiversity and core functions.

In bringing together global evidence, our research sets out a roadmap for how science and management can respond to these mounting ecological pressures.

When impacts cascade

Because rivers are connected systems, impacts rarely remain localised. Extreme climatic events can send impacts cascading through entire river networks, affecting communities far from where they begin.

A drought in headwaters can disrupt downstream processes for months, and when flows return, built-up material can trigger oxygen crashes and fish kills far downstream.

Recovery is often uneven and incomplete, with some species lost and communities permanently changed, especially where rivers are fragmented and species cannot escape to refuges or are lured into traps.

The consequences can be profound: extreme events can push ecosystems past tipping points, after which full recovery is unlikely and systems may follow new paths instead of returning to their past states.

In some cases, even the most ambitious restoration efforts of recent decades may struggle to reverse biodiversity loss if the frequency of extremes continues to rise.

Our review also shows that when extreme events happen together or in sequence – known as compound events – their impacts can be catastrophic for people and river biodiversity.

Whether that’s a flood following a drought, a drought and heatwave operating in unison, or a flood falling on saturated ground, the impacts of these compound events can multiply.

The Yangtze drought and heatwave collapsed plankton communities, while in New Mexico in 2011, wildfire followed by heavy rain damaged water quality in the Rio Grande far downstream. Repeated extremes were shown to have altered invertebrate communities in Alaska’s Wolf Point Creek for more than a decade.

In Europe’s Rhône River, a major heatwave in 2003 brought an increase in invasive species, which was amplified by damaging floods that followed. In California’s Klamath River, a wildfire and intense rain in 2022 led to widespread river failure and a long fish kill zone.

These impacts are often made worse by existing pressures such as pollution, land-use change and water withdrawals – as seen in the 2022 Oder River disaster in Germany and recent repeated die-offs in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin.

Importantly, the severity of ecological impacts aren’t always proportional to that of the event that causes them. Instead, it is the order of events and existing stresses that often drive outsized impacts that are hard to predict and manage.

Dead fish lie in the Oder River during an environmental disaster in 2022, thought to have been caused by an algal bloom. Patrick Pleul/Getty Images

Moving from reactive to proactive

While extreme events are stretching the resilience of river ecosystems, they are also exposing gaps in the science needed to design lasting ecological solutions.

Right now, studying the effects of these events is challenging for researchers because they tend to strike without warning. As a result, the evidence base remains limited and also unevenly spread around the world.

For water managers, this creates real uncertainty about how to prepare river biodiversity for extreme events.

One common idea is to protect safe havens, such as cold streams, deep pools or shaded tributaries, which can offer species short-term relief from heat and drought.

Because of this, safeguarding these refuges is widely seen as a key part of river management. Nevertheless, questions are emerging about whether these refuges will persist or remain viable during extreme events.

Simply put, compounding extreme heatwaves and drought not only warm rivers, but also undermine the processes that create thermal refuges for freshwater species.

Engineered thermal refuges, such as via groundwater pumping or gravel trenches, are starting to show promise in early trials.

But better preparation for extreme events will require more proactive approaches, guided by adaptive frameworks such as the widely-used “resist-accept-direct” strategy.

This can mean building river resilience through habitat restoration, better connectivity, giving rivers more room to move and protecting or creating cold-water refuges at a catchment scale.

A mix of nature-based solutions and hard engineering will be needed. Approaches that restore connectivity and protect groundwater recharge zones are increasingly seen as some of the most effective ways to tackle the linked ecological challenges ahead.

Whatever tools are used, the bigger shift must be from local, reactive fixes to catchment-scale, resilience-focused strategies that anticipate extreme events rather than respond to them after the fact.

Rivers support billions of people but remain among the least protected parts of the natural world, and we urgently need to prepare them for a more extreme future.

– ref. Extreme weather is transforming the world’s rivers. We need new ways to protect them – https://theconversation.com/extreme-weather-is-transforming-the-worlds-rivers-we-need-new-ways-to-protect-them-276358

MediMap urgently seeks court injunction to protect stolen data after cyber hack

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ/Calvin Samuel

MediMap, the hacked health portal, is heading to court to try to block people accessing and using the data that has been breached.

It was breached on Sunday, and the company has now taken the platform offline while it investigates.

It’s used for prescribing and giving medication in places like residential aged care, hospices, disability services and community health.

In a new statement on Wednesday, it said it was urgently seeking an injunction to protect the information of impacted people.

“This injunction would prohibit anyone from accessing, using, copying, sharing, or publishing any MediMap data that may have been unlawfully obtained, and would seek to limit any further spread of that information online,” it said.

MediMap said it also sincerely apologised for any distress the hack may have caused.

“We understand this situation is concerning for residents, patients, their families, and healthcare providers.”

It said its own investigation into what it called alleged unauthorised access and data modification was ongoing, and that the company was working to find any personal information that may have been accessed by an authorised third party.

“Once this process is complete and we have verified the facts, we will contact affected customers directly regarding any necessary next steps,” its statement said.

According to information sent by MediMap to care providers in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and seen by RNZ, fields that were changed included patient name, date of birth, location within the facility, assigned prescriber or pharmacy, allergy or intolerance information or discharge or deceased status.

Providers with the portal offline have told RNZ medication was now being organised the old-fashioned way – on paper.

A Nurses Organisation member at George Manning Lifecare and Village in Christchurch told RNZ they needed double the number of registered nurses on each shift just to give out medication.

Aged Care Association chief executive Tracey Martin said every care home had a “disaster” plan to fall back on in case of something like a system outage.

“Basically, they had to switch back to paper-based.”

She understood it was not having an effect on residents, who were all still receiving medication, but some facilities might have needed to bring in extra staff who were qualified to double check the medication, before it was given to residents.

“It certainly takes longer, it’s certainly more painful than the efficiencies that you get through a digital system,” Martin said.

Most of the questions being asked were: “Is my mum still getting her medication?” and “How are you making sure that she gets what she needs?”

“With regard to somebody being marked as deceased or not? Well, our facilities have got the person there, so they know they’re not deceased. So while from a system perspective that is really interesting and needs to be sorted, from a real-life perspective, that individual’s still there, still being cared for.”

FAQs released by MediMap

Among the information sent from MediMap care providers were lists of frequently asked questions those companies might be getting, and how to respond to them, along with a draft email providers could use as a template to inform patients, residents and families.

MediMap said it was working with external cyber security and forensic specialists, Health NZ, and relevant authorities to identify which facilities and resident records had been affected, and passwords were being reset across all users “as a precautionary measure”.

“Importantly, we have been advised that there is currently no evidence that medication charts or medication administration records have been altered,” it said.

“Has resident data been exposed? – At this stage, we cannot confirm whether any resident data has been accessed beyond viewing, extracted, or exposed externally. The investigation is ongoing.”

“When will our facility be brought back online? – Facilities will be restored in phases. Facilities where current resident information has not been modified will be restored first following internal validation. Facilities where resident information may have been impacted will be contacted directly by MediMap to confirm current resident details prior to restoration.”

“Why are discharged or deceased residents being reviewed? – Some resident status information may have been incorrectly modified. Historical records will be reviewed following restoration of current residents.”

What is the health agency saying?

Health New Zealand, while supporting the company’s investigation, said MediMap, as a privately owned company, was solely responsible for its security and it needed to do everything it could.

Its digital services acting chief information technology officer Darren Douglass said New Zealanders expected companies involved in healthcare to secure systems and platforms so private information was safeguarded.

Privacy commissioner says New Zealanders expect better

The privacy commissioner told Midday Report changing people’s information was as much of a breach of privacy as stealing it.

With the system offline, he said, patients are now “relying on the professionalism of the health sector” to ensure they got the right medication.

Michael Webster said New Zealanders rightly expected companies with sensitive information to have higher standards of privacy and protection than any other area.

“The expectation out there from New Zealanders is increasingly, this information has to be protected, and has to be seen to be protected as well as any information – and better.”

He said it was not yet known how many people had been affected.

The commission was working with MediMap to understand the scale of the hack, Webster said, and he expected to receive updates as that work progressed.

MediMap has declined an interview with RNZ, but has again been approached for comment.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Auckland local body election rivals unite against racism

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Candidates contesting a local body election in Papatoetoe want ethnicity left out of the race as they vie for one of the four seats that are up for grabs.

A Manukau District Court judge in December voided the outcome of the 2025 vote for the Papatoetoe subdivision that forms part of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The ruling came after irregularities were found on some ballot papers.

The decision has since been challenged in the Auckland High Court, with the winning candidates of the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team – Kunal Bhalla, Sandeep Saini, Paramjeet Singh and Kushma Nair – filing a petition for a judicial review.

Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team candidates (from left) Kushma Nair, Sandeep Saini, Kunal Bhalla and Paramjeet Singh RNZ / Blessen Tom

High Court Justice Jane Anderson reserved her decision last week, calling it a “tricky, conceptual, intellectual exercise” and promising to deliver a judgement as quickly as possible.

On the campaign trail over the weekend, Bhalla said the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team had not been implicated in any electoral wrongdoing.

“It is important to emphasise that the honourable District Court did not make any findings of wrongdoing against the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team or any of its candidates,” Bhalla said.

“[But] after the decision, not only us but the entire Indian community has been targeted with racially motivated commentary.”

Kunal Bhalla is a Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team candidate for the local body election. RNZ / Blessen Tom

Rejecting allegations of electoral fraud, Paramjeet Singh took exception to language “defaming the entire South Asian community [used] by some vested interests who don’t like immigrants”.

“If I did something wrong – which I categorically say we didn’t – punish me,” he said. “Why are you calling my entire community a criminal?”

The Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team found unlikely support from the other side of the political spectrum, with all four Labour-affiliated candidates echoing a similar sentiment.

Three-term Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary, who has been a local board member since 2016, refuted the targeting of a particular ethnicity.

“People need to understand what happened here,” Choudhary said.

