Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

Kensington Palace is refusing to comment on a new image of the Princess of Wales, after concerns it's been manipulated.

The picture posted this morning to celebrate Mother's Day in the UK shows Catherine with her three children.

But, The Associated Press, Reuters and Getty have pulled the image from circulation.

ITV royal correspondent Chris Ship says this photo was meant to dampen speculation around the Princess, but it's done the opposite.

"You've now got three or four major international picture agencies who have all pulled it for various reasons, I think one said there were fears it had been manipulated, another said they had serious post-production concerns."

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Australia has fought back from being five wickets down for just 80 runs to beat New Zealand by three wickets in the second test in Christchurch, taking the series 2-nil.

Wicketkeeper Alex Carey scored an unbeaten 98, while Ben Sears took four for 65 for the Black Caps.

Sportstalk host Jason Pine explains further.

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There were concerns The Holdovers was going to win 'Best Original Screenplay' at today's 96th Academy Awards after plagiarism accusations.

The award instead went to Anatomy of a Fall.

Screenwriter Simon Stephenson - who also wrote Paddington 2 - claims The Holdovers' story is remarkably similar to a script he wrote in 2013.

Hollywood reporter Sean Mandell says by not winning, they've dodged a dicey situation.

"The Guild has said - in those correspondence anyway, not publicly - they said that there's nothing really they can do, because it has to be a lawsuit matter."

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If the speculation around Kate Middleton's health was at a fever pitch last week, it is off the charts today because of the photo.

This drama is very much developing at the moment.

By the time the photo-is-manipulated revelation came out, it was very late in the UK already. It's still very early morning over there, so I would expect things to start happening again in the next few hours as people wake up.

But let me bring you up to speed on where we're at with this, because I think this has the potential to be quite a serious problem for the royals, depending on how they handle it.

Because of the rumours around Kate's health, Kensington Palace put out a photo of Kate and the kids, taken by William for Mother's Day.

But then- people started seeing the problems. Kate wasn't wearing her wedding ring and at Charlotte’s left hand, the sleeve disappears in a weird way. Behind wee Louis, a step has an unnatural break in the line, and there's a duplication on his right sleeve by the shoulder.

Kate's one hand is blurry while the other is crystal clear- and they should actually be the same because they’re at the same focal point for the camera.

And there is a tree in the background that some say shouldn't have leaves at this time of year.

As a result, major international agencies like The Associated Press, Reuters and Getty have all issued a kill notice on the photo and told media outlets around the world to delete it immediately because as AP says- "It appears that the source has manipulated the image."

The source being the royals.

What makes this worse is that Kensington Palace is refusing to comment on it. Which means we can't even ask the question- was this photo just photoshopped (minor problem) or was it totally artificially created and the family never sat for it (major problem)?

Now hopefully there is a very simple explanation. Like maybe they just mashed multiple photos together to get the best take of each person.

So maybe if Louis had his eyes closed in one shot and Charlotte had her eyes closed in another shot, they took the best shots of everyone and mashed them into a single photo. It might be something simple like that.

But whatever it is, they need to start talking fast.

Because they put this photo out to quell speculation and rumours about Kate Middleton’s health and they have just turbo-charged those rumours.

Let's be clear, it's not that they owe anyone an explanation over a private health problem, but it’s that they need to protect Kate Middleton from what they've just done- and what they've unleashed on her.

People are getting so nutty over this that Kate Middleton got papped by TMZ on a school run last week.

If people were fascinated then and hungry for that photo, can you imagine the pressure for a pap now?

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The price of gold has hit a record high, over $3,500 an ounce.

Development West Coast CEO, Heath Milne, says this is great news as a number of gold mining and refining projects are underway. 

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Mothers Ruined Gin co-owner Jo Davy joins Heather to discuss their battle with energy drink giant, Energy Beverages LLC, who claim they own the word Mother. 

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Health Minister Shane Reti joins Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss the governments newly announced health targets for 2024.

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US Correspondent Dan Mitchinson joins Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss President Joe Biden's State of the Union address.

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Television New Zealand (TVNZ) chief executive Jodi O’Donnell has told Newstalk ZB's Heather du Plessis-Allan she didn’t want to cut any shows, but it had been a day of hard decisions.

“It’s only a proposal at this stage," O'Donnell said. 

"We have spent the seven months working across the business trying to find cost savings,” she said

However, it hadn’t been enough, she said.

“We need to do something more significant. So we’ve had a look at all our options. I’ve been open about the fact there are no ‘sacred cows’ and we need to find ways to stop doing some things because we need to cut costs."

O'Donnell said TVNZ was investing more than $40 million into news and current affairs: “So we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs.”

She said, though, TVNZ’s operating model was more expensive than the revenue it was making.

"We need to find ways to stop doing some things because we need to cut costs."

Pressed on specifically which programmes would be cut - including possible changes to Shortland Street - O’Donnell said any show could be affected: “We’re looking at everything.”

“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep our operating model in line with our revenue.

“We are a commercial business. That’s the remit we need to work with.

She said TVNZ’s decision-making was partly based on which shows would work in a “digital world”.

O’Donnell confirmed TVNZ did not consider cutting 1News down to a half hour.

"What we see with the one-hour news bulletin, it’s an incredibly profitable hour of broadcasting and it also delivers incredibly strong on our digital platform."

She said there had been a continual decline in advertising revenue across this financial year.

“Our competitors these days are not [Newstalk ZB] or Sky or Warner Brothers, but they are Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations.

“Ninety cents in every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of New Zealand Media and Entertainment, TVNZ, Stuff - any of the local broadcasters, and that’s a challenge.

“I mean you still can’t advertise on television on Sunday morning at the moment. That’s how outdated that [Broadcasting] Act is.

“I think, particularly in this environment of trust, it’s important that is really clear and it’s still independent."

She said she was ambitious about TVNZ’s digital future.

“We offer a broad range of content. Local is still an incredibly important part of that. As we build out that platform, that’s the challenge we have in front of us."

There were no other cuts planned, she said.

- NZ Herald

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Judith Collins is using Chat-GPT to help her write her speeches. 

She leads a group of MP's in Parliament trying to figure out how to responsibly use AI. 

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