Earlier this week, Jasmin Paris became the first woman to win The Spine Race, a 431km endurance running event in the UK.
Jasmin broke the previous record by 12 hours, finishing 15 hours ahead of the next competitor but even more amazingly expressed milk for her baby on the way.

Jasmin Paris makes history by becoming the first female winner of the Montane Spine Race, completing the 268 miles in 83hrs 12mins 23 seconds

Hong Kong to many New Zealanders is simply a holding stop on the way to Europe and the rest of the world.
However, once you've stepped outside the airport, a surprising world awaits you.
Travel blogger Juliette Sivertsen told Lorna Subritzky that she was expecting to be surrounded by markets, but found an alive, vibrant city mixed with English and Cantonese cultures brimming with arts and culture. 
She says that it features traditional elements of the Asian experience alongside contemporary elements, including a hotel focused on 'effortless living'. 
Siversten spoke of the glamour of Hollywood Road and the constant night life, including one inside a Victorian-era jail.
LISTEN TO JULIETTE SIVERSTEN TALK WITH LORNA SUBRITZKY 












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How bout those pretty lights? There’s something seriously magical about seeing Hong Kong Island’s nightscape reflected on the water while sipping champagne on a private sightseeing boat 😁 No, not bragging at all! I’m in Hong Kong to check out the rebirth of @ovolohotels Central hotel. And the city is blowing me away at every viewpoint. Have you been to Hong Kong before? What were the things that stood out for you?
A post shared by Juliette Sivertsen (@snorkelstosnow) on Jan 14, 2019 at 11:12pm PST

Hong Kong to many New Zealanders is simply a holding stop on the way to Europe and the rest of the world.
However, once you've stepped outside the airport, a surprising world awaits you.
Travel blogger Juliette Sivertsen told Lorna Subritzky that she was expecting to be surrounded by markets, but found an alive, vibrant city mixed with English and Cantonese cultures brimming with arts and culture. 
She says that it features traditional elements of the Asian experience alongside contemporary elements, including a hotel focused on 'effortless living'. 
Siversten spoke of the glamour of Hollywood Road and the constant night life, including one inside a Victorian-era jail.
LISTEN TO JULIETTE SIVERSTEN TALK WITH LORNA SUBRITZKY 












View this post on Instagram

How bout those pretty lights? There’s something seriously magical about seeing Hong Kong Island’s nightscape reflected on the water while sipping champagne on a private sightseeing boat

It’s that time of year: school’s country wide are opening their doors for a new year.
It can come as a welcome relief to parents after the long summer break, but it can cause anxiety in kids.
How does a parent cope with that?
Gwendoline Smith is a clinical psychologist, speaker, blogger and author.  She also works closely with the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland to provide guidance to school councillors.
Her book, The Book of Knowing was originally written for young people to help them understand the way we think and create resilience.
She told Lorna Subritzky that it is very natural for kids to have uncertainty about change.
“But a bit of uncertainty about change doesn’t equate to have an anxious child.”
Smith says that parents shouldn’t be too worried, as anxiety is just being uncomfortable and it can’t kill anyone.
She says that parents could easily teach children breathing techniques, which helps to re-stabilise them and distracts them from what they are worried about.
“The important thing to remember is that anxiety has a 37.3 per cent contribution from the genetics. Therefore, the kid with high trait anxiety, will be very easily startled, and when they’re startled, it freaks them out.”
Smith says that she learnt last year that a number of correspondence students are part of that system is because of anxiety.
She says that some correspondence teachers struggle with how to teach parents of these kids who think this is the best course of action for their children. Smith says more parents need to face up to the fear of these situations rather than fleeing from it.
“You only make the problem worse by saying ‘this is a terrible thing that happened to you, so what we’re going to take you out of mainstream life and wrap you in cotton wool at home.”
LISTEN TO GWENDONLINE SMITH TALK WITH LORNA SUBRITZKY ABOVE