Ashraf Choudhary is a former MP and a Labour candidate for the local body election in Papatoetoe. RNZ / Blessen Tom

“When we got to know something wrong had happened, we went to the court,” he said. “The other party there – the defendant party – was Election Services … not other candidates.

“Later when the [District] Court found some evidence of fraud, it ordered a new election. That judgement [had] nothing to do with ethnicity and should be seen as such.

“I completely refute the racially targeting of one particular ethnicity with allegations of fraud.

“Even in our team … three of us are from South Asian background,” added the former lawmaker who immigrated from Pakistan decades ago, referring to teammates Raj Pardeep Singh and Avinash Kaur Dhaliwal, both of whom are of Indian origin.

Labour candidates (from left) Avinash Kaur Dhaliwal, Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, Raj Pardeep Singh and Ashraf Choudhary RNZ / Blessen Tom

Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board member Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, who filed the petition in the Manukau District Court, is the fourth member of the Labour ticket.

“As a New Zealand-born Tongan, I completely identify with what is happening with the Indian community after the District Court judgement,” Hausia said.

“The actions of a few, which undermined our democracy, is not a reflection of an entire community. Efforts to do so are unfortunate and condemnable.”

Raj Pardeep Singh is a Labour candidate for the local body election in Papatoetoe. RNZ / Blessen Tom

South Auckland-based criminal lawyer Raj Pardeep Singh said the misinformation contradicted progress the community had made over the years.

“Indians have been part of New Zealand growth story over three, four generations now, and we have constantly punched above our weight,” he said.

“In terms of owning small and medium-sized businesses to support the country’s economy and generate employment, the Indian community’s contribution in New Zealand is immense I would say.”

There was general agreement among the candidates that the Indian community lacked political representation, which had previously caused issues relevant to the community to be ignored.

“The situation is even more dire if you look at ethnic women representation in the local government,” Dhaliwal said. “This is why I have put my hand up to contest the local board elections.”

Avinash Kaur Dhaliwal is a Labour candidate for the local body election in Papatoetoe. RNZ / Blessen Tom

If elected, she wanted council and government information to be disseminated in major ethnic languages.

“I have been a social worker volunteering at the local gurdwara,” she said.

“In my experience, a lack of awareness due to language barriers is a big drawback ethnic women face here.”

Putting the debate over ethnicity to one side, it’s hard to differentiate between the campaigns run by the trio of four-member teams contesting the Papatoetoe election.

“Everyone wants a safe, clean and prosperous town,” said Peter Dons, who is running under the Independently Papatoetoe ticket with former local board member Albert Lim, Chris Webb and Weakley Alison.

“So we are campaigning on the usual things – transport hub connections, fixing potholes, more CCTV for better security, as well as keeping libraries open and municipal pools free.”

Sandeep Saini is a Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team candidate for the local body election. RNZ / Blessen Tom

Saini of Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team said other concerns in the electorate included illegal dumping and roaming dogs.

“Papatoetoe has seen an increase in homelessness in recent years, which has caused problems of mental health and drug abuse,” Saini said. “If we get elected to the local board again, we will focus on these issues.”

Nair, an ex-banker, wanted better financial accountability of the local board finances.

“We will make sure all funding is equally divided between all subdivisions in our local board area,” he said.

Kushma Nair is a Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team candidate for the local body election. RNZ / Blessen Tom

Hausia from the Labour team, who was deputy chair of the local board last term, said housing intensification was a hot-button issue for the community, which he noted had been adding pressure on infrastructure, including roads and parking.

“We want to plant more trees as well,” Hausia said. “Papatoetoe has one of the lowest tree canopy cover in Auckland, which we need to improve.”

Bhalla, who called his colleagues “a team of first timers”, was determined to campaign hard over the next few weeks.

“We have amped up our efforts in terms of door knocking, attending events, mobilising the community and listening to their day-to-day concerns,” he said.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

3G shutdown: Spark to block phones unable to call emergency 111

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Spark said it will be proactively blocking mobile phones unable to make emergency 111 calls once its 3G network shuts down on 31 March. 123RF

Spark says it will be blocking phones unable to call emergency services on 111 after its 3G shutdown.

All three main mobile operators – Spark, 2degrees and One NZ – are shutting down their 3G networks and upgrading their sites to either 4G or 5G.

This means some devices, not just phones, but also things like medical, security alarms and vehicle trackers will cease working with the network. Phone calls, including to 111, will not work.

On Wednesday, Spark said it will be proactively blocking around 300 mobile phones that can make standard calls, send texts, and access data over 4G, but will be unable to make emergency 111 calls once its 3G network shuts down on 31 March.

It said these devices were not sold by Spark, and most of the impacted models are from the ASUS range.

Some of the phones can remain connected if a software update is completed. However, phones that are not updated, or do not have a software update available to them, will be permanently blocked from Spark’s network on 31 March.

“These mobile phones are unique in how they are impacted by the 3G shutdown. They can send texts, make regular calls, and access data, but they have not been correctly configured by the device manufacturers to connect to emergency calling over 4G,” Spark chief customer officer Greg Clark said.

“We believe this presents a significant safety risk. Customers using these phones could mistakenly assume their device is fully functional when it isn’t, particularly if it’s later sold, gifted, or handed down. It will only be once they try to call 111 that they will realise there is an issue, and by then it could be too late.”

Clark said the company has been monitoring Australia’s 3G shutdown and learned from its experience to block devices unable to call emergency services.

He said Spark has been contacting affected customers who need to upgrade.

To find out if your phone will work, you can text ‘3G’ to 550 for free, which will let you know if your device can use 4G. If it says you cannot, you will need to investigate further.

Some phones may need to change their settings, while others may need to be replaced.

For phones bought overseas that were having trouble connecting to 4G, telcos advise customers to try downloading the latest software. If this doesn’t work, customers may need to replace the phone.

Devices with no software update available that will be blocked from 31 March:

ASUS ROG Phone 5S
ASUS ROG Phone 6
ASUS ROG Phone 6 Pro
ASUS ROG Phone 6 Ultimate
ASUS ZenFone 7 ZS670KS
ASUS ZenFone 8
ASUS ZenFone 9
ASUS ROG Phone
ASUS ZS672KS

Devices with software update available (will be blocked if this is not actioned before 31 March 2026):

ASUS ROG Phone 7
ASUS ROG Phone 8
ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro
ASUS ROG Phone 9
ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro
ASUS ZenFone 10

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Whakaari White Island survivor Kelsey Waghorn’s long road to recovery

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

“It was a normal day up until it wasn’t,” Whakaari White Island guide and survivor Kelsey Waghorn says.

Waghorn, then 26, wasn’t even rostered on to work on 9 December 2019 when the volcano erupted killing 22 people and injuring 25 others. She had been called up to work that morning.

Most the of day was unremarkable until it became a fight for survival, she told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

Kelsey Waghorn, 2020.

Supplied

.”

A book she’d read three years prior by an American volcanologist Stanley Williams, who had himself survived an eruption, sprang to mind as the volcano erupted, she says.

“It’s not like I’d read it the week before or anything silly like that, so it was strange to have it emerge in that moment so clear and so profoundly helpful in those 90-odd seconds that this was all unfolding.

“To hear Stanley Williams’ words about what to do in a pyroclastic surge, it was just the most bizarre sort of situation to have all that come back to me.”

She’s since re-read the book and credits it with helping her decision-making that day.

Waghorn urged her group of tourists to run, take shelter, and then injured and in pain herself, she got them to the wharf where they had a chance of rescue back to the mainland.

Waghorn’s life-threatening burns saw her put in an induced coma and undergo multiple surgeries. It was a drawn-out physical recovery, but it was the mental struggles that followed which proved the most overwhelming challenge of her recovery, she says.

Kelsey Waghorn learning to feed herself in hospital.

Supplied

She tells her story in the memoir, Surviving White Island and Everything That Came After.

Her recovery post-eruption was slow and painful, she had multiple graft surgeries and suffered nerve damage, but as she began to physically heal, she wasn’t prepared for the psychological damage that began to emerge.

She was getting psychiatric care in hospital, and after discharge, and so assumed she had the mental aspect of her recovery under control, she says.

Things reached a low point for Waghorn towards the end of 2021.

“It just got to the point where it was like okay, nothing’s working here, I need to find something else to do because everything’s falling apart, relationships are falling apart, I hated myself, I was at the lowest point I’ve ever been and it was a shock to me that all this was happening and it was just, yeah, unbelievable.”

But through further counseling and her own research, a greater understanding of the impact trauma has on the brain helped her heal, she says.

“There’s nothing more reassuring than being told that what you’re going through is normal when for a year or more you think that you’re abnormal and this is not normal and you’re not getting better.”

It was freeing to hear her mental problems were unremarkable for someone who had experienced what she had, she says.

“I dropped a spoon and bawled my eyes out, and it was like everything was a threat and so learning that my brain and my nervous system was just stuck there because that fight had kept me alive multiple times, in hospital, during the eruption and the things that had happened before it.

“Learning that that’s exactly what had happened and all I had to do was just teach my brain okay, that’s not what we do all the time, we just have to do it like this and you can bring that back out when it’s actually viable.”

Kelsey Waghorn and her beloved rescue dog, River.

Supplied

She now treats every birthday as a bonus she says, and it’s driven her to embrace life fully.

“I obviously wish that the eruption had never happened, but what I’ve made of my life now, I wouldn’t change for the world.”

She has reconnected with her love of adventure, making a trip to the Antarctic in 2023 among other adventures.

“It’s nice to have that zest for life back and want to really push and explore and do heaps and see stuff and just do all these amazing things.

“People are like, you should probably take a rest day and I’m like, no, I want to go do all these really amazing things because I can and I’m here to do it and I’m able to do it and I fought really hard to be in this position, so I’m not going to take that for granted.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Ramadan recipes to indulge in after sunset

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Across Aotearoa, the iftar table (the meal that marks the breaking of the fast) at mosques, markets and homes can be a vibrant spread of flavours cherished across the Middle East, Asia and beyond.

