A man who was vaccinated against Covid-19 up to 10 times in one day on behalf of other people has been called “unbelievably selfish” and sparked an investigation.Astrid Koornneef, group manager operations for the Covid-19 vaccine…

The body of Raumati Beach local and family man Joe Pryor who went missing on November 26 has been found today.The police said a body was found this morning near Reikorangi, Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington.Shortly…

A warehouse for online shopping giant Amazon has collapsed as storms hit the US state of Illinois, triggering a significant emergency response.

Footage from St Louis TV stations showed dozens of emergency vehicles at the Amazon centre near Edwardsville, Illinois, about 25 miles west of St Louis.

It wasn't immediately clear if or how many people were hurt, but the Collinsville, Illinois, Emergency Management Agency on Facebook called it a "mass casualty incident".

READ MORE: Case numbers continue to grow in NSW, Queensland records new infection

One official told KTVI-TV that up to 100 people were believed to be in the building, working the night shift, at the time of the collapse.

Television news footage from the scene showed buses taking people away from the building, and at least one person was seen being carried to a medical helicopter on a gurney.

The Belleville News-Democrat reported that the Amazon fulfilment centre in Edwardsville opened with two warehouses in 2016, with 1.5 million square feet of space. The warehouses are used to store items until they are shipped to mail-order customers.

A photo in the St Louis Post-Dispatch showed a large portion of the wall and roof of the massive Amazon warehouse completely collapsed.

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It wasn't immediately clear if the damage to the Amazon warehouse was caused by straight-line storms or a tornado, but a large tornado was reported in the Edwardsville area at about the time the building was damaged. The National Weather Service office near St Louis issued reports of "radar-confirmed tornadoes" in the Edwardsville area.

"The safety and well-being of our employees and partners is our top priority right now," Amazon spokesperson Richard Rocha said in a written statement Friday night.

"We're assessing the situation and will share additional information when it's available."

The collapse came as a strong thunderstorm, and possibly a tornado, ripped through the St Louis area. Winds of up to 70 miles per hour were reported in parts of St Charles and St Louis counties in Missouri, while at least two people were killed Friday night when a reported tornado ripped through an Arkansas nursing home.

Craighead County Judge Marvin Day told KAIT-TV that at least five others were injured and 20 people were trapped after the tornado struck the Monette Manor area in northeast Arkansas. A call by The Associated Press to the county office wasn't immediately returned.

The TV station reported that emergency crews from Trumann, and police and firefighters from Jonesboro were headed to the area to assist. The nursing home has about 90 beds.

The storms in Illinois and Arkansas were among several places in the Midwest that reported tornadoes spotted or on the ground.

Originally published by Māori Television A new initiative to “strengthen economic empowerment” for indigenous peoples has been announced by Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Trade Minister Damien O’Connor.”Aotearoa…

New South Wales has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases overnight recording 560 new infections.

Three people died with the virus.

It comes as the state reported 516 new cases yesterday.

READ MORE: Major flooding hits the NSW South Coast as wet weather turns deadly

https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1469426721753493507

There are 150 people hospitalised with the virus and 25 people in intensive care.

More than 93 per cent of the state's eligible population is now fully vaccinated.

Three cases of the Omicron variant were confirmed by NSW Health overnight.

There are now 45 cases of the variant in NSW.

Victoria sees slight drop in COVID-19 infections

Victoria saw a slight drop in COVID-19 cases, recording 1193 new infections overnight.

Thirteen people died in Victoria with the virus.

https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1469426863676166145

There are currently 323 people in hospital with the virus and 68 people in intensive care.

More than 92 per cent of the state's population over the age of 12 is now fully vaccinated.

Queensland records one new case

Queensland has recorded one new locally acquired COVID-19 case in the past 24 hours.

The person was mentioned yesterday as a person of interest and has since been confirmed as a positive case.

The case was infectious in the community for five days.

https://twitter.com/AnnastaciaMP/status/1469458136935251970

The person is believed to have contracted the virus at Bunnings.

"It reminds us all you can get the virus anywhere and we have to remain vigilant," Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said.

"The genomic sequencing we've gotten back so far is Delta."

Quarantine arrangements for fully vaccinated close contacts are also changing from January 1.

If you are a close contact and fully vaccinated you will only need to quarantine for seven days.

From day eight to 14, people must avoid high-risk settings and wear a mask.

Casual contacts will only need to get a negative test result from January 1.

Seven cases in SA

Seven new cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in South Australia in the past 24 hours, including three mystery infections detected in the community.

The cases include four men aged between 20 and 40, and three women aged between 20 and 60.

One of the cases acquired the virus interstate. Three others are known contacts of previously reported cases.

Five of the seven are fully vaccinated and two are unvaccinated.

There are currently 54 active cases, and three currently in hospital.

