Chris Friedman and girlfriend Alona, after the boat they were on sank in Akaroa. Photo: Chris FriedmanA passenger aboard a tourist boat that ran aground outside Akaroa Heads on Banks Peninsula on Saturday says some on board were panicked and crying, when they realised the vessel was in trouble. More than 40 passengers and crew were evacuated to nearby boats, when the Black Cat Cruises catamaran ran into difficulty at Nikau Palm Valley Bay about 12.20pm Saturday. "We put on our life preservers and we saw that a number of other vessels, private vessels, were surrounding us. Black Cat Cruises said it's the first time in more than 40 years that anything like that had happened.

Photo: Pool / John Kirk-AndersonConvicted double-murderer Scott Watson has been declined parole for a fifth time, with the parole board suggesting he address a number of their concerns ahead of his next appearance later this year. Dressed in a standard-issue prison uniform grey tracksuit, Watson sat alongside his lawyer Kerry Cook at the hearing on Friday. "If I disregarded my safety plan, I think in no time I would just fall over, flat on my face." She said specialised assessment would help to better understand the personality aspects of Watson's risk, which informed what he was capable of and the approach taken for his release. Watson is due to reappear before the parole board in November.

ERO is unable to tell RNZ if it's making more recommendations for support or intervention in schools than in the past. Photo: Getty ImagesOne in five schools recently scrutinised by the Education Review Office needs external support or intervention. ERO was unable to tell RNZ if it was making more recommendations for support or intervention than in the past. However, it said it was "building a tracker" to indicate what types of support or intervention it recommended most. Among the 21 review reports recommending support or intervention, 17 called for new action and five recommended continuing existing measures.

“Everyone’s calling it a meteorite.”The International Meteor Organisation shared to Facebook early this morning that an 11-tonne Chinese rocket re-entered the atmosphere at 12.39am UTC (1.39am NZT). The rocket re-entered the atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean, 800km south of New Zealand, according to the US Space Force. “I thought I was going a bit insane.”Carl saw green and red in the sky. “It had a really long green tail.”On popular Facebook group Vic Deals, one user posted, “I just saw the most mental-looking shooting star over Wellington”. Sammy Carter is a journalist for the New Zealand Herald covering news in the Wellington region.

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Police are continuing to investigate the incident that took place at the Adams Flat Rd home shared by Dr Clark and her partner Malcolm Duff. The Otago Daily Times understands Dr Clark was allegedly stabbed multiple times in the back during the incident. Dr Clark was community minded and was always willing to take student vets under her wing. Police had completed a scene examination and were appealing to the rural community for information on the suspected homicide of Dr Clark yesterday. "It’s a rural community, so most people in the rural community know each other.

Glenn Manning has put his barbecue-style food truck The Smokin’ Que in liquidation. PHOTOS: SUPPLIEDA Christchurch chef who helped police catch a suspected car thief has put his business owing $247,000 in voluntary liquidation. The Smokin’ Que co-owner Glenn Manning handcuffed and restrained one of two youths on the run after they were spotted in a stolen vehicle. The company, registered in 2020, was placed in liquidation by Mr Manning and joint shareholder Hannah Comyns. Mr Hunt said the director took professional advice before placing the company in voluntary liquidation.

With the rise of NZ First making a Labour/Green/MP Government less likely (thanks to Eru, Doc, Mariameno and alienating woke identity politics inside the Greens), the question this election year, can the NZ Left win, and should it? NZ Labour have lost their mojo and aren’t sure what they stand for any longer. They also recognise the need for a united front with the Māori Party in any post election negotiations with Labour which will force Labour away from being incremental. There is still a scenario where the Māori Party hold onto 4 Māori electorates and with a low Party vote generates an MMP Overhang. So what are the best, worst and most likely outcomes this year for the NZ Left in the 2026 Election?

Following his 'True Patriots of NZ' protest in Auckland's Victoria Park, Brian Tamaki urged followers to withhold their vote in this years upcoming election. Video / NZ HeraldLoad moreSign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.

From Wednesday, MSC — the world’s largest container shipping company — will include Port Chalmers as a stop on its shipping route linking New Zealand and China via Australia. Port Otago customer general manager Craig Usher said the news was "big" and represented new export and import capacity for Otago and Southland. Port Chalmers’ inclusion in MSC’s Asia-Oceania network meant Dunedin would now have a direct flow of products to and from North Asia, Mr Usher said. Port Otago previously had access to a CMA CGM-operated service, which was withdrawn in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the past two years, MSC serviced Port Chalmers via a trans-ship service to Tauranga, utilising its Oceania 2 loop service.

They sought a 15% sentence reduction for the impact of the October 7 attack and their mental health. Photo / Jason OxenhamHowever, having read reports showing the men grew up with ADHD and had PTSD from supporting October 7 survivors, he said the attack went some way to explaining their poor decision-making. Therefore, he found there was some causative link between the attack and their drug offending, granting them a 10% sentence reduction. Senyor and Etan then hired an Airbnb and on February 18 went to the Auckland hotel and picked up the products containing cocaine. Judge Dawson set a starting point for Etan of eight years’ imprisonment.

To do this best, firstly, you should:Make the low-risk fund a PIE cash fund. If yes, sell units in that fund to top up your cash fund and leave the bond fund alone, as suggested by our correspondent. Second: if the share fund has gone down, leave it alone, and check if the bond fund has gone up. If yes, move a year’s worth of spending from the bond fund into the cash fund. Once it recovers – or your share fund recovers – you can top up the cash fund from either.

It was the content, as much as the delivery, of Hipkins’ speech that should concern the Government. Finance Minister Nicola Willis clearly couldn’t hold back her response until her scheduled appearance before the Finance and Expenditure Committee the next morning. Taking National’s first call after Hipkins, she tried to paint the Prefu fairy tale, as just that, a fairy tale. Her case boils down to this: that those Prefu forecasts were wrong and unreliably rosy. Finance Minister Nicola Willis defends the forthcoming Budget at the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I know that sounds dramatic, but most people don’t get any symptoms of kidney disease until they’ve only got about 10% of kidney function left. According to Kidney Health New Zealand, about 400 people are on the kidney donation waiting list in the country at present. About one in 10 Kiwis was living with kidney disease, but many of them would not know because of the lack of symptoms until the disease was well advanced, a Kidney Health spokesperson said. “Māori are twice as likely to get end-stage kidney disease, Pacific people are more than three times likely to get end-stage kidney disease,” Walker said. Through the programme, the scholarship gave her the opportunity to study the implications of kidney disease in northern Ghana.

Trump’s recent attempt to oust another Fed governor, Lisa Cook, and his administration’s investigation into Powell over renovation costs at the bank, have sparked worries about Fed independence. Economic challengesWarsh, who is from New York, was once known as an inflation “hawk” favouring higher interest rates to curb price hikes. As Trump continues to call for lower interest rates to boost the economy, all eyes will be on whether Warsh defends the bank’s independence in the face of politics. The selection ends a race that narrowed to four contenders – Warsh, Fed governor Christopher Waller, Rick Rieder of BlackRock and Trump’s top economic adviser Kevin Hassett. The decision caps a closely watched search for a successor to Fed chair Powell, whom the President has repeatedly lambasted for not cutting interest rates more swiftly.