From comforting savoury bites to rose-flavoured sweets, these dishes reflect generations of culinary tradition. Though many of these homemade favourites are enjoyed year-round and across communities, they take on a special meaning during Ramadan.

As worshippers gather after sunset, these recipes offer warmth, nourishment, and just the right touch of sweetness to restore energy after a day of fasting.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Man admits murder of Bernice Marychurch on Auckland bus

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Kael Leona at an earlier appearance. RNZ / Lucy Xia

A man has admitted to murdering a woman on an Auckland bus two years ago.

Bernice Louise Marychurch was killed in October 2024 while on the Number 74 bus in Onehunga.

There were nine other passengers onboard.

The man charged with her murder, 38-year-old Kael Leona, handed himself in to police shortly after.

He had previously pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity but at a hearing at the High Court in Auckland this morning, Leona pleaded guilty to murder and strangulation.

He was expected to go to trial in March.

Bernice Louise Marychurch. Facebook

Marychurch’s murder prompted a number of calls for more security aboard busses.

Auckland’s deputy mayor Desley Simpson hoped they would consider safety officers, while more police were allocated for public transport in the wake of the fatal stabbing.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown had said he would look into whether the Sentencing Amendment Bill should expand aggravating factors to all public transport users.

“An expansion could include making offences against all public transport users an aggravating factor, ensuring greater protection for those who rely on buses, trains, and ferries,” he said.

“The Bill already provides for a new aggravating factor for offences against public transport workers.

“This is about making sure that public transport remains safe for everyone, whether you are a worker or a passenger. It sends a clear message that violence and abuse in these spaces will not be tolerated.”

Police Minister Mark Mitchell had condemned the attack, calling it senseless and horrific, adding that peopled deserve to safe on buses, trains and ferries.

Meanwhile, Bus and Coach Association chief executive Delaney Myers told Morning Report there needed to be more people around and on buses to act as a deterrent for bad behaviour and to give people additional confidence using public transport.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

AI companies promise to ‘fix’ aged care, but they’re selling a false narrative

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Barbosa Neves, Senior Horizon Fellow, AI and Ageing, University of Sydney

Australia’s Royal Commission into Aged Care found a broken system. Now, technology companies are promising artificial intelligence (AI) will fix everything, from staff shortages to older people’s loneliness.

This is known as agetech, an industry projected to reach a global value of A$170 billion by 2030. But its promised “fixes” obscure what is actually breaking aged care.

In our new study, we analysed how 33 agetech companies selling AI for aged care in Australia, East Asia, Europe and North America market their products, including monitoring tools and companion robots.

We found their websites, promotional materials and product descriptions depict aged care as inefficient, understaffed and overwhelmed by a growing ageing population. Older people are too frail or too many. Care workers are overstretched. Human care is flawed.

And AI is presented as the answer. As the agetech industry grows, governments are also subscribing to this vision of technological rescue.

Yet our research shows these narratives distract from structural problems and reinforce ageism, even as Australia’s new Aged Care Act commits to a stronger focus on dignity and autonomy.

Before we accept AI as the cure, we need to understand what we are being sold.

The cure on offer

The companies we studied claim AI will predict falls before they happen, detect health changes humans miss, eliminate incompetence, and deliver “unprecedented” improvements in safety and quality.

It sounds revolutionary. But it is also a carefully constructed narrative. In the marketing materials, aged care is consistently framed as a failure of efficiency and public delivery.

Promotional images show older people sitting passively, struggling with mobility aids, or being reduced to body parts attached to monitoring devices. They are represented through statistics: fall rates, malnutrition prevalence, hospitalisation risk.

According to the companies, older people are incidents waiting to happen and data sources to be mined. One company promises to transform intimate daily activities such as showering into “trackable metrics” for “optimal care”.

Care workers fare no better. Their labour is “time-consuming” and “error-prone”. With AI as the solution, care workers become the problem: well-meaning but unreliable, requiring technological oversight. Several companies market systems that track staff movements and automatically report delays to managers.

The rise of techno-solutionism

Agetech companies selling their wares paint the aged care sector as fundamentally broken, plagued by rising costs and inefficiencies.

By contrast, AI systems – featuring 24/7 monitoring, predictive analytics and automated alerts – are presented as objective and inherently superior.

This narrative reflects techno-solutionism: presenting social problems in ways that make technical fixes appear inevitable.

But AI is far from neutral. Models used to train AI are frequently based on datasets that exclude older people or overrepresent younger and healthier groups. Both AI design and implementation rely on stereotypical ideas of older people as technophobic and passive.

AI is not the salvation

The aged care crisis stems from decades of social and political choices about how we value care and ageing. The royal commission documented this in detail: systemic neglect, regulatory failures, a funding model that incentivises cost-cutting over quality, and pervasive societal ageism.

AI solutionism frames the crisis as technical rather than social or political, burying the fact that broader reforms are needed.

AI systems are said to eliminate work. But they require substantial human labour to function and can create as much work as they remove.

Care staff must learn new systems, interpret data, and respond to constant notifications and false alarms. They suddenly have to oversee technologies that need ongoing calibration and maintenance.

Studies show this increases worker stress, as staff juggle care responsibilities with tech troubleshooting – all with limited training and time. Much of this labour remains invisible.

Alongside this, the relational aspects of care – noticing subtle changes in mood, building trust over time – get marginalised because they can’t be easily measured or automated.

Older people suffer the consequences. When care is organised around efficiency metrics and cost reduction, residents become problems to be managed rather than people with diverse histories, preferences and needs.

No single tech will fix this

Aged care faces serious challenges. It does need repair – but the fixes must take many forms, most of which have nothing to do with AI.

These include staff ratios that allow proper time for meaningful conversations, helping residents feel less lonely. Wages that reflect the value and complexity of care work. Funding models that prioritise dignity, agency and authentic participation in decisions about care.

Regulatory frameworks must hold providers accountable for quality of life, wellbeing and inclusion, not just compliance metrics. Aged care should also include community-based models that keep older people connected to neighbourhoods.

The best role AI can play is through supporting care practices that include and empower older people and staff, centring their voices and experiences.

If we let AI companies define what is broken, we also let them define what repair looks like. That may leave our systems more profitable, but far less caring and humane.

The authors acknowledge Naseem Ahmadpour, Alex Broom and Kalervo Gulson from the University of Sydney for their contributions to the research project.

– ref. AI companies promise to ‘fix’ aged care, but they’re selling a false narrative – https://theconversation.com/ai-companies-promise-to-fix-aged-care-but-theyre-selling-a-false-narrative-275822

What people with tourette’s want you to know

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson has explained he left the British Film and Television Awards (Baftas) ceremony early on Monday night, aware his outbursts were causing distress.

Davidson was attending the ceremony to support the film I Swear, which tells the story of his life living with the syndrome. Tourette’s can cause involuntary movements and sounds, including words.

Davidson’s outbursts during the ceremony included a racial slur while actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindon, who are Black, were presenting an award.

Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo present during the BAFTA Film Awards in London.

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for BAFTA

. He said he was “deeply mortified” that people might have thought otherwise.

There are valid criticisms about how the Baftas and the broadcaster handled the situation and failed to properly acknowledge the hurt caused, whether or not it was intended.

But the syndrome Davidson has spent his life educating people about remains sadly misunderstood. So let’s take a look at Tourette’s and the tics it causes.

A neurological disorder

Tourette’s is a neurological disorder characterised by unintentional movements and vocalisations, known as tics.

While the exact cause of Tourette’s is not fully understood, it is likely to be complex and multifactorial.

Various genes have been linked to the condition, and we know it runs in families, so it likely has a strong genetic basis.

We also know that other environmental exposures during key periods of brain development contribute to the onset and course of the condition, such as complications during pregnancy and birth, illnesses and infections, and intense stress.

Tourette syndrome also rarely occurs in isolation, with many diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and learning disorders.

What are tics?

Tics are thought to be caused by changes in brain circuits involved in impulse control and inhibition.

People with tics often experience uncomfortable physical sensations that build up in the body called premonitory urges. These urges are difficult and often impossible to suppress, and the only way to alleviate the urge is to tic.

It is a bit like when we experience itching on our skin or tingling in our nose, sensations we relieve by scratching or sneezing.

Tics vary between people and fluctuate in frequency, type and intensity, which can be challenging to manage.

Some tics are brief movements and sounds, such as forceful blinking, facial grimacing, head jerking, sniffing, throat clearing and grunting. These are referred to as “simple” tics and are very common, particularly in young children.

Other tics involve more elaborate patterns of movements and sounds – often involving several parts of the body.

These are “complex” tics. They include motor tics like hitting oneself, kicking or dropping to the floor, and vocal tics like repeating words or phrases. This can include socially inappropriate terms such as slurs or swearwords.

It is believed the Tourette’s brain sometimes struggles to control “forbidden” impulses. A person may experience urges to say taboo words and phrases, or make inappropriate actions, when they see or hear certain things within their environment.

How common are tics?

Tics are very common among children, with simple tics occurring in up to one in five children aged between five and six. These normally resolve in a short space of time, with many people unaware they are tics.

For one in 100 children, their tics will persist and become more severe. Having both motor and vocal tics for at least 12 months, meets the diagnostic criteria for Tourette syndrome.

While Tourette’s typically first appears in early childhood, onset can also occur during adolescence and adulthood.

For most children, tics will peak during early puberty, typically between 10–12 years of age, before reducing.

But for about one in four people with Tourette syndrome, their tics will be lifelong. Around 50,000 Australians currently live with a life-long tic disorder.

The use of obscene and socially inappropriate words and phrases, referred to as coprolalia, only occurs in about 15–20% of people with Tourette’s.

Unfortunately, coprolalia is often what gets portrayed in media and entertainment, impacting the public’s understanding of Tourette’s.