It’s that time of year: school’s country wide are opening their doors for a new year.
It can come as a welcome relief to parents after the long summer break, but it can cause anxiety in kids.
How does a parent cope with that?
Gwendoline Smith is a clinical psychologist, speaker, blogger and author.  She also works closely with the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland to provide guidance to school councillors.
Her book, The Book of Knowing was originally written for young people to help them understand the way we think and create resilience.
She told Lorna Subritzky that it is very natural for kids to have uncertainty about change.
“But a bit of uncertainty about change doesn’t equate to have an anxious child.”
Smith says that parents shouldn’t be too worried, as anxiety is just being uncomfortable and it can’t kill anyone.
She says that parents could easily teach children breathing techniques, which helps to re-stabilise them and distracts them from what they are worried about.
“The important thing to remember is that anxiety has a 37.3 per cent contribution from the genetics. Therefore, the kid with high trait anxiety, will be very easily startled, and when they’re startled, it freaks them out.”
Smith says that she learnt last year that a number of correspondence students are part of that system is because of anxiety.
She says that some correspondence teachers struggle with how to teach parents of these kids who think this is the best course of action for their children. Smith says more parents need to face up to the fear of these situations rather than fleeing from it.
“You only make the problem worse by saying ‘this is a terrible thing that happened to you, so what we’re going to take you out of mainstream life and wrap you in cotton wool at home.”
LISTEN TO GWENDONLINE SMITH TALK WITH LORNA SUBRITZKY ABOVE

Jami-Lee Ross has turned the spotlight back on his National Party colleagues, but who is really to blame for the continuing crisis?
The embattled MP re-entered the media this week after giving an interview about his mental health breakdown last year, which followed a week of conflict with the National Party. 
In his first interviews, he revealed a MP was under investigation for sending him an abusive text he said nearly pushed him towards suicide.
That MP was revealed on Friday to be Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie, who Ross had had an affair with. 
National is trying to ignore the renewed scandal, but 1News Political Reporter Katie Bradford said that is easier said than done.
"Not only are they going to have Jami-Lee Ross sitting in parliament in a couple of weeks time, they've the cloud over Sarah and Dowie and what is going to happen to her."
Bradford told Lorna Subritzky that her continued presences "keeps this issue in the spotlight, and that's the last thing they want".
However, PR consultant Ben Thomas says that this is another example of Jami-Lee Ross "blame shifting" onto everyone else.
"JLR is trying to sweep all of this under the carpet by talking about a police investigation into a single text that was sent two months before this very genuine health crisis.
"He's now leaning on this mental health crisis, which most reasonable people will say was probably provoked by his own actions, and now he's using this to backfill everything else and blame everyone else."
The three also discussed KiwiBuild, the possibility of a new Blue-Green party, and John Tamihere's mayoral chances. 
LISTEN TO THE SUNDAY PANEL ABOVE

Jami-Lee Ross has turned the spotlight back on his National Party colleagues, but who is really to blame for the continuing crisis?
The embattled MP re-entered the media this week after giving an interview about his mental health breakdown last year, which followed a week of conflict with the National Party. 
In his first interviews, he revealed a MP was under investigation for sending him an abusive text he said nearly pushed him towards suicide.
That MP was revealed on Friday to be Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie, who Ross had had an affair with. 
National is trying to ignore the renewed scandal, but 1News Political Reporter Katie Bradford said that is easier said than done.
"Not only are they going to have Jami-Lee Ross sitting in parliament in a couple of weeks time, they've the cloud over Sarah and Dowie and what is going to happen to her."
Bradford told Lorna Subritzky that her continued presences "keeps this issue in the spotlight, and that's the last thing they want".
However, PR consultant Ben Thomas says that this is another example of Jami-Lee Ross "blame shifting" onto everyone else.
"JLR is trying to sweep all of this under the carpet by talking about a police investigation into a single text that was sent two months before this very genuine health crisis.
"He's now leaning on this mental health crisis, which most reasonable people will say was probably provoked by his own actions, and now he's using this to backfill everything else and blame everyone else."
The three also discussed KiwiBuild, the possibility of a new Blue-Green party, and John Tamihere's mayoral chances. 
LISTEN TO THE SUNDAY PANEL ABOVE

The notorious Fyre Festival was promoted as an elite concert event in the Bahamas, promising its attendees beachside villas, top-notch cuisine and nonstop partying with celebrities and social-network influencers on sandy beaches over two weekends in the spring of 2017.
Instead, as most everyone knows, Fyre was a disaster, becoming Instagram infamous for serving up "a tsunami of Schadenfreude," as one observer puts it. Most of Fyre's selfie-obsessed attendees, who'd paid thousands of dollars to attend, were stranded on a gravel spit with little food, water or shelter, and worst of all, spotty internet access. Their suffering was exquisite and, admittedly, a fine comeuppance.
"White people love camping," joked "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah when news broke of the festival's utter failure. "Unless it's a surprise."
Now, for reasons that easily dovetail with the same anxieties and lessons of the Fyre debacle, there are two competing documentaries out this week on streaming TV. The first, released in a hurry Jan. 14 on Hulu, is co-directors Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst's "Fyre Fraud"; the second, premiering Friday on Netflix, is director Chris Smith's "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened."

