Latest news with #CBD
RNZ News
11 hours ago
- General
- RNZ News
Wellington council creates intercom service in CBD
The $50,000 trial starts this week and will run for six to nine months. Photo: 123RF Wellington City Council has created 24/7 intercom service in the city's CBD to improve safety. The $50,000 trial, called 'Safety Points', starts this week and will run for six to nine months. It would see intercoms with large red buttons installed in three areas of the central city - Cuba Street, Courtenay Place and Dixon Street. Members of the public feeling unsafe can push the intercom buttons and talk to someone immediately, with access to the service running at all times of the day. People would be able to receive immediate guidance from the operator and co-ordinate help if needed. The safety points have been put in places in the sight of the existing CCTV network, so operators could monitor the person until they felt safe. Throughout the course of the trial data would be collected on how they were used, and the process behind them tested. City safety senior responsible officer Sehai Orgad said the safety points were part of a broader shift in how Wellington City Council was approaching public safety. "We've heard the concerns about feeling unsafe at night, and the Safety Points are a practical step we're taking to respond - visible, simple, and easy to use," Orgad said. "They're strategically located, and linked into our CCTV network so we can monitor what's happening and connect people to help when it's needed." Orgad said it was a new idea and that the council would learn as it developed the safety tool. "The Safety Points won't solve everything, but they are part of a more visible, co-ordinated, and people-focused safety presence in the city." The $50,000 cost of the trial included installation, integration into the council's CCTV network, and 24/7 operator support. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
News.com.au
15 hours ago
- News.com.au
‘I'll start whacking you, dog': Man abuses woman, passers-by in Cairns CBD
A man has been filmed intimidating and abusing a woman in front of a crowd watching a busker in the Cairns CBD, while also violently lashing out at members of the public who stepped in to intervene. Footage posted to Reddit over the weekend showed the man, wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and a bum bag, threatening the woman in the middle of the busy strip, repeatedly wandering away and back towards her as he hurls abuse. 'Do something and I'll start whacking you, dog,' he says. 'I'll start whacking you, dog. Do something, c**t.' The man intimidatingly pushes his face into the woman's as he continues to threaten her. 'Sir, that's not how you talk to a lady, yeah?' the street performer chimes in over the microphone. An elderly man with his partner man then approaches in an attempt to defuse the situation. 'What the f**k you going to do, dog?' the man yells, pushing the man backwards causing him to drop his phone. 'Do something, c**t!' The busker asks onlookers to get the police as the fracas explodes. The woman prods the man with a bottle, sparking a furious reaction as he begins chasing her. As another member of the public attempts to hold the man back, he turns and strikes him in the side of the head and attempts to start a fight. He then turns his attention back to the woman, following her around the square before kicking and punching her. The man eventually walks away, with a police officer seen arriving a short time later. 'Hey, lady, go straight to the cop shop, just get some help,' the busker tells the woman. 'Yes I do think the police will help you. They're right there. Police, violent individual running that way.' The user who posted the footage said they had provided the video to police. 'If he's willing to behave like this in public, imagine what he is capable of behind closed doors,' one commenter wrote. A Queensland Police spokeswoman told 'Police are aware of this matter and investigations are continuing.'
Sydney Morning Herald
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Labor faces internal housing battle in PM's heartland
With proud Marrickville resident Anthony Albanese in The Lodge, Sydney's inner west has become the centre of Australia's political universe. It's also the centre of one of the more pressing political issues of our time – how to build more housing in a central part of Sydney which has historically been pathologically opposed to development. The area is full of progressive Labor-Greens voters fully supportive of high-density, affordable housing in every suburb – barring their own. It's the kind of place where people read Ezra Klein's Abundance book for fun. Little surprise then that there are a multitude of views around how best to build, baby, build among influential Labor figures in the PM's own backyard. The council, led by ambitious Labor mayor Darcy Byrne (a good mate of Albo) objected to Premier Chris Minns' Transport Oriented Development scheme and, in May, revealed its own plan to boost density, which involves buildings of six to 11 storeys clustered around Ashfield, Marrickville, Dulwich Hill and Croydon. Loading Cue fury among some residents' groups in those suburbs, disgruntled at having to bear the brunt of the council's density reforms. They pointed to the fact that the inner west's leafier areas such as Balmain, Rozelle and Annandale were spared the brunt of the development. To be fair, none of those suburbs is on a train line. Earlier this month, local Labor MP Jo Haylen, who was a minister in the Minns government before that silly business with taking chauffeured cars to a boozy birthday brunch, wrote to Byrne to voice those residents' concerns. Some of the suburbs slated for the most development sit in her Summer Hill electorate. In a letter seen by CBD, Haylen urged Byrne to 'give serious consideration' to the feedback on the plan provided by her community.