Is there a cure?

Tourette syndrome currently has no cure.

Ideally, treatment should include evidence-based behavioural interventions for tics. However these can be difficult to access, with few psychologists trained in these interventions.

Other psychological therapies aim to address the person’s stress and anxiety – which are factors known to increase tics – but not their tics.

Medications are also commonly prescribed if the tics are impacting the person, but these are not effective for everyone and often have side effects.

An exhausting and disabling condition

The frequent urge to tic disrupts attention and concentration, and the tics themselves can impact many aspects of daily living, such as dressing, eating, watching TV, and even relaxing.

Tics can also cause discomfort and injury, such as muscle soreness, cramping, whiplash, dislocations and broken bones. The research I’ve done with colleagues shows two-thirds of people sustain injuries from their tics.

I was involved in a national survey in 2025 involving more than 200 people with Tourette’s and their caregivers. They told us about the challenges they faced including:

long wait times for diagnosis
little understanding of tics and the condition from health workers and teachers
a lack of support and limited treatment options
a severe negative effect on mental health.

The social stigma, bullying, exclusion and exhaustion of living with this condition often leads to significant mental health struggles.

Our research shows around 70 percent of people living with Tourette’s struggle with anxiety disorders and one in three experience depression. One in four adults and one in ten children with this disorder have attempted suicide.

People with Tourette’s want to be understood and accepted

Tics are not something they are doing for attention. They increase when a person is stressed, anxious or excited, and trying to hold them in can make them worse.

Not everyone experiences coprolalia but, for those that do, the inability to inhibit taboo language can lead to public scrutiny and cause embarrassment and shame. This leads to many avoiding social situations and a life of isolation.

Melissa Licari is a Senior Research Fellow in Child Disability, The University of Western Australia; The Kids Research Institute.

Where to get help

Help

Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason.

Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Murder of Chantal McDonald: Nathan Boulter jailed for at least 17 years

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nathan Boulter NZPA / David Rowland

A man who stalked then murdered a woman in her Christchurch home has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Nathan Boulter was sentenced in the High Court at Christchurch this afternoon by Justice Owen Paulsen after pleading guilty to murdering Chantal McDonald in July last year.

He was jailed for life with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

McDonald had been in a brief relationship with Boulter.

After she ended it, he harassed, stalked and threatened her, making nearly 600 calls in two weeks.

Boulter stabbed her 55 times with a hunting knife, as she arrived to her Parklands home with her children.

Chantal McDonald Supplied

More to come …

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

What do Trump’s latest tariffs mean for New Zealanders?

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 2, 2025. AFP / Brendan Smialowski

New Zealand exporters are relatively better off after the latest tariff move from the United States.

NZ Post wrote to exporters on Wednesday morning, explaining how the new 10 percent tariff will apply.

The levy came into effect late on Tuesday evening after the Supreme Court last week blocked many of President Donald Trump’s earlier sweeping import taxes. New Zealand exporters had previously been facing a 15 percent tariff.

The administration is applying the 10 percent levy to all imports, including those coming from New Zealand.

However, Trump – angered by the Supreme Court ruling – has threatened to raise the tariff to 15 percent but has not yet issued an official directive.

NZ Post said the measure was scheduled to last until 24 July unless extended or amended.

“In most cases, a 10 percent import duty will apply unless the item falls within an excluded category…

“Some product categories are excluded from the temporary import duty, including certain pharmaceuticals, electronics, passenger vehicles, aerospace products, and qualifying goods from Canada and Mexico.”

NZ Post said its tools and systems would be updated to reflect the new requirements and people could continue to send items as normal.

Part of doing business with US

Jarrod Kerr Supplied / Gino Demeer

Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr said a 10 percent tariff was annoying and a “good revenue generator” for the US government.

But he said it did not do a lot to divert trade. “Particularly in New Zealand where our currency is a bit weaker than where it was, that kind of helps digest that sort of traffic. From what I’ve heard from many of our exporting clients, particularly those going into the United States, the United States is quite a profitable market for them. They pay good prices. I got the feeling they could wear a lot of this.”

He said tariffs of 10 percent or even 15 percent, as previously expected to apply to many New Zealand exports, would just become part of the cost of doing business. “If it’s a 30 percent tariff and higher he [the US President] was originally throwing around, that means much more discomfort in markets and more diversion of trade elsewhere. You might just give up on the US and start exporting more to Australia or trying to get more into China or somewhere else. Isn’t it great we’ve got a free-trade agreement with India? These sort of things all matter a lot more.”

Trump was causing volatility and uncertainty at a time when businesses wanted less volatility and more certainty. “But I don’t think it’s enough to derail us.”

‘A winner in the short term’

Kelly Eckhold Newshub

Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said it was an improvement for New Zealand.

“We were on 15 percent and it does seem that the categories of exports that had concessions under the previous regime continue to have them, so beef and horticulture are not subject to that 10 percent tariff so in that sense we’re a winner at least in the short term.”

He said what happened in the medium term would depend on what the US decided to do. “[Trump] has this tool available to him for 150 days and he has indicated an intention to replace the previous tariffs with tariffs under different authorities. Those authorities require him to appeal to national security and also trade and balance of payments imbalance issues to justify them. Most of those things I think are difficult to apply to New Zealand’s exports. I’m hopeful we do have some uncertainty but the range of surprises can be capped.”

He was cautiously optimistic. “The really good thing I think is that the discretionary ability to raise tariffs to really high levels … that’s the power that’s been removed by the Supreme Court and that has been the thing that’s really raised uncertainty and driven behaviours in the last year.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Wellingtonians can swim in beaches at own risk after Moa Point sewage spill

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellingtonians can now swim at southern beaches after the sewage leak – but at their own risk.

The city’s southern coast has been off limits since the Moa Point treatment plant failed catastrophically on 4 February, sending about 70 million litres of untreated sewage to the sea daily. The no-go zones include Ōwhiro and Island bays, just a few kilometres from the plant.

Wellington Mayor Andrew Little announced on Wednesday that the city has returned to its regular system for updating residents about where it is safe to swim.

This means residents can check where it is safe to swim on the LAWA website and make their own informed decision about returning to the beaches.

“We have to be realistic and practical about what we’re asking people to do. Conditions can change rapidly. There are areas where the risk remains higher, such as near the short outfall pipe at Tarakena Bay,” he said.

Little advises residents to check the website before swimming and follow the advice on it.

“I do want to be clear: a risk remains, but monitoring results so far show that it is low and it is now up to people to decide how they respond to the current information,” Little said.

“I want to thank Wellingtonians and local businesses for their patience and understanding. Our city has rallied behind the workers who’ve been tireless in cleaning out the Moa Pt plant and walking the coast to keep people informed.

“Today’s progress marks a turning point, but we are far from the end of the journey. There is still a major infrastructure plant to restore, and lessons that must be learned through the Crown Review process.”

The government has launched an independent review into the Moa Point treatment plant failure.

It comes after the Wellington Water chair, Nick Leggett, resigned on 15 February, saying stepping aside would allow Wellington Water to focus on fixing the problems and restoring public trust.

Since the discharge began, an interagency group including National Public Health, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Wellington City Council and Wellington Water has been monitoring the water quality sample results.

If the short outfall is used, Wellington Water will alert LAWA immediately, who will continue to provide advice to the public about which beaches are safe to swim along the south coast. LAWA’s standard advice is not to enter the water during rainfall, or after rain for 48 hours.

Wellington Mayor Andrew Little and Wellington Water chief operating officer Charles Barker are speaking to the media from Lyall Bay beach. Watch it live in the player above.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Should e-scooters should be allowed in cycle lanes?

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ / Nick Monro

The government is proposing to make it legal to ride e-scooters in cycle lanes.

It is part of its work to “fix the basics” in the New Zealand transport system, with consultation opening today on two packages for rule changes.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said transport rules are not something many people think of until they run into a problem.

“It might be a parent unsure whether their 10-year-old is allowed to ride their bike on the footpath, a driver not clear how much space to give a cyclist, an e-scooter rider not sure if they can use the cycle lane, a bus stuck waiting to pull back into traffic, or a truck operator tied up in paperwork just to move an empty trailer between depots.

“We are fixing the basics by making sure the rules are clear, practical, and reflect how people actually use our roads every day.”

Transport Minister Chris Bishop. RNZ/Marika Khabazi

The first package focuses on lane use and everyday road rules, while the second focuses on heavy vehicles.

In the first package, the government is proposing to:

Allow children up to age 12 (inclusive) to ride their bikes on footpaths, helping keep younger riders safer and reflecting common practice;
Introduce a mandatory passing gap of between one and 1.5 metres, depending on the speed limit, to give motorists clearer guidance when passing cyclists and horse riders;
Allow e-scooters to use cycle lanes;
Require drivers travelling under 60 kilometres per hour to give way to buses pulling out from bus stops;
Clarify signage rules so councils can better manage berm parking.

Bishop said many children already ride on footpaths even though the current rule doesn’t let them.

“Bringing the law into line with reality, with appropriate guidance and expectations around responsible riding, will help families make safer choices.

“I acknowledge some pedestrians, including older people and members of the disability community, may have concerns. Education and clear guidance will be important, and parents and caregivers will need to ensure children ride at safe speeds and give way to pedestrians.”

The second package relating to heavy vehicles proposes:

Some permit requirements would be removed so rental operators can move empty high productivity motor vehicle truck and trailer combinations between depots and customers without unnecessary delays;
Driver licence settings would be updated so Class 1 licence holders can drive zero-emissions vehicles with a gross laden weight up to 7500 kilograms, and Class 2 licence holders can drive electric buses with more than two axles with a gross laden weight up to 22,000kg;
Signage requirements for load pilot vehicles would be made more practical;

[LI Overseas heavy vehicle licence holders would be able to convert their licences either by sitting tests or completing approved courses.

Bishop said these were “practical, common sense changes”.

