Morning Report for Friday 19 November 2021

6:08 AM.The number of daily Covid-19 cases registered in Germany has soared to 65,000 - by far the highest figure there since the pandemic began.

Germany's Parliament is scrambling in the wake of the… Read more Audio

6:21 AM.Mangroves are home to New Zealand's most endangered bird, the fairy tern or tara iti, and now, its habitat has been given legal protection.

The High Court has ruled mangroves are to fall under… Read more Audio

6:40 AM.Tauranga leaders are frustrated locals haven't turned out in force to get tested and vaccinated for Covid-19, now that the virus has popped up in the region.

Two new cases were detected in the Bay of… Read more Audio

6:45 AM.The tourism and hospitality industries are racing to find ways to attract and retain more staff.

They will need an estimated 80,000 new workers over the next five years.

Leaders of the sector have… Read more Audio

7:10 AM.Householders face losing over a billion dollars worth of sunlight and views under radical housing intensification law changes.

A government cost-benefit analysis puts these price tags on the plans to… Read more Audio

7:14 AM.The Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, says the worst-case scenario Covid-19 modelling for when the Auckland border reopens, is 16,000 cases a week during January.

But that the country is… Read more Audio

7:25 AM.Some principals are surprised and angry that there's been no attempt to keep unvaccinated parents out of schools.

Just days after banning unvaccinated teachers from work, the Education Ministry… Read more Audio

7:28 AM.The Government can't say what it would take for a Kainga Ora tenant to get kicked out of a state home.

It denies it has a hard-line 'no eviction' policy despite not evicting any Kainga Ora tenants in… Read more Audio

7:33 AM.Fire investigators say a short circuit on a powerpole caused the Lake Ōhau scrub fire. Insurance costs for the October 2020 fire are sitting at more than $35 million.

It claimed more than 5,000… Read more Audio

7:37 AM.A traffic light Christmas is on the way, but freedoms will depend on the level of vaccination.

So what can the South Island expect?

Timonthy Brown reports. Read more Audio

7:42 AM.A New Zealand emergency team sent to Papua New Guinea this week to support the Covid-19 response wants to give local health workers more confidence about treating the virus.

PNG has been struggling… Read more Audio

7:47 AM.Māori leaders are calling for an investigation into the government's pandemic response, which they say, is prejudiced against tangata whenua.

The Māori Council and other senior leaders have filed an… Read more Audio

7:52 AM.A ski company has plans to expand its ski fields in Queenstown, which would see a 230-metre tunnel through conservation land.

NZSki is seeking permission from the Department of Conservation to open… Read more Audio

7:56 AM.A blood micromoon lunar eclipse will descend over Aotearoa's skies this evening at just after 8 o'clock.

The near-total elipse will be the longest of its type to reach New Zealand since the year… Read more Audio

8:11 AM.As New Zealand readies for more Covid-19 cases, warnings about the ability of public hospitals to cope, are escalating.

There are 289 Intensive Care Unit or High Dependency Unit beds at the moment… Read more Audio

8:18 AM.Aucklanders rushed to book getaways out of the city as soon as the Government announced the border will reopen on December 15.

A home management firm, Bachcare, says within two hours of the… Read more Audio

8:22 AM.Tonga has elected an all-male Parliament, with nine new faces making it in and only five of the current Cabinet ministers returning.

The Prime Minister, Pohiva Tu'ionetoa retained his Tongatapu 10… Read more Audio

8:26 AM.There's mounting concern for the welfare of the Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai - who hasn't been seen in public since she made sexual assault allegations against a top government official.

State… Read more Audio

8:30 AM.The All Blacks must lift one last time if they're to beat France in Paris on Sunday morning and end a challenging year on a winning note.

Fresh in their minds will be last weekend's resounding loss… Read more Audio

8:37 AM.ACC staff are still facing huge workloads and a backlog of jobs stretching into the tens of thousands, despite a new system designed to improve efficiency.

The new case management system, up and… Read more Audio

8:47 AM.The names of soldiers in the Māori Battalion from Tairawhiti will be flown across their skies this Saturday as part of a vaccination drive.

Organisers are asking the community to do their bit in the… Read more Audio