Each project casts some shade on its rival. The Hulu film managed to get an interview with Fyre Festival impresario Billy McFarland before he headed off to federal prison on two counts of wire fraud; the director of the Netflix film says the directors of the Hulu doc paid McFarland for the interview. The Hulu directors have admitted to paying McFarland, but say the Netflix film is more compromised from within, because it is co-produced by the same social-network marketing agency that was originally hired to promote Fyre and fan the hype among its unwitting attendees.
Compared to most TV documentaries these days, neither Fyre film appears to have made what viewers are likely to consider an egregious lapse in ethics. Both, in fact, are similarly rooted in a righteous sense of outrage toward McFarland, a 27-year-old tech entrepreneur and con artist with an unlimited appetite for preying on his generation's obsession with VIP treatment and personal branding. Both films also offer similarly serious, investigative postmortems on McFarland's ruinously deceptive tactics.
With encouragement and endorsement from the rapper Ja Rule, McFarland persuaded (or tried to persuade) an army of consultants, producers, online influencers, publicists, marketers, co-sponsors, booking agents, technicians and (most tragically) the hard-working local residents of Great Exuma cay to all believe in a festival that, from the start, was poorly planned and never logistically possible. Overstating his assets and cash flow by millions, McFarland essentially robbed Peter to pay Paul - a game he'd been playing since his first business endeavor, an "elite" credit card for millennials that entitled them to perks that never existed.
Fyre turned out to be a fascinating exercise in mass delusion; even as the musical acts cancelled and the skies poured rain the night before the festival's opening day (soaking the mattresses in the disaster-relief tents that would serve as the luxury "villas"), some 400 attendees still boarded planes to attend. They did so even with plenty of evidence (had they bothered to look into it) that they were about to land in their own millennial nightmare, forced to ride yellow school buses to a site resembling a refugee camp, where "Lord of the Flies"-style survival instincts would soon kick in.
The world had a good laugh at their expense. By the time one of the disappointed Fyre castaways uploaded a picture of a plain cheese sandwich he had been served in a foam container, the rats responsible had all fled the ship.
The Fyre saga is far from the first financial implosion to become the subject of more than one documentary - and two at the same time may seem excessive, until you've seen...

The notorious Fyre Festival was promoted as an elite concert event in the Bahamas, promising its attendees beachside villas, top-notch cuisine and nonstop partying with celebrities and social-network influencers on sandy beaches over two weekends in the spring of 2017.
Instead, as most everyone knows, Fyre was a disaster, becoming Instagram infamous for serving up "a tsunami of Schadenfreude," as one observer puts it. Most of Fyre's selfie-obsessed attendees, who'd paid thousands of dollars to attend, were stranded on a gravel spit with little food, water or shelter, and worst of all, spotty internet access. Their suffering was exquisite and, admittedly, a fine comeuppance.
"White people love camping," joked "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah when news broke of the festival's utter failure. "Unless it's a surprise."
Now, for reasons that easily dovetail with the same anxieties and lessons of the Fyre debacle, there are two competing documentaries out this week on streaming TV. The first, released in a hurry Jan. 14 on Hulu, is co-directors Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst's "Fyre Fraud"; the second, premiering Friday on Netflix, is director Chris Smith's "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened."