“They give operators more certainty to get on with their work, reduce compliance headaches, and support the transition to low-emissions vehicles, all while keeping safety front and centre.”

Bishop said he encouraged everyone to have their say on the proposals, including parents, disability advocates, truck drivers and bus users.

“Good rules are built on common sense feedback from people who live by them.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Further delay in trial over Alan Hall’s wrongful conviction

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ / Simon Rogers

The High Court trial of two men charged over the wrongful 1980s conviction of Alan Hall has been further delayed.

It had been due to start in Auckland on Monday but one of the defendants was too unwell to attend.

At another hearing on Wednesday, the four-week judge-alone trial was pushed back to next Monday.

The men, whose names and occupations are suppressed, are jointly charged with wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice.

They earlier pleaded not guilty.

Alan Hall was jailed for life in 1985 for the murder of Arthur Easton, but was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2022 and awarded $5 million in compensation.

At the time Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann said it was a trial gone wrong, and that there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice and he should be acquitted.

Winkelmann said to conclude, it was clear that justice had seriously miscarried – either from extreme incompetence, or a deliberate strategy to achieve a conviction.

A third man facing similar charges to those in the current case died in 2024.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Care facilities turn to paper after MediMap hack

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ/Calvin Samuel

Care facilities have switched back to a paper-based system to manage medication, and are dishing it out by hand, while prescription portal MediMap is offline following a hack.

MediMap is used by some health providers in the aged care, disability and hospice sectors and the community to record medication doses and coordinate with pharmacies – and it includes people’s medication histories.

It was breached on Sunday, and the company has now taken the platform offline while it investigates.

Providers with the portal offline have told RNZ medication was now being organised the old-fashioned way – on paper.

A Nurses Organisation member at George Manning Lifecare and Village in Christchurch told RNZ they needed double the number of registered nurses on each shift just to give out medication.

Aged Care Association chief executive Tracey Martin said every care home had a “disaster” plan to fall back on in case of something like a system outage.

“Basically, they had to switch back to paper-based.”

“It certainly takes longer, it’s certainly more painful than the efficiencies that you get through a digital system,” Martin said.

Most of the questions being asked were: “Is my mum still getting her medication?” and “How are you making sure that she gets what she needs?”

FAQs released by MediMap

“Importantly, we have been advised that there is currently no evidence that medication charts or medication administration records have been altered,” it said.

What is the health agency saying?

Health New Zealand, while supporting the company’s investigation, said MediMap, as a privately owned company, was solely responsible for its security and it needed to do everything it could.

MediMap has declined an interview with RNZ, but has again been approached for comment.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Steel and Tube still in the red but outlook brightens

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ / Nate McKinnon

Steel manufacturer and distributor Steel and Tube has posted another bottom-line loss, but says it’s seeing signs of light at the end of the tunnel.

Key numbers for the 6 months ended December compared with a year ago:

Net loss $12.4m vs net loss $14.0m
Revenue $211.9m vs $196m
Operating earnings $1.2m vs $0.6m
Product margin 31.1% vs 28.7%
No dividend

Chief executive Mark Malpass said trading had been lumpy but the edge of a tough marketplace had been taken off by its purchase of a business last year.

“The acquisition of galvanising business Perry Metal Protection – a measured and strategic buy at the bottom of the cycle – has done exactly what we wanted: providing consistent high value earnings.”

He said the core steel business continued to struggle amid the stop-start nature of the recovery, and tighter margins as competitors fought for market share.

Malpass said Steel and Tube was a cyclical business and the broader economy was showing improvement.

“We are starting to see some positive signs – manufacturing demand is on the rise, Fast-Track projects will support the near term infrastructure pipeline, and the rollover of fixed mortgages to lower interest rates and easier access to credit will help to stimulate construction,” he said.

Steel and Tube has been trimming expenses, cutting $3 million in costs over the past year, and said it was focused on holding market share and keeping debt down.

Malpass believed the company was well-placed to benefit as conditions continued to improve.

“As a cyclical business, Steel and Tube is positioned for the upside, with significant operating leverage, a strong market position, a high-quality team, and a broad product and service offer that has been further enhanced by recent acquisitions.”

The company did not give any forecast but expected trading to keep improving in the second half.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

How ‘smart’ rainwater tanks can help keep platypus habitat healthy

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Russell, Research Fellow, Urban Stream Geomorphology, The University of Melbourne

A growing number of new housing developments feature a little known but powerful bit of tech: smart rainwater tanks.

That’s where the rainwater tank next to each house is fitted with a little computer to open and close a valve that releases water. Software can tell the valve to open to let some water out when, for instance, a storm is coming and you don’t want the tank to overflow. Or, it can keep it closed when you want to capture rainfall to boost household water supplies.

Our research is investigating new ways to network smart tanks together. When the tanks are part of a network, a computer program can keep track of what every tank is doing, and which ones need to release water and where.

Our project is implementing this smart rainwater tank technology to protect and restore stream habitats for platypus in Monbulk Creek, east of Melbourne.

We aim to scale up this ecologically-informed approach so it can be used anywhere, regardless of what species needs to be protected.

Smart water tanks have a small computer that controls a valve – the little grey box at the bottom – that controls release of water at key moments. Jess Lazarus, Author provided (no reuse)

Tanks for platypus

Our project, known as Tanks for Platypus, focuses on using a network of smart water tanks in Monbulk Creek to support local platypus populations.

Once widespread across Melbourne and surrounds, the iconic platypus is now listed as vulnerable in Victoria.

Reasons for this decline include urbanisation, changes to stream flows and habitat fragmentation and loss.

Platypus require water flow conditions that support waterbugs (their main food source). They also need space to swim and hide from predators.

The Tanks for Platypus project involves offering eligible residents in the Monbulk Creek catchment a free smart rainwater tank.

We aim to use these networked rainwater tanks and three urban lakes to provide more natural flow conditions for platypus. When finished, this smart rain grid will be distributed across both private and public land with the cooperation of local residents, schools and businesses.

What we did

We have developed a new algorithm that manages how water is released from tanks into waterways, to improve the habitat for platypus and other aquatic life in Monbulk Creek.

We surveyed the creek in detail and simulated flow to map creek habitat. We mapped how much habitat is underwater and where water is deep enough for a platypus to be fully submerged under different flow conditions.

Smart rainwater tanks are being installed as part of a network. Jess Lazarus, Author provided (no reuse)

We can now use this information to guide our stormwater release and storage algorithms. For example, when water is not deep enough for platypus to feed and hide, our algorithm requests releases from the rainwater tanks.

During dry periods, supplementing creek flow with water releases from these tanks could significantly improve habitat conditions for platypus.

At times, just 1 megalitre per day (less than half an Olympic swimming pool) can increase available habitat by more than 10%.

This makes the water available when it’s needed and reduces the risk of flooding due to tanks overflowing during rain.

In fact, our algorithms can calculate how much water the tank should release before a storm. This means the tank ends up almost full after a storm, keeping rainwater available for residents.

When smart rainwater tanks are part of a network, a computer program can keep track of what every tank is doing, and which ones need to release water and where. Mats Bjorklund, Author provided (no reuse)

Where to from here?

We are now investigating how our designs and findings in Monbulk Creek can be applied more broadly, including in high-density housing and new urban developments.

One ecological objective might be, for instance, to reduce incidents where water gushes from overflowing tanks into waterways, eroding streambeds and banks, and potentially disturbing native species. Another might be to boost water levels in local creeks or lakes during dry periods.

Algorithms could be programmed to meet these needs, as well as others such as providing water from the tank to the household water for toilet flushing and garden watering.

And those lucky enough to live near a waterway with platypus will also know they are doing their bit to look after a unique part of our Australian wildlife.

– ref. How ‘smart’ rainwater tanks can help keep platypus habitat healthy – https://theconversation.com/how-smart-rainwater-tanks-can-help-keep-platypus-habitat-healthy-269816

UK police finish search of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s property in Berkshire

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Max Mumby/Indigo

British police say they’ve finished searches of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s property in Berkshire following his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

The former British prince was released last Thursday, pending further investigation, after he was questioned at a Norfolk police station about his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US Department of Justice published millions of files related to Epstein last month, which revealed information that’s put a cloud over numerous high-profile figures in the UK and US.

It’s believed Mountbatten-Windsor was under investigation for his time as a trade envoy from 2001 and 2011.

Emails appeared to show him discussing confidential information obtained in that role with Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor had not commented on the latest allegations but had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The New Zealand government yesterday said it would back a move to remove him from the line of succession, should the UK government propose to do so.

Mountbatten-Windsor had already been stripped of his royal titles by his brother, and New Zealand’s head of state, King Charles.

Thames Valley Police Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright today said “Officers have now left the location we have been searching in Berkshire. This concludes the search activity that commenced following our arrest of a man in his sixties from Norfolk on Thursday.”

He confirmed their investigation is ongoing, but there were unlikely to be further updates “for some time”.

Searches of Mountbatten-Windsor’s property in Norfolk concluded last Thursday.

Former UK ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, was also arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, relating to his time as UK Business Secretary on Tuesday.

Emails released by the US Department of Justice appeared to show him discussing confidential information with the disgraced financier too.

He was released on bail later the same day, pending further investigation.

Mandelson hadn’t commented on the latest allegations, but had previously denied any wrongdoing.

He was removed as UK Ambassador to the US by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last September, when it emerged he’d maintained a relationship with Epstein after his conviction.

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Two people critically hurt as train and car collide in New Plymouth

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

The crash on Mountain Road in Lepperton was reported at 8.45am on Wednesday. Google Maps

Two people are critically injured after the car they were in collided with a freight train near New Plymouth on Wednesday.

Emergency services responded to the crash off Mountain Road, State Highway 3A in Lepperton around 8.40am.

A spokesperson for Hato Hone St John said a helicopter, two ambulances, and one operations manager attended.

Two patients in a critical condition were taken to Taranaki Hospital, one by helicopter, and one by ambulance, they said.

