Nine To Noon

Announcing the winners of the first ever Nine to Noon Short Story Competition! Judges Tina Makareti and Harry Ricketts have selected five stand-outs among almost 1,500 stories entered into the competition. The five winning stories will be adapted for radio and broadcast on Nine to Noon in November. Harry and Tina tell Kathryn what stood out for them and why.

A mysterious outbreak of tics in girls and young women in some western countries has now surfaced in New Zealand. The teenagers are presenting with Tourette's-style ticks, but the malady has no medical basis. Neurologists say the behaviour has surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, and appears to have been spread by social media.

Film and TV correspondent Laumata Lauano joins Kathryn to talk about the third season of romance thriller You, in-time-for-Halloween film Night Teeth and drama mini-series Maid...all screening on Netflix.

Australian author and educator John Marsden joins Nine to Noon again to talk about why he thinks kids need to take more risks. It's a philosophy he's had throughout his career as an educator and author, and has been a motto at Candlebark, one of the two schools he's founded in his home state of Victoria in Australia.

Technology commentator Sarah Putt joins Kathryn to look at this week's US congressional hearing that sought to investigate the harm that social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat might be causing children and teenagers, and whether legislation could help.

Hannah August reviews The Magician by Colm Toibin, published by Macmillan.

Multi-award winning American writer Jonathan Franzen is back with an epic novel about family, religion and culture. Crossroads is set in the 1970s and focuses on the Hildebrandt family - father Russ, a pastor, his wife Marion and their four children. The novel is the first of a proposed trilogy, primarily set in the hippy-ish parish youth group called Crossroads, which three of the Hildebrandt teens are involved with.

UK correspondent Hugo Gye looks at the job ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak in today's budget as the country emerges from the pandemic, the illness that's forced the Queen out of attending COP26 in Glasgow, a slight decline in the number of Covid cases and a call from British actress Joanna Lumley to bring back rationing to help tackle the climate crisis.

A New Zealand tech company is working to address the staggering cost of re-work on construction sites. It's estimated the cost of fixing shoddy work or correcting mistakes can represent between 10 and 20 percent of a project's total cost. Conqa wants to change the way the construction industry operates, by helping projects get it right, first time.

Judge Andrew Becroft retires tomorrow as Commissioner for Children after five years in the job he says he's given everything to. He says while some progress has been made, far too many tamariki experience abuse, neglect, poverty, and poor health and education outcomes. Judge Becroft has long campaigned for an end to Oranga Tamariki youth justice facilities which he says cause more harm than good.