The Age
18 hours ago
- Politics
- The Age
Look who's back – and with back pay after escaping conviction
That's due to Section 229 of the Local Government Act clause (6): 'A councillor who is no longer stood down under subsection (1) is entitled to their allowance, including any allowance previously withheld under subsection (4), unless the councillor is convicted of the offence.' Agirtan, a tax manager, pointed out at the time that her court-ordered donation was tax-deductible. We sought comment from her but didn't hear back. The council confirmed the back payment. And while she was suspended from the council, nothing could suspend her from social media during that period, which included a reference to her critics 'sucking each other off in the comments on the City of Kingston post'. Positively Trumpian in its eloquence. Back to the benches A mere 11 weeks after the May 3 election, federal parliament has returned. Everyone wanted to put their feet up after that gruelling election campaign, we guess. Or hike the Great Wall of China. The pollies slowly began to trickle back to Canberra, and on Sunday night, CBD's spies spotted Labor frontbenchers Murray Watt, Jenny McAllister and Tim Ayres enjoying a pre-sitting dinner at the restaurant Compa in the Canberra Centre. Expect more of that. During the downtime, CBD brought you several updates about the great staffer exodus, and had some sport at the expense of the PM's chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, for what we thought was his weirdly school-prefect attitude to his underlings oversharing happy snaps with the prime minister on social media. Obligations under the ministerial staff code of blah blah blah, you understand. We live in a Zoomer generation after all. If it is not posted on LinkedIn, did you even have a job? But maybe he had a point: word has reached CBD of a former staffer whose profile on the romantic-encounter social media site Hinge once included a selfie with … the prime minister. Anthony 'Aphrodisiac' Albanese. Somehow we don't think so. PvO's Hollow State The period following a federal election brings the inevitable flurry of political tomes by our various pundits. Last month, CBD revealed that formidable columnist Niki Savva would be releasing a new book, appropriately titled Earthquake, just in time to send seismic rumbles through various Liberal Party Christmases. Also getting in on the act is University of Western Australia politics professor and Daily Mail Australia political editor Peter van Onselen. His new book, The Hollow State: Power Without Purpose in Australian Politics, is due for an October release by niche right-leaning press Wilkinson Publishing. It feels a slight step down from Hachette, which published PvO's 2021 book on Scott Morrison, but then again, PvO's own recent career arc has been a little chaotic. He went from The Australian and Sky News to Network Ten and The Project before joining Daily Mail Australia last year. Van Onselen has been a pundit whose notable career highlights included instances of being prominently wrong (his 'kisses of death' were the stuff of legend), but even we were amused to find this 2022 headline: 'Does Peter van Onselen have the kiss of death? How political guru predicted the 'future of Australian politics' in a single photo ... and got it VERY wrong' published in, er, Daily Mail Australia. He quit as Network Ten's political editor in 2023, and was then successfully sued by his former employer for breaching a non-disparagement clause in his redundancy agreement (an agreement under which he trousered $165,000) by writing an article in The Australian calling the broadcaster 'the minnow of Australian television'. Loading To be fair, he was technically right about that one, as Ten's ratings and financial performance has shown, but in our experience the negative commentary in The Australian about Ten used to be inversely proportionate to how much of the network was owned by The Australian 's boss of bosses, Lachlan Murdoch. PvO told us his new book was some years in the making, a lament at the hollowing out of modern politics by those on both sides of the aisle that he hoped would be 'half-scholarly, half-populist'.