Fire and Emergency shift manager Alex Norris said firefighters had to cut the car’s occupants free from the wreck.

The Serious Crash Unit was investigating and the road was down to one lane.

Kiwirail chief operations officer Duncan Roy said the accident happened on the Marton-New Plymouth Line at a private level-crossing.

He said the train was heading north to New Plymouth and the crossing is controlled by stop signs.

“In line with our standard practice our driver will be given leave, and all of our staff involved will be offered support from KiwiRail,” he said.

“Emergency services are attending the scene and any further comment should come from the police.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Banks must provide cash services to customers, Reserve Bank says

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Services should include cash withdrawals, deposits and change, the RBNZ says. RNZ / Marika Khabazi

The Reserve Bank says banks should provide basic cash services
Services should be walkable distance in urban areas or driveable in rural areas
Services should include cash withdrawals, deposits and change
The RBNZ suggest banking hubs in addition to what individual banks provide
It says banks earn big enough profits to cover costs
The RBNZ is seeking submissions, which close on 10 April

The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) is suggesting the banking industry should be forced to provide basic cash handling services to consumers and businesses throughout the country.

The central bank has opened a six week consultation process to get public views on ensuring and maintaining a minimum level of cash in districts.

RBNZ director of money and cash Ian Woolford said providing and handling cash should be a basic banking service.

“We believe banks must provide cash services to customers, free-of-charge, because cash is an essential part of a customer’s relationship with their bank.”

He said banks had been reducing the places where customers could get cash, bank cash or get change, especially in rural areas, with about 40 percent of bank branches closed over the past decade.

“We want this to change, and we are open as to how,” Woolford said.

“Cash benefits society, as it is used for economic, social and cultural reasons, and as the steward of cash we are focused on ensuring the cash system is healthy and available.”

The bank cash hub – walkable, driveable

The RBNZ said the most efficient way to provide minimum access standards was a ‘multi-bank, full-service cash site’.

Such hubs would offer customers of any bank three types of cash service – cash withdrawals, cash depositing, and cash swapping of high denomination bank notes for lower notes and coins.

123RF

It said five full service hubs currently existed in Martinborough, Ōpōtiki, Twizel, Waimate and Whangamatā, but were only available to ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, TSB, and Westpac customers.

Several other locations offered only partial services, or were open only to account holders of the bank providing the service.

The RBNZ has been running a trial in Waipukurau with an automated teller machine which offers 24 hours a day allowing people to swap cash for bigger or smaller denominations, to withdraw cash, and soon to be able to deposit business takings direct into accounts.

The proposal said banks should be responsible for ensuring enough cash service sites around the country, it suggested 2.5 sites for every 10,000 people.

Urban sites should be in areas where there were at least 1,000 people within three kilometres walking distance.

Rural sites would cater for between 200 and 1,000 people and be within 15 kms drive, or no more than 30 kms for remote areas.

The RBNZ produced 66 district maps with suggested urban and rural locations for the hubs.

It said arrangements for supplying and collecting cash from districts should be worked out later.

The banks should pay, they make enough profit

Woolford said the benefits of making cash available outweighed the costs.

He said cash services provided benefits to the country of $2.83 billion a year, with an estimated annual cost to the banks of around $104m.

“This cost is negligible when compared to the more than $10bn annual pre-tax profits earned together by the banking sector.”

Woolford said several other countries were moving in the same direction, and research showed a high level of demand for cash with more than 70 percent of small businesses saying they would be adversely affected if cash was unavailable.

The RBNZ’s own research showed 80 percent of adults used cash sometimes, more than half store cash and 8 percent relied on cash as their sole means of payment.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Taranaki composting company fined $71k for stinking out its neighbours

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Remediation NZ’s Uruti site. Supplied

A controversial North Taranaki composting company has been fined more than $71,000 for discharging offensive odours described by neighbours as smelling like “faecal and pig effluent” from its site near Uruti.

The company pleaded guilty at the New Plymouth District Court to discharging odorous compounds between March and May 2024, when the discharges were not permitted by the resource consent held by Remediation NZ.

Site inspections from March to June 2024 by Taranaki Regional Council officers found a number of issues with the management of the site operations which contributed to “odour generation”.

This included uncontrolled venting of odours from compost piles due to insufficient capping materials and poor management of associated site operations resulting in the generation and subsequent discharge of offensive odours beyond the site.

Remediation NZ holds 10 resource consents at the site and conditions for these include that discharges of odour beyond the site’s boundary should not be “offensive or objectionable”.

Following the 2024 inspections, officers said the odour had an “unpleasant pig effluent character” and an “unpleasant faecal character” and was assessed as “offensive and objectionable”.

One inspection on 19 April 2024 detected an odour linked to the RNZ facility about 2.5km from the site’s entrance.

Assessments on 7 March and 24 April by the council were proactive monitoring while monitoring on 19 and 23 April, 11 May and 18 May were in response to complaints.

screenshot

‘Offensive odour can be pervasive and life altering’ – judge

Prosecutor Karenza de Silva told the court that on five of the six dates, the alleged occurrences of the odour was assessed as offensive and objectionable at a residential address.

The court heard a victim impact statement from a neighbour who rated the odour’s severity as between six to eight out of 10 when he made several complaints.

Judge MJL Dickey said there was no doubt the odour was objectionable during the site assessments and it was likely the offensive odours were also emitted at other times.

“Offensive odour can be pervasive and life altering. It is difficult to escape, and I have no doubt that those experiencing it would have been revolted and distressed. I find the effects of the offending were serious.”

Judge Dickey took into account measures the company put in place to improve systems and infrastructure, but the offending demonstrated the site was not being adequately managed. The company’s culpability was “highly careless”.

While a 25 percent sentencing discount was applied to the $95,000 fine starting point for Remediation NZ’s guilty plea, no discount was applied for the “belated” remedial steps which were necessary and not a circumstance for a discount.

A discount for good behaviour was also denied by the judge due to the company’s long enforcement history at the facility.

TRC had issued Remedation NZ 16 abatement notices and 34 infringement notices between July 2009 and January 2024.

Remediation NZ had eight previous convictions under the RMA, including a conviction in 2010 for five discharges from its site.

‘A hugely detrimental impact’

Council compliance manager Jared Glasgow welcomed the fine imposed on Remediation NZ given the company’s long history of failing to comply with its resource consent obligations.

“We are pleased with the outcome of this case as the odours have made life very difficult for those living near to the composting site,” Glasgow said.

“The victim impact statements show that the offending had a hugely detrimental impact on residents in the Uruti Valley. Our officers saw this for themselves during the inspections and this was why it was important to bring this prosecution.

“The level of the fine and the fact no discounts were allowed for mitigation or good behaviour reflect the seriousness of the case.

“Hopefully the $71,250 fine will act as a deterrent and a reminder to resource consent holders that they have a duty to follow the rules and ensure discharges are not negatively impacting people living nearby.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Scales corporation profits off the scale

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Harvest of Posy apples is under at Mr Apple’s Meeanee orchard near Napier. SUPPLIED/Mr Apple

Strong sales of premium apple varieties into Asia and the Middle East has led Scales Corporation to report a massive jump in profit.

The company’s net profit for the 2025 financial year was $117.7 million – a 137 percent lift on the year before.

Revenue was $899.9 million, up 54 percent on 2024.

The company’s horticulture division, Mr Apple, produced an underlying result of $65.2 million up 73 percent on the year before.

Managing director Andy Borland said horticulture delivered an outstanding result driven by increased apple export volumes and average prices.

“Mr Apple’s own-grown export volume was 21 percent up on last year, with our strategically important markets of Asia and Middle East comprising 84 percent of total fruit sold.

“Premium volumes accounted for approximately 74 percent of total export sale volumes, with significant growth in Dazzle and Posy as well as Red Sports varieties. We estimate that Premium apple varieties will account for around 80 percent of export volumes by 2027.”

Last year Scales also bought 240 hectares of apple orchards from Hawke’s Bay company Bostock.

Borland said the acquisition was a key component of this result, allowing it to fast-track its long-term strategy of investing in apple varieties targeted to the Asia and Middle East markets.

He said the company’s juice business, Profuit delivered another exceptional performance underpinned by strong sales prices in export markets.

Scales pet food business saw increased sales to South East Asia and The United States – the underlying result lifted 33 percent to $73.9 million.

It’s logistics arm which provides international freight services delivered another record underlying result of $7.6 million, an increase of 10 percent.

Borland noted logistics processed a significant increase in volumes due to strong volumes from the dairy sector and a positive cherry season, providing an extremely robust result for the division. It also benefited from strong apple volumes.

The outlook for the year ahead remains positive.

Company chair Mike Petersen said In FY2026, global proteins is expected to perform strongly and continue to realise the benefits of its increased investments.

“Mr Apple has commenced picking and packing for the 2026 apple season, with a crop of around 3.5 million TCEs forecast. Pricing is expected to be favourable.

“Logistics is expected to contribute positively and has seen continued strong air freight demand in the year to date,” he said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Pay equity backlash is ‘hyperbole’, Finance Minister says

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

Finance Minister Nicola Willis. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has dismissed claims the coalition’s pay equity changes amount to an abuse of power as “hyperbole”.

An unofficial select committee run by 10 former MPs from across the political spectrum has condemned the changes, arguing the government had violated the rule of law in retrospectively cancelling existing rights and remedies.

The law cancelled 33 claims from female-dominated workforces which sought to prove they were underpaid in comparison to similar male-dominated industries, and raised the threshold for future claims.

Willis went head to head with Labour’s Tangi Utikere on Morning Report’s weekly political panel this morning.

Labour’s Tangi Utikere. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Asked how the criticism “flagrant and significant abuse of power” sat with her, Willis said it was “hyperbole”.

