Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Don't dream, it's over. The Warriors still have a mathematical chance, but their playoff chances are out of their own hands after an agonising 24-22 loss to the Broncos tonight. The Auckland club will need to rely on some improbable results from the teams around them, even if they win both of their remaining games. Although the Warriors have showed great spirit with their late-season revival, this...

A 24-year-old in the US has spent six years creating AI that helps users draft legal letters. If you tell the chatbot what your problem is, it will let you know what legal language to use. Do Not Pay creator Joshua Browder says the cases it's designed to help for are not rocket science to get out of. "What the robot lawyer will do is talk to the user, and instantly match it with a legally correct...

Tony Blair, the British prime minister who deployed troops to Afghanistan 20 years ago after the 9/11 attacks, says the U.S. decision to withdraw from the country has “every Jihadist group round the world cheering.” In a lengthy essay posted on his website late Saturday, the former Labour Party leader said the sudden and chaotic pullout that allowed the Taliban to reclaim power risked undermining...

The hospitality sector has questions about enforcement of the Covid tracer app. The Government's making scanning or manually signing in compulsory, in the hope to improve contact tracing. It will apply to businesses and events, and come into effect seven days after the next change in Alert Level. Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White told Kate Hawkesby they still don't know how it wi...

I talked at the start this week about crime in the CBDs and how it’s on the rise, dangerously so.   Businesses are exasperated, retailers are at their wit’s end, city dwellers are fed up.  And it’s not like the people running these inner-city business associations haven’t been agitating for action here.   They have, as I said earlier this week, been flagging this for more than a year now.   It‘s n...

Children aged 12 to 15 can get the jab from the start of next month, but there might still be a barrier in their way.  Parents and caregivers who are already eligible, can bring their children with them before then.  But, Waikato University legal expert Claire Breen told Kate Hawkesby a Ministry of Health Covid survey found some parents are still hesitant about vaccinating their children.  "About...

Chances are you've already asked this question to close friends and family.  'Are you getting the Covid vaccine'?    Sometimes it feels like you've started talking about religion and politics at the dinner table.   It really can divide some people.  But it does beg another question, whether or not it's okay to ask?   Tim Dare is a medical ethicist at Auckland University and he told Kate Hawkesby c...

A Hamilton community service expected to pick up 500 kg's of unwanted food yesterday from the likes of restaurants and cafes to redistribute.   It ended up collecting two tonnes, which has been redirected to feed crisis centres throughout the city.  It's called Kaivolution and started up just before last lockdown.  Manager Jo Wrigley told Kate Hawkesby Delta has made their job even tougher than pr...

This time yesterday I was saying how hopefully this lockdown would be short and sharp.  Oh how much can change in 24 hours, that now looks like a pipe dream. But I was trying to stay optimistic, take it one day at a time, have a good attitude about it.  But then I saw the 1 o’clock update. Oh my gosh. It brought everything back didn’t it?  I tried, I really did, but I wanted to stick needles in my...

An economist says an Official Cash Rate rise in October is on the cards, but it depends on how this Covid-19 outbreak goes.  So far, ten people have tested positive for the virus, but early modelling shows 50 to 120 people could've been infected before the lockdown.  The Reserve Bank has kept the OCR at 0.25 percent because of Alert Level Four.  NZIER principal economist Christina Leung told Kate ...

Thousands of people who visited locations of interest will need to get tested for Covid-19 over the coming days.  Otago University Professor of Biochemistry Kurt Krause told Kate Hawkesby it's crucial that people get tested, as soon as they can.  "It's so important not to let this wait, because the Delta variant is much more rapidly transmissible, and if we wait too long then we could get behind."...

Frustration is growing around frontline police not being made a vaccination priority.  Police Association President Chris Cahill believes this is a breach of work safe legislation, and they’re looking at legal action.  Lawyer Chris Patterson told Kate Hawkesby the union definitely has a leg to stand on, in the eyes of the law.  "All employers, which includes the New Zealand Police because they are...

