Two trampers who failed to return from a walk in the hills near Dunedin yesterday as the weather turned foul have been found. The pair were reported missing at about 3.30pm yesterday after going for a walk in the Silver Peaks area,…

The family of Fletcher Wong, who was found deceased by searchers on New Year’s Eve after he went missing from Rhythm & Vines, have expressed their heartfelt thanks to all those involved in finding him.The 19-year-old was last seen…

Some South Island residents are waking up to contaminated water supplies and “overwhelmed” wastewater systems – meaning no toilet flushing – after a night of heavy rain. And there’s more to come today.Thunderstorms in parts of…

Otto Lijzenga and his wife Kana Hirose were cycling through Spooners Range on Christmas Eve when a hanging branch in the middle of the track divided their paths forever.Lijzenga went under the branch. Hirose went to the side over…

Parts of the North Island that were lashed by thunderstorms, heavy rain and more than a 1000 lightning strikes yesterday are bracing for more bad weather.Yesterday MetService dished out heavy rain warnings and severe thunderstorm…

Test your brains with the Herald’s morning quiz. Be sure to check back on nzherald.co.nz at 3pm for the afternoon quiz. To challenge yourself with more quizzes, CLICK HERE.

Parts of the South Island already drenched by yesterday’s deluge are in for more rain today. Thunderstorms in parts of the lower South Island sparked flooding and slips that closed state highways and caused havoc for holidaymakers….

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether the Australian can be extradited from the UK to the US to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at London's Old Bailey courthouse at 10am Monday. If she grants the request, then Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

READ MORE: Assange bugged while at Ecuadorian Embassy, UK court told

https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/status/1344981277976494080

However, there's a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assange's partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to US President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before he leaves office on January 20.

And even if Trump doesn't, there's speculation that his successor, Joe Biden, may take a more lenient approach to Assange's extradition process.

US prosecutors indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the US government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assange's defence team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.

"Consistently, the defence asks this court to make findings, or act upon the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, breaches of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is 'a lawless state'," they said. "These submissions are not only non-justiciable in these proceedings but should never have been made."

READ MORE: Ai Weiwei protests possible extradition of Julian Assange

Assange's defence team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the US extradition request was politically motivated.

In their written closing arguments, Assange's legal team accused the US of an "extraordinary, unprecedented and politicised" prosecution that constitutes "a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of the press throughout the world."

Defence lawyers also said Assange was suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he is placed in inhospitable prison conditions in the US.

They said his mental health deteriorated while he took asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange jumped bail in 2012 when he sought asylum at the embassy, where he stayed for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been held at Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

His legal team argued that Assange would, if extradited, likely face solitary confinement that would put him at a heightened risk of suicide. They said if he was subsequently convicted, he would probably be sent to the notorious ADX Supermax prison in Colorado, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

READ MORE: Julian Assange told to stop interrupting witnesses at UK hearing

Lawyers for the US government argued that Assange's mental state "is patently not so severe so as to preclude extradition."

Assange has attracted the support of high-profile figures, including the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous US whistleblower, also came out in support, telling the hearing that they had "very comparable political opinions."

The 89-year-old, widely credited for helping to bring about an end to the Vietnam War through his leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the American public "needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorised disclosure".

There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked over 7000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was subsequently put on trial for 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Act, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.

Assange and his legal team will be hoping that developments in the US bring an end to his ordeal if the judge grants the US extradition request.

Masks are now mandatory across Greater Sydney after NSW yesterday recorded seven new COVID-19 cases as a result of 32,000 tests.

Four of the seven are from the same household and all but one are linked to known cases. One is currently under investigation.

A fourth cluster at Berala is now considered the most concerning, sparking a push for testing in Western Sydney as NSW Health warns of new alert locations.

READ MORE: Victoria records 10 local COVID-19 cases

https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1345160004295217152

This comes as the southern zone of Northern Beaches have had restrictions loosened after a lockdown over the holidays. The area is now treated as part of Greater Sydney.

But as Premier Gladys Berejiklian used one hand to ease restrictions in the Northern Beaches, she took with the other as she announced new measures to slow the virus.

Masks are now compulsory in the Greater Sydney area in some indoor settings including public transport, shopping centres, hair and beauty salons and hospitality areas after the new rules began at midnight.

Residents will have a one-day grace period on Sunday before $200 fines begin on Monday for those not wearing face coverings.