“The legislation passed with a majority of support from Parliament and the reason it did is that there was agreement across the three parties of government that pay equity [is] important, we need to continue it in New Zealand, but the scheme that had been designed by Labour had gotten out of control, had become far too expensive, so we tightened up the scheme.

“That has resulted in $10.8 billion which was made available in last year’s budget, being invested in additional help for children with education needs and the health system and the police system and critical frontline services.”

Utikere pushed back.

“This is not hyperbole and I’ll tell you what, Nicola is right about one thing when she says this is how the parliament works; it works this way under the current government in not having a select committee process and ramming things through all stages under urgency in an attempt to avoid clear scrutiny at all costs.

“To hear that the minister responsible is simply not going to bother reading the report is hugely disrespectful to the many, many, many women who are directly impacted by this terrible decision that this government has taken.”

Pushed on how Labour would pay for the pay equity scheme, foregoing the roughly $10b in savings, Utikere did not address the question.

“We need to understand which claims have been paid out already, which new claims have started, but let’s have no doubt about this, Labour is absolutely committed to paying women what they deserve, unlike the current government.”

Willis said it was “typical” from Labour.

“Make the promise with no idea how to pay for it and actually, we know from history how Labour would pay for it. They would borrow more and they would tax more.

“The challenge that we have with that is that that is exactly the wrong recipe for our economy right now, simply borrowing and adding to the national debt, which they more than doubled last time they were in office, simply taxing New Zealanders more, destroying their disposable income, is not a way to solve problems.”

On the coalition’s introduction of ‘move-on’ orders for homeless people, Utikere said it was a “short term band aid” solution.

“[This] government has gutted public housing. Our focus is simple, on building more homes and making housing more affordable. And if you sort out those issues, then move on orders effectively become redundant.”

He did not say Labour would commit to scrapping the move-on orders.

Willis said the coalition had built more new state homes this term than the last government had in a “previously comparable period”.

“I don’t accept the case that this government isn’t working really hard on social housing for vulnerable communities. We are, this is an ‘and’ issue.

“It’s saying, do that support but also, if there are people who continue to disrupt the peace of others, who terrorise retail shops to the extent that some have closed down here in Auckland because it’s not safe for their staff, then actually there needs to be a social response to that.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Dozens of jobs on offer at coolest place on Earth

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, in 2023. Antactica NZ/ Anthony Powell

Antarctica New Zealand is on the hunt for 40 people willing to brave the sub-zero temperatures and work in one of the most remote places on Earth.

The organisation is looking for everything from medics to chefs, electricians and engineers for its next summer and winter seasons at Scott Base.

Antarctica NZ chief executive and scientific advisor Professor Jordy Hendrikx told Morning Report it’s not necessary to have been to Antarctica,

“Basically, we are running a small town down there. We have to manage our own water, we have to manage our own power, manage our own sewage and also all the food and all the services will be provided to support science,” he said.

“Any of those support roles are really critical for us to ensure that we can be successful with our mission down in Antarctica.”

Hendrikx said the majority of roles are for the ‘summer season’, which runs in Antarctica from September through to February. During summer in Antarctica, the sun doesn’t set.

About 12 staff stay all through winter until October, which is a 13-month season at Scott Base.

The positions are in hot demand, as going to Antarctica, for many people, is a bucket-list opportunity.

Hendrikx said successful applicants will have specific qualifications and a good, can-do attitude.

“We need that real can-do attitude and a willingness to be part of a family, and to work down there and to live down there as part of a really tight community,” he said.

“It’s more than a job.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Trump’s plan for strikes on Iran carries major risks – and the US military knows it

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

As the US continues to assemble military assets in the Middle East and Europe ahead of a possible strike against Iran, Donald Trump is running up against two problems that have plagued American presidents before him.

The first is civilian misunderstanding of war. Fresh from what he sees as quick and easy victories against Iran last June and Venezuela this January, Trump wants military options which allow him to damage Iran at little risk or cost. But unfortunately for the president, no such option exists. And there are reports – which Trump denies – that his top general has warned him about the risks involved.

Despite the damage it has sustained in recent conflicts with the US and Israel, Iran maintains formidable capabilities. It has the ability to harass and perhaps close key shipping lanes, launch missile strikes against US forces and allies across the region, and perhaps carry out terrorist attacks throughout the world.

Trump’s repeated threats to overthrow the Iranian government make it much more likely Tehran will use these capabilities rather than exercising restraint as it did when the US attacked it last year.

According to several media outlets, Trump’s military advisors have informed him of these risks. The president is reportedly not taking the news well. CBS News reports that Trump is “frustrated with what aides describe as the limits of military leverage against Iran” and is pushing for options that will give him a painless victory.

These exchanges between the military and its civilian masters are reminiscent of the interventions of the 1990s. During the Clinton administration, the White House repeatedly pushed the Pentagon to come up with low-risk plans for engagement in Somalia and the Balkans. The president and his staff wanted to be seen as doing something about urgent humanitarian tragedies, but they also didn’t want to risk a political upset by getting American soldiers killed.

Top military officers, particularly the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Colin Powell, pushed back against the civilians. War entails risk, they told the White House, and American soldiers could die if risks were not weighed appropriately.

In his memoirs, Powell recalled his response to a question from Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright: “‘What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?’ I thought I would have an aneurysm.”

As so often with Trump, he is pushing this dynamic of civilian ignorance meeting military expertise to extremes. The current build-up against Iran started not with a clear strategy or objective, but a presidential social media message promising Iranian protesters that “help is on the way”. His current frustration stems from the difficulty of translating that vague promise into an actionable military plan.

‘Help is on its way’: the US president urges Iranians to keep protesting against the regime: January 2026. TruthSocial

Pushing at the limits of action

The second theme that is shaping and limiting Trump’s options is imperial overstretch. However powerful the US military is, it has limits – and in recent years, it has been pushing against them.

In particular, the US has a critical shortage of key missile defence munitions such as Thaad interceptors and Patriots. These platforms would be vital in defending against Iranian retaliation, but the US has been burning through them in recent years by providing them to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The navy has also run down its own stocks of SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, which are vital for defending the fleet and other American forces.

The result is that the US lacks the munitions to sustain a long, high-intensity conflict with Iran. If it gets into one, it will have to draw missiles from elsewhere, leaving its forces in Europe and the Indo-Pacific even more understocked than they already are. And because the country has a limited production capacity of these missiles, it could be literally years until the US can replenish its stocks and be ready for contingencies in places like Taiwan.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet lands on the USS Abraham Lincoln, part of the build-up of US forces in the MIddle East. Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy via AP

For a president who promised to avoid unnecessary overseas entanglements and put “America First”, this risk of overstretch is particularly ironic. But it is a function of Trump’s lack of serious strategic vision.

‘Strategic incontinence’

One name for it might be “strategic incontinence”. Rather than focusing on a few vital national interests and assigning capabilities accordingly, Trump seems to pinball between different regions of the globe without regard for whether the US has the capabilities to achieve his goals. He seems to tweet his way into commitments – too many of them – without asking basic questions about military capabilities or missile stocks.

Trump may still attack Iran. He has already put himself in a difficult position, engaging in a massive military build-up and threats of action before he knew whether he could follow through, or at what risk. For a president who is particularly concerned with avoiding looking weak, backing down now might be out of the question.

If Trump does attack Iran despite the warnings of his military advisers, it will be one of the riskiest military decisions that a US president has taken in a very long time. The geopolitical consequences and political price will be his to bear, but could affect us all.

– ref. Trump’s plan for strikes on Iran carries major risks – and the US military knows it – https://theconversation.com/trumps-plan-for-strikes-on-iran-carries-major-risks-and-the-us-military-knows-it-276775

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel – and never aspired to be a painter to begin with

By The Conversation -

February 25, 2026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Swartwood House, Associate Professor of Art History, University of South Carolina

When a 5-inch-by-4-inch red chalk drawing of a woman’s foot by Michelangelo sold at auction for US$27.2 million on Feb. 5, 2026, it blew past the $1.5 million to $2 million it was expected to receive.

Experts believe it to be a study for the figure of the Libyan Sibyl, a female prophet who appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo painted the iconic frescoes from 1508 to 1512, but he first sketched out the overall composition and details in a series of preparatory drawings. Only around 50 of these drawings survive today.

This was an exciting sale for reasons outside that eye-popping sum. Held in private collections for centuries, the drawing only came to light after the owner sent an unsolicited photo to Christie’s auction house. There, a drawings expert recognized it as one of the relatively few remaining studies for the Sistine frescoes.

As an art historian who specializes in the Italian Renaissance, I’m excited about the sale not because of the money it fetched, but because of the attention it has brought to Michelangelo’s lifelong devotion to drawing, a medium he prized over painting.

‘Not my art’

Art historians know a lot about Michelangelo through the letters and poems he penned, along with two biographies written in his lifetime by intimates Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi.

In 1506, Pope Julius II put Michelangelo’s sculpting work on a papal tomb at St. Peter’s Basilica on hold, redirecting the funds intended for the tomb to the renovation of the basilica itself.

Michelangelo responded by closing his studio. He ordered his workshop assistants to sell off its contents, abandoned 90 wagonloads’ worth of marble and left Rome in disgust.

In 1508, Julius and his intermediary, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, were able to lure Michelangelo back to Rome with the promise of a 500-ducat payment and a contract to paint the Sistine. Despite accepting, the artist went on to complain relentlessly about his new commission. He wrote to his father that painting “is not my profession” and told the pope that painting “is not my art.”

Sculpture, not painting, was central to Michelangelo’s identity.

In the Condivi biography, which Michelangelo approved and helped shape, the artist is said to have abandoned painter Domenico Ghirlandaio’s workshop around 1490 to train in the Florence sculpture garden of powerful arts patron Lorenzo de’ Medici. Michelangelo would later joke that he became a sculptor as an infant, thanks to the breast milk of his wet nurse, who was the daughter of stonemasons.

