The Mōkai Pātea Waitangi Claims Trust has been given the mandate to represent northern Rangitīkei iwi in the settlement of their land claims.This was a source of relief to trust chairman Utiku Potaka, who was grateful…

What’s grey and fluffy and lives in a freezer? That could be the start of a joke, but it’s a question for anyone who wants to enter the Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s name the baby penguin competition.The 6-week-old chick was born to…

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.

The teenager who shot the harrowing video of George Floyd under the knee of the Minneapolis police officer now charged with his murder has testified that she began recording because "it wasn't right, he was suffering, he was in pain."

Darnella Frazier, 18, said she was walking to a convenience store with her younger cousin when she came upon the officers.

She sent the younger girl into the store because she didn't want her to see "a man terrified, scared, begging for his life."

READ MORE: 'The very life was squeezed out of him': George Floyd trial begins

Ms Frazier grew emotional at times on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), breathing heavily and crying as she viewed pictures of officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd last May.

Mr Floyd's death and the video of him pleading for his life and onlookers angrily yelling at Mr Chauvin to get off him triggered sometimes-violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality in the U.S.

One of the bystanders, who identified herself as a Minneapolis firefighter, pleaded repeatedly with officers to check Floyd's pulse, but Mr Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd's neck, and he and fellow officer Tou Thao wouldn't let onlookers get close, Ms Frazier said.

"They definitely put their hands on the Mace and we all pulled back," she told the jury.

Ms Frazier said of the defendant: "He just stared at us, looked at us. He had like this cold look, heartless. He didn't care. It seemed as if he didn't care what we were saying."

Defence attorney Eric Nelson sought to show his client and his fellow officers found themselves in an increasingly tense and distracting situation, with the growing crowd of onlookers becoming agitated and menacing over Mr Floyd's treatment.

But when Ms Frazier was asked by a prosecutor whether she saw violence anywhere on the scene, she replied: "Yes, from the cops. From Chauvin, and from officer Thao."

When asked to identify the officer, Mr Chauvin stood up in the courtroom and took off his mask, appearing sombre as he looked down and away before putting his mask on.

'I believe I witnessed a murder', MMA fighter says

Earlier on Tuesday, a man who was among the onlookers shouting at the officer to get off Mr Floyd testified that he called 911 after watching the former officer officer's actions on May 25, 2020.

"I called the police on the police," Donald Wynn Williams II testified Tuesday. "I believed I witnessed a murder."

Mr Williams, whose testimony began Monday afternoon (Tuesday AEDT) and continued on Tuesday morning (Wenesday AEDT), is the third witness in Chauvin's criminal trial. He was one of the most vocal bystanders in the widely seen video of Mr Floyd's final moments, repeatedly calling for officers to get off his neck.

Relying on his own MMA experience, he said that Mr Chauvin performed a "blood choke" on Mr Floyd and adjusted his positioning several times to maintain pressure on the neck.

Mr Williams had gone fishing with his son earlier in the day, and he decided to go to the Cup Foods store in Minneapolis to "get some air" after watching several caught fish suffocate and die.

When he came upon Mr Floyd's arrest nearby, he watched the man gasp for air and saw his eyes roll to the back of his head — "like a fish in a bag," he explained.

He said he wanted to get the former officer off Mr Floyd but didn't physically intervene because former Minneapolis Police officer Tou Thao was directing him to stay away.

Witnesses called the police

After watching Mr Floyd leave in an ambulance, the witness called 911 to report what he had seen.

Mr Williams is the second witness to say they reported the police's behaviour to the police.

On Monday, a Minneapolis 911 dispatcher testified she was able to watch live video of Mr Floyd's arrest at the time and called a police sergeant afterward to voice her concerns about the arrest.

"My instincts were telling me that something's wrong. Something was not right. I don't know what, but something wasn't right," Jena Scurry said she thought as she watched the video.

"It was an extended period of time."

READ MORE: George Floyd's family hold prayer service on eve of murder trial

The testimony in Mr Chauvin's trial comes 10 months after Mr Floyd's death launched a summer of protest, unrest and a societal reckoning with America's past and present of anti-Black racism and aggressive policing.

Mr Chauvin, 45, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges.

In opening statements on Monday, prosecuting attorney Jerry Blackwell said Mr Chauvin used excessive and unreasonable force when he knelt on Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds — a number different than the infamous 8:46 timing that has become a symbol of police brutality. The defence accepted the new timing as accurate.

Mr Blackwell played the harrowing video and audio of the death recorded by a bystander to bolster his argument and offered jurors a clear and simple case against the defendant.

"You can believe your eyes that it's a homicide," he said.

"You can believe your eyes."

In response, defence attorney Eric Nelson argued the case was more complicated than just that video.

He said Mr Chauvin was following his police use-of-force training and argued Mr Floyd's cause of death was a combination of drug use and preexisting health issues.

"The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing," he said.

Witness testimony in the trial is expected to last about four weeks, followed by jury deliberations.

The second-degree murder charge alleges Mr Chauvin intentionally assaulted Mr Floyd with his knee, which unintentionally caused Floyd's death.

The third-degree murder charge alleges he acted with a "depraved mind, without regard for human life" and the second-degree manslaughter charge says Mr Chauvin's "culpable negligence" caused Floyd's death.

He could be convicted of all, some, or none of the charges.

Minnesota's sentencing guidelines recommend about 12.5 years in prison for each murder charge and about four years for the manslaughter charge.

An experimental rocket that SpaceX launched at its South Texas facilities Tuesday appears to have exploded, but heavy fog at the landing site left even SpaceX uncertain about what had occurred.