Each project casts some shade on its rival. The Hulu film managed to get an interview with Fyre Festival impresario Billy McFarland before he headed off to federal prison on two counts of wire fraud; the director of the Netflix film says the directors of the Hulu doc paid McFarland for the interview. The Hulu directors have admitted to paying McFarland, but say the Netflix film is more compromised from within, because it is co-produced by the same social-network marketing agency that was originally hired to promote Fyre and fan the hype among its unwitting attendees.
Compared to most TV documentaries these days, neither Fyre film appears to have made what viewers are likely to consider an egregious lapse in ethics. Both, in fact, are similarly rooted in a righteous sense of outrage toward McFarland, a 27-year-old tech entrepreneur and con artist with an unlimited appetite for preying on his generation's obsession with VIP treatment and personal branding. Both films also offer similarly serious, investigative postmortems on McFarland's ruinously deceptive tactics.
With encouragement and endorsement from the rapper Ja Rule, McFarland persuaded (or tried to persuade) an army of consultants, producers, online influencers, publicists, marketers, co-sponsors, booking agents, technicians and (most tragically) the hard-working local residents of Great Exuma cay to all believe in a festival that, from the start, was poorly planned and never logistically possible. Overstating his assets and cash flow by millions, McFarland essentially robbed Peter to pay Paul - a game he'd been playing since his first business endeavor, an "elite" credit card for millennials that entitled them to perks that never existed.
Fyre turned out to be a fascinating exercise in mass delusion; even as the musical acts cancelled and the skies poured rain the night before the festival's opening day (soaking the mattresses in the disaster-relief tents that would serve as the luxury "villas"), some 400 attendees still boarded planes to attend. They did so even with plenty of evidence (had they bothered to look into it) that they were about to land in their own millennial nightmare, forced to ride yellow school buses to a site resembling a refugee camp, where "Lord of the Flies"-style survival instincts would soon kick in.
The world had a good laugh at their expense. By the time one of the disappointed Fyre castaways uploaded a picture of a plain cheese sandwich he had been served in a foam container, the rats responsible had all fled the ship.
The Fyre saga is far from the first financial implosion to become the subject of more than one documentary - and two at the same time may seem excessive, until you've seen...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a completed free trade deal with the EU by the end of this year is realistic, but one political expert says that is optimistic on the EU’s part.
A deal with the EU is estimated to benefit New Zealand by as much as $2 billion a year, and promoting it has been a central focus of Ardern's trip to Europe this week.
Late last night (NZT) Ardern met European Council President Donald Tusk and then European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who expressed a strong desire to finish the deal as soon as possible.
"We should do everything possible to conclude the trade agreement between New Zealand the EU in the course of this year," Juncker said at a press conference after his meeting with Ardern.
"I'm convinced, given the good spirit that did impact our discussions today, that this is possible. New Zealand is far on the map, but close to our hearts."
Just before boarding a flight back to New Zealand this morning, Ardern said she was pleasantly surprised at the level of enthusiasm for a swift solution.
"The degree with which he [Juncker] was putting emphasis on that really stood out to me and surprised me. He shared that ambition publicly. He wants to see the deal done.
"There are benefits to us concluding and moving quickly, but at the same time we need to make sure it is a quality deal.
"Things are moving quickly, keeping in mind that New Zealand's starting point is basically open access to the EU. That probably is in part why this is a negotiation they believe they can move quite quickly on."
Agriculture remains a sensitive issue, and European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan will visit New Zealand in two weeks.
Ardern said New Zealand's agricultural produce was in high demand, but they were already in the EU markets and often had points of difference.
Earlier this morning, in an interview with Politico Europe, Ardern made the point that New Zealand could only produce so much of the world's food supply.
"As much as people think that we are 100 per cent populated by sheep, we are not," she quipped during the interview.
"This is a market where we can coexist. And you export stuff to us too. You've just been able to do it a little more freely and openly than we have."
Ryan Heath, who conducted the Politico interview with Ardern, told Lorna Subritzsky that it would be optimistic to expect the trade deal before the end of the year.
“The EU has a track record of being over optimistic with trade deals.
“A lot of the people doing those negotiations, they’ll be changing jobs by the end of the year. They have a self-interest to get it done.”
Heath says that agriculture will be a sticking point throughout the deals.
He says that European farmers are very defensive about their products, as they do not have the same reforms and standards that New Zealand and Australia have.
“New Zealand’s going to have to keep running this argument that they want to export quality, not just volume, to keep the European farmers calm.”
An FTA with the EU has been estimated to boost New Zealand's annual GDP by $2 billion and increase exports by up to 20 per cent.
Current tariffs include 22 per cent on tuna, 8.8 per cent on kiwifruit, and 12.8 per cent on tomatoes.
Besides the US, the EU is the largest trading partner that New Zealand does not have an FTA with. In 2017, New Zealand exports to the EU added up to $5.2 billion, while imports from the EU totalled about $10.7 billion.
LISTEN TO RYAN HEATH TALK WITH LORNA SUBRITZKY ABOVE