Beyond his enthusiastic embrace of sculpture and resentment over the Sistine – what he called the “tragedy of the tomb” – Michelangelo found painting in fresco to be backbreaking work.

Michelangelo griped about painting the Sistine Chapel in a poem he sent to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia. Wikimedia Commons

“I’ve grown a goiter from this torture,” he wrote to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia in an illustrated poem. “My stomach’s squashed under my chin, my beard’s pointing at heaven, my brain’s crushed in a casket, my breast twists like a harpy’s. My brush, above me all the time, dribbles paint so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!”

“My painting is dead,” he concludes. “I am not in the right place – I am not a painter.”

A grand design

The caricature that accompanies Michelangelo’s poem shows not only a cantankerous and restless mind, but also his use of drawing to reflect its inner workings.

The early 16th century witnessed a rise of drawing, with Michelangelo leading the way. Rather than simply copying or providing models for painting, drawing became understood as an important intellectual, exploratory and creative exercise

Michelangelo’s biographer Vasari famously used the term “disegno” to mean both a physical drawing and a work’s overall “design” or concept, giving the artist an almost godlike creative power.

This double meaning is reflected in the title of the hugely popular 2017 exhibition of Michelangelo’s drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York”: “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer.”

Michelangelo created many drawings for the Sistine that reflected the different meanings of “disegno.” There were his sketches of models, along with his architectural renderings and schemes to organize the huge space. Then there were the full-size “cartoons” he drew to transfer his designs directly onto the ceiling itself.

Michelangelo’s scheme for the decoration of the vault of the Sistine Chapel, along with his studies of arms and hands. © The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-SA

The good foot

Michelangelo also made many studies of individual body parts and gestures for the Sistine, including eyes, hands and feet.

In a drawing for the Sistine ceiling that’s now in the British Museum, various hands – perhaps modeled after his own – repeat across the right side of the page. Feet were especially important to the overall design of the human figure, and they stand at the intersection of Michelangelo’s interests in Classical art and human anatomy.

Contrapposto, or the Classical “counter-poise,” was the iconic stance for standing figures in paintings and sculptures. It features the trunk of the body centered over one leg with its foot planted, and the other bent with the foot perched on the toe. Michelangelo’s “David” stands in contrapposto, and even doctors today are impressed by the anatomical precision of the muscles and veins of each foot.

The relaxed left foot of Michelangelo’s ‘David.’ Franco Origlia/Getty Images

The Christie’s red chalk drawing of the foot was likely done from a live model, with Michelangelo showing the elegance of the Libyan Sibyl prophetess through her dramatically arched foot.

In the finished fresco, Sibyl’s body is a kind of elegant machine. The musculature of her extended arms, her coiled torso and her pointed toe all work in concert. This small drawing shows how the charged energy of a single body part could contribute to the overall “disegno” of the massive fresco.

While the process of painting the ceiling was arduous, the process of conceiving it through drawing was obviously rewarding for Michelangelo.

The finished fresco of the Lybian Sybil in the Sistine Chapel. Wikimedia Commons

Drawing as the linchpin

Despite the popularity of the Sistine frescoes, Michelangelo rarely returned to painting after completing them. In 1534, Pope Clement VII commissioned him to paint the “The Last Judgment” on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. But only after Clement died later that year – and Clement’s successor, Pope Paul III, gave Michelangelo the extraordinary title of Chief Architect, Sculptor, and Painter to the Vatican Palace – did the artist begin work on the altar wall.

While many people today may think of the Sistine frescoes or Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” when they think of the Italian Renaissance, those artists did not think of themselves primarily as painters.

In a famous letter of introduction to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo elaborates on his many skills in creating fortifications, infrastructure and weaponry. He boasts about his ability to build bridges, canals, tunnels and catapults. Only after 10 paragraphs does he include a single sentence admitting that he, in addition, “can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and in painting can do any kind of work as well as any man.”

Like Michelangelo’s, Leonardo’s drawings show a voracious mind at work. They explore, rather than simply observe, everything from military machines to human anatomy. In 1563, Michelangelo would go on to be named master of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence, which aimed to teach drawing and design as the underlying skills necessary for sculpture, architecture and painting.

Drawing, it turns out, was the art that unified the many pursuits of the “Renaissance Man.”

– ref. Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel – and never aspired to be a painter to begin with – https://theconversation.com/michelangelo-hated-painting-the-sistine-chapel-and-never-aspired-to-be-a-painter-to-begin-with-275788

Chilly tinge to temperatures in South Island as summer winds up

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

NIWA’s map shows rain is set to hit the South Island by 6pm on Thursday. Screenshot / NIWA / Earth Sciences New Zealand

It’s shaping as a chilly end to summer for the South Island as a cold snap brings low temperatures over the weekend.

A stunning day is forecast on Wednesday for most of the North Island and the top of the South Island with temperatures reaching the mid to late 20s, NIWA says, but the bubble is set to burst after that.

NIWA weather is forecasting that a front will deliver “some of the coldest air of the year so far to the South Island”.

️A sharp front is set to bring some of the coldest air of the year so far to the South Island, while a tropical low lurks north of NZ heading into the weekend.
Full video is up now on the NIWA site + app. Worth a watch. Cheers! -Chester pic.twitter.com/Er4y4E2FnL

— NIWA Weather (@NiwaWeather) February 24, 2026

MetService has forecast a high of just 15 degrees for Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill on Friday, and temperatures won’t get much warmer over the weekend.

MetService meteorologist Mmathapelo Makgabutlane told Morning Report from Wednesday night a cold front will deliver chillier temperatures for Southland, Otago, Canterbury and up to parts of Marlborough.

The second cold front, due towards the end of the weekend, would continue the trend of cooler weather, especially along the south and east coasts of both islands.

“The South Island gets it from Friday and through the weekend but it does reach the North Island into Monday.”

NIWA meteorologist Chester Lampkin said a west south-west change will lead to showers and even thunderstorms across parts of the South Island on Thursday.

By Friday temperatures will be 3C to 5C below what is considered average in the South Island, he said.

Makgabutlane said it was also the middle of the tropical cyclone season at present.

Meteorologists would be keeping a close eye on a possible low pressure system forming near Vanuatu.

“It all depends on how it develops and also where it ends up moving … at this early stage it looks like it should be staying away from us but I think it is one to keep an eye on.”

Modelling would be updated daily with the latest atmospheric conditions and how it was tracking, she said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Man arrested after allegedly shooting victim at their front door in Auckland

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

A man and a woman, who is co-accused, will also appear in the Manukau District Court today. RNZ / Liu Chen

A 34-year-old man has been arrested after a shooting in Manurewa, Auckland.

Detective Inspector Shaun Vickers said officers were called to a property on Marumaru Lane at about 8.45pm on 18 February.

“The offender has gone to the door and asked for the victim, before allegedly shooting him when he came to the door,” Detective Inspector Vickers said.

“The victim was taken to hospital in a serious condition, and was very fortunate to have not suffered life-threatening injuries.”

Armed police carried out search warrants in Takanini and Manurewa in south Auckland at 3pm on Tuesday.

“The alleged offender was not located at either address, but as a result, he handed himself into Papakura Police Station not long afterwards and was taken into custody,” Vickers said.

Two arrests have now been made over the offending.

A 29-year-old woman, who is co-accused, will appear in court on Wednesday after initially being arrested last week.

The man will also appear in the Manukau District Court on Wednesday, jointly charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and commission of an offence with a firearm.

Vickers said further arrests cannot be ruled out as the investigation continues.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Health NZ and PSA reach deal after months of negotiating and strike action

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

The agreement included a pay increase of 2.5 percent from December 2025 and a further 2 percent from December this year. 123RF

After months of negotiating and strike action, Health New Zealand and the union for allied health workers have reached a deal.

The Public Service Association (PSA) said its more than 12,000 members – including physiotherapists, anaesthetic technicians, and social workers – voted overwhelmingly to accept the union-backed offer. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/582490/health-workers-should-accept-proposed-collective-agreement-union

The new collective agreement included a pay increase of 2.5 percent from December 2025 and a further 2 percent from December this year, in addition to a $500 lump sum payment.

The union said there was also a commitment to a new pay scale for sterile sciences technicians (who work with medical devices in operating theatres and wards), to improve safe staffing and set up a $400,000 national professional development fund.

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said while the union didn’t get everything it asked for, it accepted it was the the best offer it could get for now.

She put the result down to industrial action.

“These workers went on strike during the Mega Strike on 23 October 2025 as well as a further strike late last year and their actions have made a difference.

“This outcome after seven months of bargaining shows what workers can achieve when they stand together.”

Fitzsimons said allied health workers delivered essential care to New Zealanders every day and the settlement was recognition of their contribution.

She said voting was now underway for two other collectives that covered more than 4000 members including mental health and public health nurses.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Parking shortages ‘a failed experiment’ in policy planning – Auckland councillor

By Evening Report -

February 25, 2026

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ / Nick Monro

An Auckland City councillor says a lack of parking in developments is leading to anxiety and disputes.

Directives for developers to provide a minimum amount of spaces were outlawed in most major cities in 2020.

But the government is looking at repealing the change and bringing back minimums for spaces.

Franklin Ward councillor Andy Baker told Morning Report something needs to change

“You’re seeing developments occurring in areas where there’s not sufficient public transport. People need vehicles, and there’s no ability for them to park, and so you’re getting people parking on footpaths, you’re getting people parking in empty sections in developments, on neighbouring properties,” he said.

“It’s causing anxiety, it’s causing disputes, it’s a failed experiment that needs to change.”

Baker said the issue would be well debated around the council table.

“I think there’s enough support for it around, if it makes sense and it’s defendable. I think there’d be support for it because I just don’t think this has worked out.”

The reality was some people still needed vehicles, he said.

“We’ve got to try and find a balance, and I don’t think there’s balance in what we’ve got at the moment.”

Baker said there was a way to find that balance.

“It’s been proven over the years that you can have affordable properties with car parking.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand