Afternoons

Time for our weekly travel segment Heading Off, your chance to hear about some amazing adventures without leaving the comfort of your home. Although, with today's destination, comfort isn't necessarily the number one priority. We're off to Papua New Guinea with one of our listeners Frank Bollen, who's been living in New Ireland while volunteering with VSA. He's also had the chance to explore fascinating parts of the country, including Bougainville.

Time now to catch up with Our Changing World's Claire Concannon. And across a two-part deep dive the show has been investigating the controversial plans to de-extinct the moa.

To write It Gets in Your Blood: Lives of a Racecourse, Marty Smith spent 10 years documenting life at Hastings Racecourse. The book is part memoir, part portrait of a changing industry. Along the way, readers meet the trainers, jockeys, horses and the other characters at the centre of our horse racing industry. Author Marty Smith spoke with Susanna.

Scorpio Books' owners have decided that now is the time to expand - and works are underway at a new location in the city. The shop is also celebrating its 50th birthday this year. To talk bookshops, reading trends and how Christchurch is faring, Scorpio head buyer Bel Monypenny chatted to Susanna.

Things are heating back up in the middle east. After a period of relative calm, Iran and the US have resumed exchanging fire. This morning - NZ Time - the US Military announced it has destroyed 5 Iranian oil tankers, in retaliation for attempted Iranian attacks on a US Navy Warship. In Europe, the war in Ukraine grinds on, while Germany has accused Russia of being behind an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport - an allegation Moscow strongly denies. And with Russia heading into parliamentary elections later this month, there are growing questions about what Vladimir Putin might do next - and whether Europe is preparing for the possibility of a much wider confrontation with Russia. Friend of the show Retired Major General John Howard spoke to Susanna. He is a former New Zealand Chief of Defence Intelligence and also a former Deputy Director at the US Defence Intelligence Agency in Washington DC.

All over the world, people just aren't having babies anymore. Journalist and author Anna Louie Sussman says years of society putting economic growth and individual success ahead of shared wellbeing has made it harder for young people to imagine a future where they want to have kids. Anna has been reporting on population decline and reproductive issues for more than a decade and choosing not to have kids has become a vote against the future. Her new book is called "Who Gets to Have Kids? Creating a Family in an Age of Uncertainty".

Each week we get your help to solve a dilemma. This week we're looking at whether a daughter in law should insist on requiring her mother-in-law to swaddle their baby when she babysits.

Tim Batt joins Susana to discuss what's hitting headlines in the world of technology. This week he'll look at whether our LG TVs are spying on us, The OpenAI Hugging Face hack and chatbots.

Claire Maybe reviews Green Sea: Lost in the New Zealand Bush by John Summers, Hide by Rebecca Hawkes, and The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper.

It's time for Mayoral minutes, where we speak with a local mayor about the challenges they're facing, how they're working to solve them and what makes their community special. Today we're heading to the Horowhenua Mayor District. Susana spoke to Mayor Bernie Wanden.