Morning Report

News from the rural and farming sector.

A brief update from the business sector.

German public prosecutors are investigating a 43-year-old German man on suspicion of murdering Madeleine McCann, the British girl who disappeared in Portugal in 2007.

Overnight, investigators said they believed the girl was dead.

A spokesperson for the McCann family, Clarence Mitchell, said Madeline McCann's parents were still hopeful their daughter was alive.

Germany correspondent Thomas Sparrow has more.

Minneapolis mourns George Floyd at a memorial service. Back home, just released documents show police involved in the Armed Response Teams trial failed to keep proper records of almost all their callouts. We have the latest on how a trans-Tasman travel bubble will work. As we consider a shift to Level One, there's still confusion about the rules around contact tracing.

First there was 'quake brain', now there might be 'Covid brain'.

Researchers found people who experienced trauma - like the Christchurch quake - had significantly poorer visual memory than others who had not.

Professor Richard Porter is the lead researcher from the University of Otago in Christchurch.

Queenstown's new welfare hub opens its doors to the community today.

Thousands of people have sought welfare in the resort town as job losses pile up.

Reporter Tess Brunton is in Queenstown and speaks to Corin Dann.

As we reported earlier this week, Labour's Māori electorate MPs are returning to the party list this year after a bold play in 2017 saw them sweep all seven seats.

Last election's decision to stay off the list was designed to wipe out the Māori Party and make room on the Labour list for greater Māori representation.

Labour's Maori caucus co-chair Meka Whaitiri said the strategy worked with 13 Labour Māori MPs in government and the Māori Party gone.

Political commentators Morgan Godfery and Shane Te Pou speak to Kim Hill.

English language schools are warning their 500-million-dollar-a-year industry is in a critical state because of dwindling student numbers.

School managers say they cannot wait until next year for the return of foreign students.

They want to know when students will be allowed to return so they can decide whether to lay off staff and go into hibernation.

RNZ's education correspondent John Gerritsen had this report.

Whisking a child abroad, away from one of its parents, looks set to be treated differently by the courts from now on.

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of a mother who argued that forcing her son's return to Australia would put him at grave risk.

She asked judges to force the father making the complaint to provide his criminal history and family court records.

The case sets a precedent whereby courts can demand background information from both parents.

Ben Strang has been following this case for the past 18 months, speaks to Kim Hill.

We've banned single-use plastic bags and now Greenpeace wants New Zealand to become the first country in the world to ban plastic drink bottles.

Greenpeace estimates New Zealand produces close to one billion single-use plastic bottles every year.

They say that plastic often ends up in the sea, where it can break up and be eaten by seabirds, and microplastics can be ingested by fish.

Holly Dove is from Greenpeace.

She speaks to Kim Hill.