Eleven cases in ACT

The ACT has recorded 11 new cases of COVID-19.

There are 76 active cases of the disease in the territory, but only five are in hospital.

Of residents aged over 12 in the ACT, 98.2 per cent are vaccinated.

The cruise ship industry has lamented the ban on cruises in Australia being extended until February.

Yesterday Health Minister Greg Hunt declared the human biosecurity period had been extended until February 17.

As a consequence, cruise vessels will not be allowed into Australia, although the ban will be reviewed in a month.

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The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) said the decision was a "devastating blow for thousands of Australian workers".

Eighteen thousand Australians depend on the cruise market for their livelihoods, CLIA managing director Joel Katz said

"In other countries close to five million people have already sailed successfully under the cruise industry's extensive new health protocols," he said.

"We need federal and state governments to use the coming weeks for genuine discussions with the cruise industry so we can plan a similar revival in Australia."

The cruise industry's new health measures include vaccination mandates and testing, as well as various quarantine and distancing measures.

READ MORE: Aussie companies call for urgent re-start of cruise industry

"Cruising has changed enormously in response to the pandemic and the work our industry has done with medical experts internationally has resulted in health protocols that are successful in mitigating the risks of COVID-19," Mr Katz said.

"With vaccination rates increasing and borders opening, we need agreement on the way forward throughout Australia so there can be a careful revival of cruise tourism in communities around the country."

The biosecurity period determinations also mandate pre-departure testing and mask-wearing on international flights, as well as restrictions on outbound travel for unvaccinated Australians.

READ MORE: International travel opens up for fully vaccinated Australians

"These arrangements have been a significant contributing factor in Australia's success in avoiding the catastrophic effects of COVID-19 seen in many other countries," the announcement from Mr Hunt said.

"The Government continues to work constructively with the cruise ship industry, with whom we remain actively engaged alongside state and territory governments to enable a phased resumption of cruising in Australia on the basis of medical advice.

"As part of this work, the Government will continually review, on a monthly basis, whether the current restrictions on cruise ships can be safely lifted or amended."

The cruise industry drew close scrutiny early in the pandemic after a series of outbreaks aboard vessels.

In March 2020, an outbreak aboard the Ruby Princess infected hundreds. The virus then spread around Australia from disembarking passengers.

The investigation in the Chapel St fatal crash which resulted in a 65-year-old local woman dying at the scene continues. Tauranga City Council director of transport Brendan Bisley confirmed to the Bay of Plenty Times that the council…

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A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organisations around the world.

“The internet’s on fire right now," Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, said.

“People are scrambling to patch and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it."

READ MORE: Major flooding hits the NSW South Coast as wet weather turns deadly

He said Friday morning in the 12 hours since the bug's existence was disclosed it had been "fully weaponised,” meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.

The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years.

It was uncovered in an open-source logging tool that is ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government.

Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.

“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a company that’s not at risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors.

Untold millions of servers have it installed, and experts said the fallout would not be known for several days.

Amit Yoran, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Tenable, called it “the single biggest, most critical vulnerability of the last decade” — and possibly the biggest in the history of modern computing.

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The vulnerability, dubbed ‘Log4Shell,’ was rated 10 on a scale of one to 10 the Apache Software Foundation, which oversees development of the software.

Anyone with the exploit can obtain full access to an unpatched computer that uses the software.

Experts said the extreme ease with which the vulnerability lets an attacker access a web server — no password required — is what makes it so dangerous.

New Zealand's computer emergency response team was among the first to report that the flaw was being “actively exploited in the wild" just hours after it was publicly reported Thursday and a patch released.

The vulnerability, located in open-source Apache software used to run websites and other web services, was reported to the foundation on November 24 by the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, it said.

It took two weeks to develop and release a fix.

But patching systems around the world could be a complicated task.

While most organisations and cloud providers such as Amazon should be able to update their web servers easily, the same Apache software is also often embedded in third-party programs, which often can only be updated by their owners.

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Yoran, of Tenable, said organisations need to presume they’ve been compromised and act quickly.

The first obvious signs of the flaw's exploitation appeared in Minecraft, an online game hugely popular with kids and owned by Microsoft.

Meyers and security expert Marcus Hutchins said Minecraft users were already using it to execute programs on the computers of other users by pasting a short message in a chatbox.

Microsoft said it had issued a software update for Minecraft users.

“Customers who apply the fix are protected,” it said.

Researchers reported finding evidence the vulnerability could be exploited in servers run by companies such as Apple, Amazon, Twitter and Cloudflare.

Cloudflare's Sullivan said there we no indication his company's servers had been compromised.

Apple, Amazon and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A snarling traffic jam up to 1.5km long has greeted motorists travelling near Waipu today as police begin their programme of handing out car stickers which they hope will make travelling through the northern border checkpoints smoother….