Indian Express
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Fact or fiction? 7 memoirs that blurred the line
Memoirs are built on the promise of honesty. They offer a raw, intimate look into lives touched by trauma, transformation, or triumph, and readers trust that what they are consuming is at least fundamentally true. However, recently, Raynor Winn's bestselling memoir, which was recently adapted for screen, found itself in the eye of a controversy after she was accused of fabricating parts of her widely acclaimed life story. Published in 2018, The Salt Path recounts Winn's 630-mile walk with her husband, Moth, along the South West Coast Path after losing their home and receiving a terminal diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare neurodegenerative condition. The story became an inspiration for those struggling with challenging medical diagnoses, and sold over two million copies worldwide. The recent controversy is only the latest in a long line of publishing betrayals. For decades, authors have published so-called true stories that turned o James Frey's memoir about drug addiction and recovery skyrocketed after Oprah chose it for her Book Club. Brutal, unflinching, and famously detailing a root canal with no anesthesia and an 87-day jail sentence, it felt almost too intense to be true. In 2006, The Smoking Gun revealed that Frey had fabricated or grossly exaggerated key parts of the story. He had never been in a fatal accident, never served serious jail time, and had embellished nearly every detail of his 'rock bottom.' Oprah, feeling misled, called him back on air to publicly rebuke him. Frey's publisher issued a disclaimer. Frey, meanwhile, pivoted back to fiction with Bright Shiny Morning. Claiming to be a half-Native foster child raised in gang-infested South Central L.A., 'Margaret B. Jones' delivered a gripping account of violence, survival, and resilience. Critics hailed Love and Consequences as authentic and vital, until the author's real sister stepped in. Margaret B Jones was actually Margaret Seltzer, a white woman raised in suburban Los Angeles and educated at private school. Her entire memoir was fiction. Photos, staged interviews, even 'foster siblings' had been fabricated to sell the illusion. The book was recalled immediately, with only 19,000 copies in circulation. Seltzer's defense that she was trying to give a voice to unheard communities was dismissed as exploitation. Misha Defonseca's story was almost too miraculous to believe. At age 7, she claimed, she walked 1,900 miles across Nazi-occupied Europe to find her deported parents, lived with wolves, snuck into the Warsaw Ghetto, and killed a German soldier in self-defense. The book struggled in the US but became a massive bestseller overseas and was adapted into a French film. Eleven years later, researchers unearthed documents showing that Defonseca was Catholic and had been enrolled in a school in Brussels during the time she claimed to be wandering Europe. Her real name was Monique De Wael. She eventually confessed, saying the fabricated story reflected her emotional truth. Holocaust scholars were outraged, warning that such stories gave ammunition to deniers and distorted real survivor accounts. Clifford Irving pulled off a con that briefly fooled one of America's top publishers. Claiming to have secured the cooperation of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, Irving presented forged letters and fake interviews to McGraw-Hill, who gave him a $765,000 advance for the exclusive memoir. But the hoax unraveled when Hughes himself publicly denounced the book via a phone call with reporters. Irving's forgeries were exposed, and he served 17 months in prison for fraud. The incident remains one of the most infamous literary scams ever, later adapted into the film The Hoax starring Richard Gere. It exposed the publishing industry's blind spots. When Stern magazine announced it had uncovered Adolf Hitler's personal diaries, sixty volumes hidden since WWII, it was hailed as a historic breakthrough. The diaries were said to be recovered from a crashed plane and authenticated by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. But the story fell apart within weeks. Forensic analysis revealed the paper, ink, and glue were all post-war. The 'diaries' were fakes created by forger Konrad Kujau, who had specialised in selling counterfeit Nazi memorabilia. He and the journalist who facilitated the deal both went to prison. The scandal cost Stern millions and embarrassed historians worldwide. Marketed as a touching memoir of a Cherokee boy raised by his grandparents in the Appalachian Mountains, The Education of Little Tree was beloved for its gentle wisdom and spiritual tone. It sold over a million copies and became a classroom favorite. But Forrest Carter was actually Asa Carter, a segregationist speechwriter for George Wallace and a former KKK (Ku Klux Klan) member. He had no Cherokee heritage, and the book's portrayal of Native American life was riddled with stereotypes and inaccuracies. Despite being exposed as early as the late 1970s, the book continued to sell and was even adapted into a film. Oprah recommended it on-air in 1994, later retracting her endorsement when she learned the truth. Today, it is classified as fiction, but many readers still believe it is an authentic memoir. Presented as the real diary of a teenage girl who spirals into drug addiction and dies young, Go Ask Alice was published without an author and claimed to be 'real.' Its harrowing portrayal of sex, drugs, and despair became a cautionary tale for generations of students. But no one could verify the girl's identity and no family ever came forward. Eventually, youth counselor Beatrice Sparks admitted to editing and 'enhancing' the diary. Over time, critics determined that much of it had likely been fabricated or written entirely by Sparks herself. Despite mounting evidence, the book remains on school reading lists and is still classified as nonfiction in some libraries. Sparks went on to publish other 'diary' memoirs, many of which followed the same sensationalist, moralising formula.