Along with mask-wearing, harsher restrictions will be placed on indoor gatherings:

• Gym classes will be reduced from a maximum of 50 participants to 30.
• Nightclubs, along with singing and dancing, will remain off the table.
• Places of worship will now only be able to have 100 people at a time, with smaller venues subject to tighter restrictions.
• This means weddings and funerals will now be capped at 100 people.
• Outdoor performances will be reduced to 500 from 1000 and controlled outdoor events from 5000 to 2000 to reduce the risk of super spreading events.

Children under the age of 12 are exempt from wearing masks along with those with certain medical conditions.

Ms Berejiklian said NSW had to "consider health and safety first and foremost, but we also need to think about well-being and jobs and the economy".

Ms Berejiklian – who had shied away from making masks mandatory – said the "science of the pandemic was far from perfect" but that imposing mask restrictions now would reduce the risk of transmission in the community.

"And that's why by putting these measures and settings in place we are confident we can continue to increase and encourage economic activity, give confidence to business and jobs, but also, of course, keep the virus at bay.

"These indoor settings will now require mask-wearing from midnight, however we will not enforce that until Monday to give everybody time – but it would not be a surprise to anybody."

"This sewage testing has been negative in original communities, especially areas with a high number of tourists and we want that to remain the case. In some parts of regional NSW, there is a slightly more complacency because of their remoteness but we want to ask everybody to be COVID-safe in regional NSW as well."

The NSW chapter of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has commended the enforcement of mask wearing in indoor spaces as the state grapples with a growing coronavirus outbreak.

"This is a crucial decision – particularly as more people will be returning to work after the holidays and trains and buses become increasingly crowded," president chapter Dr Danielle McMullen said.

"Masks create an effective barrier against aerosol droplets which transmit the disease. They protect you from other people and protect other people from you."

Dr McMullen warned that while masks are effective, they are "not failsafe" and encouraged them to be used in conjunction with good hand hygiene and physical distancing.

How long will restrictions stay?

The premier said mask wearing would be reconsidered once fears of either Sydney cluster growing had been greatly reduced, noting the government had learned lessons after the seeding from Cross Roads last year where hundreds were impacted.

"We don't want to impose a restriction or burden any citizen a day longer than we need to," she said.

"So, once we have confidence that community transmission is where we would like to see it, we will go back to what we had prior to those restrictions coming into place.

"I want to make that very clear. We would never impose anything on our citizens unless we thought it was necessary.

"There is no end date for this pandemic, because even (when) we have vaccines, we don't know exactly how long it will take to roll out and which people in the community will have at first.

"We need to consider what is the best way we can move forward and live in a COVIDSafe way indefinitely."

Berala cluster: Western Sydney the new hotspot

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said of the seven locally acquired cases overnight, five are from Western Sydney and linked to the Berala cluster.

"The original case, a man in his 40s, five of his family members and a co-worker," Dr Chant said today.

"One locally acquired case is a household contact of a previously reported case, a patient transport worker, and has been isolating for the infectious period.

"This is the second family member of this transport worker to test positive while a co-worker previously tested positive."

Ms Chant said genome sequencing indicated the infections came from a patient outside the Avalon cluster.

One remains under investigation.

Testing levels have ballooned to over 31,800, with queues forming before clinics opened on Saturday.

"I cannot stress enough how pleased I was to see a text from the district indicating that there were queues for testing in Western Sydney."

Dr Chant wanted to reinforce the importance of being tested if you had been to BWS at Berala between Tuesday 22 December and Thursday 31 December.

"People who attended at any of the exposure dates and times should get tested immediately and self-isolate until they receive a negative result."

Other significant exposure sites are The Australian Merchant Traders at Haberfield Road between 4pm and 5pm on December 29, an Officeworks on Canterbury Road in Punchbowl between 3.35pm and 3.45pm – also on December 29.

Premier defends SCG cricket Test

Ms Berejiklian defended allowing large sports gathering and events to go ahead given the economic impacts of cancelling.

"We appreciate what people might say about us continuing to hold those events, but also consider the thousands of jobs it keeps, consider the sense of normality it gives us," she said.

"I recall some people were very upset when they heard we were continuing with the fireworks display but after the event, they think most of us felt a sense of relief there was something we could look forward to and something we could find a sense of normality."

NSW venues

NSW Health has been notified of the following new venues of concern.

