Nine To Noon

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is a well-known design writer and his landmark book At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design was the Montana Book Awards Non-Fiction Winner in 2004. He was a co-author of The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Design since 1940, which was shortlisted for the same prize in 2011. Shelter is his first novel, and it's a love story spanning two decades set in Auckland, between builder Joe and the enigmatic Leo, who teaches him an appreciation for music and literature. It's also a story of love for Auckland and its heritage, as Joe becomes a property developer determined to save the city's history from vanishing.

2021 was a bumper year for mergers, acquisitions and takeovers and Rebecca says this year it is shaping up to be the same, with the NZ tech sector in particular is off to a flying start. The total value of New Zealand's mergers and acquisitions transactions for 2021 was $20.4 billion - a 400% increase on the year before, according to an analysis published by Simpson Grierson at the end of last year.

Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb of University Book Shop Dunedin reviews This Mortal Coil: A History of Death by Andrew Doig, published by Bloomsbury. Bronwyn says: It's a fascinating history of how and why we've died in the past and how changing our lives has changed our deaths. Erudite, clear and surprisingly lively!

A small Hamilton company has been credited with saving hundreds of film festivals around the world since the outbreak of the pandemic. Shift72 provides a secure and personalised online video platform with a focus on the film festival market. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Shift72 has helped almost 400 film festivals move online, and it counts some of the world's biggest festivals among its clients; including Sundance, London, New York, Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. Kathryn speaks with David White, founder and chief executive of Shift72.

In US politics, President Joe Biden tries for diplomacy with Russia while former President Donald Trump faces legal challenges. Also Ron says Covid is easing but tensions over restrictions persist. Ron Elving is Senior Editor and Correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR News.

Scientists are claiming a landmark in the process to create sustainable low carbon nuclear fusion energy, in an experiment which recreated the energy process that powers the stars. The experiment, conducted by a team in Oxford in the UK only lasted a few seconds and created just enough energy to boil sixty kettles. But in a JET reactor with a casing capable of withstanding temperatures fifteen times the heat of the middle of the sun (150 million degrees centigrade) a record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy was created. Scientists are calling it a breakthrough, in an experiment not attempted in a quarter of a century. Kathryn speaks with Head of Fusion Science at European research consortium EUROfusion, Professor Volker Naulin who designed and ran the experiment.

As Omicron infections escalate, so is concern from Pasifika outreach organisations about whether Government and public health initiatives endorsing home isolation, and community care are going to keep Covid positive people, who live in large households, safe. Some hospitals services are strained, and then there's the sobering figure from Auckland's Middlemore hospital, that one in 10 patients presenting to the Emergency Department are testing positive for Covid. The hospital serves the South Auckland community which has many multi-generational family households. Kathryn talks to Counties Manukau DHB Chief Medical Officer Dr Andrew Connolly, Pacific healthcare provider South Seas Healthcare Trust CEO Lemalu Silao Vaisola Sefo and to Dr Debbie Sorensen, who is the chief executive of the Pasifika Medical Association and she is also at the helm of Pasifika Futures, which is a Whanau Ora commissioning agency.

Kennedy has the story of "Lucky," a kereru chick that is being raised by its parents on photographer Rod Morris's property in Broad Bay, on the Otago Peninsula. He also talks to Kathryn about a kereru restoration project being conducted in the Auckland suburb of Kohimarama.

Foods high in dietary fibre support gut health but most of us don't consume enough of them, says Australian research dietitian, Megan Rebuli. She tells Kathryn Ryan why fibre - especially resistant starches - are the focus of the new CSIRO Gut Care Guide.

Neale, Ben and Kathryn will discuss the future of the mandates and look at the political management and messaging around the ongoing and growing protest at Parliament.