Did you, like me, feel your heart skip a beat when the news flashed across your phone yesterday afternoon that officials were investigating a positive community Covid case?  Especially for those of us in Auckland, given it was in the Auckland community, of course it was. It was always going to be.  My sister and I have discussed this a lot in recent days, she lives in Christchurch and we were deba...

Results of genome sequencing are due back this morning.  Auckland University Covid modelling expert Shaun Hendy told Kate Hawkesby it could tell us whether Auckland is in lockdown for seven days, or several weeks.  "If the whole genome sequencing points us back to a known case, then there's a good chance we will be out of this in that time. Otherwise, the situation is very uncertain."  LISTEN ABOV...

Concerns Coromandel peninsula GP's will be inundated with people seeking a Covid-19 test. There are eight locations of interest in and around the western side. Coromandel District Councillor John Morrissey told Kate Hawkesby there are no testing stations on the Coromandel. "I'm hoping the Ministry of Health will step up and we might get some testing stations. As for GPS, we haven'tthat many of the...

It’s never feels good to read about crime stats, especially when they’re getting as bad as they are in our CBDs, but even more so when it’s entirely preventable. “More than 1000 people have been assaulted in Auckland's CBD this year, many of whom have been randomly punched by strangers while enjoying a night out on the town,” according to the Herald. It reported new Police stats showing a sharp ri...

There's confidence our Government's working hard to get New Zealanders, and people who helped our Army, out of Afghanistan. Forty Defence Force staff are being sent to help with evacuations - possibly due to leave tomorrow. Former Labour MP Chris Carter, who worked for the UN in Afghanistan, told Kate Hawkesby Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's promised to send a Hercules to Kabul Airport as quickly...

Farmers are getting ready to make more noise over government regulations. Thousands of tractor-riding farmers brought their dogs to towns across New Zealand last month for the Howl of a Protest - against changes on freshwater and climate change mitigation. Groundswell New Zealand Co-organiser Laurie Paterson told Kate Hawkesby the Government has remained silent. “Perhaps James Shaw and David Parke...

Warning: Distressing content Thousands of Afghans rushed into Kabul's main airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban that they held onto a military jet as it took off and plunged to their deaths. At least seven people died in the chaos, US officials said, as America's longest war ended with its enemy the victor. The crowds came while the Taliban enforced their rule over the capital o...

Got my jab yesterday. And here’s the rub on that. It was easy as. No queues, no faffing around, very efficient, very slick, very well organised. The jab itself is a non-event – and no one is more needle phobic than me, so if I didn’t feel it, you certainly won’t. I was, to be perfectly honest with you, vaccine hesitant. I felt like I was in no rush to get it, I didn’t need it, I thought it was too...

Another country, another top 10 finish for Lydia Ko. Whether it's the United States, France, Singapore, Japan or Scotland - it doesn't seem to matter when it comes to the form of the New Zealander. Ko blitzed her final round to finish tied for second at the Scottish Open at Dumbarnie Links in Fife, nine days after taking bronze at the Tokyo Olympics. Ko shot a nine-under par 63 which included seve...

Afghanistan will be on the Government's agenda today. Taliban fighters have swept into the capital Kabul forcing thousands to flee the city, including Afghan's president. This morning's Cabinet meeting will discuss how New Zealand could potentially help evacuate civilians who helped this country in the past. Meanwhile, an international security expert doubts the United States or the UN, will ask u...

Concerns our first responders are coming under attack more frequently. $13 million has already been paid out by ACC this year for assault-related injuries. More than 3000 ambulance staff reported being verbally or physically attacked last year. Ambulance Association Chairman Mark Quin told Kate Hawkesby it's not just ambulance staff. “There's the same sort of level of violence that's been experien...

Afghan officials say embattled President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country as the Taliban moved further into Kabul. Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to brief journalists told The Associated Press that Ghani flew out of the country. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed Ghani had left in an online video....

The Government's decision to start opening the border in the New Year is either a complete flip-flop or a deliberate tactic to scare us into getting vaccinated. For the past 18 months, the strategy has been to keep Covid out, whatever the cost. We've endured a total national lockdown, regional restrictions, worker shortages, family unable to come home and so on. And at the beginning, most of us we...