Anyone who visited the following venues at the listed times should get tested immediately and self-isolate until you receive further advice from NSW Health.

• Haberfield: Australian Motor Traders on December 29 between 4.30pm and 5pm
• Punchbowl: Officeworks on December 29 between 3.45pm and 4.45pm

• Eden: Great Southern Hotel on 30 December between 5pm and 6.30pm
• Bermagui: Bermi's Beachside Café on December 31 between 9am and 10am
• Berala: BWS on December 22 between 12.41pm to 9.15pm; December 23 between 1.40pm to 9.15pm; December 24 between 12.40pm to 9.17pm; December 26 between 9.55am to 7.15pm; December 27 between 12.39pm to 8.15pm; December 28 between 9.30am to 7.15pm; December 29 between 1.41pm to 9.15pm; December 30 between 12.45pm to 9.15pm; December 31 between 8.30am to 3pm.

• Ashfield: Bunnings Ashfield on 28 December between 12pm and 1pm.

Anyone who visited any of the following venues at the listed times should monitor for symptoms and if they occur get tested immediately before self-isolating until you receive a negative result:

• Blacktown: Westpoint on December 28 between 2.40pm and 3.20pm
• Blacktown: El Jannah on December 28 bbetween 3.20pm and 4pm
• Blacktown: Service NSW, Blacktown Service Centre on December 30 between 12.15pm and 1pm
• Norwest: Hills Campus Hillsong Church on December 29 between 8pm and 8.45pm

A number of testing clinics are open in western Sydney today, including the Merrylands Park drive-through clinic on the corner of Burnett Street and Merrylands Road between 8am – 8pm.

Outbreak source still unknown

The unknown origin of Sydney's coronavirus outbreak is of major concern as cases spread outside the Northern Beaches cluster to the city's west.

Infectious disease expert Dr Sanjaya Senanayake has warned more border closures are possible a day after New South Wales recorded three new coronavirus cases from a household in Western Sydney – none of which are linked to the Avalon cluster.

The new focus area is Sydney's Inner West, with residents of the Greystanes, Berala, Auburn and Lidcombe areas urged to get tested.

"Even though the numbers have been very small, either single digits or low double digits on a daily basis, if we have any unlinked cases that raises the issue of an unidentified cluster," Dr Senanayke told Weekend Today.

"We know one in five cases are asymptomatic, and we know that the incubation period, even though it can be five or six days, it can be as short as a couple of days. So, yes, it is worrying until we find the source of this outbreak."

Dr Senanayake said there's potential for movement from Victoria into NSW to be restricted after a cluster in Melbourne that seeded at the Smile Buffalo Thai Restaurant earlier this week grew to 10 yesterday.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said he's almost convinced it came from interstate.

"The NSW link is still our primary line of investigation for this outbreak," Mr Foley said yesterday.

"We expect genomic testing to come through very shortly and to assist us in confirming the lines of enquiry for our investigation."

The Victorian border shut at midnight last night to all travellers from NSW, with those arriving before the hard border closure being forced into a 14-day self isolation.

Queensland will not allow travellers who have been to a NSW hotspot to cross the border, with residents being asked to foot the bill for a mandatory government arranged 14-day quarantine.

The Australian Capital Territory has closed the border to Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Wollongong and the Northern Beaches, while South Australia has shut the border to NSW.

Travellers from Sydney and Wollongong must quarantine for 14 days if visiting Tasmania.

The Northern Territory is only enforcing quarantine on the former.

Western Australia was the first state to snap shut a hard border with New South Wales and has since added Victoria to the list of restricted travellers.

Dr Senanayake called for masks to be made mandatory when people struggle to social distance and also commended Prime Minister Scott Morrison for rejecting calls to rush the COVID-19 vaccine.

"We now have the opportunity to see how literally tens of millions of people in the northern hemisphere go with regard to safety and effectiveness when they get the vaccine. So I think it is reasonable to wait," he said.

"However, if the situation in Australia changes, and we get a very large outbreak – that we get a very large outbreak that we can't control, we should review that decision."

The infectious disease expert said the vaccine would work against a new strain of the virus – which has been touted as being more contagious.

However, he urged calm amid claims it is "70 per cent more transmissible".

"They are epidemiological studies. There could be other factors involved there as well. Some people say it might only be 10-20 per cent more transmissible, not 70 per cent."