"At least the crater is in the right place!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted.

All three of SpaceX's previous prototypes crash landed or exploded shortly after landing.

READ MORE: Earth safe from 'God of chaos' asteroid this century

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1376881105689714694

SpaceX engineer John Insprucker, who hosted a webcast of the test launch, said SN11 had a normal ascent and all appeared to be well before on-board cameras lost signal and the vehicle was subsumed by fog moments before landing.

Insprucker said the company will share updates on social media once SpaceX engineers are able to check out the landing site.

The area surrounding the vehicle must be cleared before liftoff for safety reasons.

Insprucker said the company is not expecting to recover video footage.

"Don't wait for landing," he advised webcast viewers.

READ MORE: Elon Musk lost $35 billion in a week

Independent video streamers that recorded the flight did not capture the last stretch of the flight either due to fog, but NASASpaceflight — a media site — reported that one of the news outlet's cameras may have been struck by debris from the rocket.

Footage of the launch pad showed SN11 was nowhere in sight after the rocket's descent.

"Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn't reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn't needed. Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today," Musk later wrote on Twitter.

SN11 is an early iteration of Starship, the vehicle that Musk envisions will one day carry the first humans to Mars.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1376889786762428421

It's also the fourth prototype that SpaceX has launched on a high-altitude test flight as the company works to hash out how the massive vehicle will safely land upright after returning to Earth.

SN10, the last prototype to fly, landed upright earlier this month but independent footage of the event showed the vehicle exploded about three minutes later.

There's a new push for hiring managers to look at job candidates' skills and potential, rather than their qualifications and experiences.

Microsoft and LinkedIn have joined forces and set a goal to help 250,000 companies make a skills-first hire.

It comes as the Australian government's JobKeeper program came to an end on March 28.

READ MORE: Treasurer defends end of JobKeeper

LinkedIn is extending access to free online learning courses through to the end of 2021.

Learning modules cover a range of subjects from software development and IT administration to digital marketing and graphic design.

Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy predicted the end of the JobKeeper program would affect up to 150,000 jobs.

However he warned the Senate that the forecast was not concrete.

READ MORE: Amazon to dominate Aussie retail by 2030

"We believe that in the order of 100,000 to 150,000 JobKeeper recipients may lose employment at the completion of the program, though there is a wide band of uncertainty around this estimate," Mr Kennedy told a Senate Estimates hearing before the end of the program.

Despite the predicted job losses, Dr Kennedy said he expected many of those people would find other work, which meant there would not be a significant rise in the unemployment rate.

READ MORE: Criminal charges against Melissa Caddick dropped

"We could see a bump in the unemployment rate as the JobKeeper program comes to an end this month, perhaps through March/April," he added.

New figures from the Australian Tax Office show there were more than 1 million employees still relying on the wage subsidy at the end of January.

A former Dilworth School housemaster who sexually abused students over two decades says he’s remorseful for his actions, but his lawyer says he was introduced to “degenerate” behaviour at the school. Ian Robert Wilson was today…

A UK police watchdog said Tuesday that officers didn't behave "in a heavy-handed manner" when they broke up a vigil for a London woman whose killing sparked an outcry about women's safety.

Matt Parr, Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said officers at the vigil in memory of Sarah Everard acted in "a measured and proportionate way in challenging circumstances."

Everard, a 33-year-old London resident, was last seen walking home from a friend's apartment on the evening of March 3. Her body was later found hidden in woodland more than 80km away. A serving police officer has been charged with murder.

READ MORE: London police tactics at vigil for slain woman draw scrutiny

Hundreds of people gathered March 13 on London's Clapham Common to remember Everard and protest violence against women, despite a ban on mass gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic. Images of police officers tussling with women at the peaceful rally, and leading some away in handcuffs, drew strong criticism.

Parr said the gathering presented "a complex and sensitive policing challenge" and police had acted appropriately to disperse people when the vigil turned into "a rally with dense crowds and little or no social distancing."

He said criticism of the force, including from some senior politicians, had been "unwarranted" and had undermined public confidence in the police.

He acknowledged, however, that there was "insufficient" communication between police commanders on the ground, and said the Metropolitan Police force could have taken a "more conciliatory" approach after the event.

READ MORE: Police officer charged with Sarah Everard's murder

Reclaim These Streets, the group that called the vigil after Everard's death, said the report was "disappointing" and demonstrated "institutional sexism running through the force."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who had earlier criticised the police response, said he accepted the report, "but it is clear that trust and confidence of women and girls in the police and criminal justice system is far from adequate."

Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital has been put into lockdown following confirmation a second nurse has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Questions are being asked about why the nurse worked with COVID-19 patients while unvaccinated.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young will now demand local health units only allow doctors and nurses who have had at least one vaccine dose to work with confirmed patients.

READ MORE: Long weekend weather forecast for your State or Territory

https://twitter.com/TimArvier9/status/1376836481713512451

"Whether it be Pfizer or AstraZeneca — only they can work directly with confirmed cases of COVID," Dr Young said on Tuesday, noting that she had been recommending hospitals take such steps for a while 

On top of the vaccine policy change, the separate infections of the nurse, detected this week, and a doctor earlier this month, sparked a lockdown of the PA Hospital on Tuesday.

"While yesterday it was announced that the greater Brisbane area had been declared a hotpot and would be entering a lockdown from 5pm yesterday for three days, this additional lockdown will enable PA Hospital to put in place processes to manage impacts associated with these linked cases," staff were told in a memo.

"As a precautionary measure, we are continuing to test all staff that have worked in ward 5D at PA Hospital between midday Friday, 19 March, and 4pm Sunday, 21 March."

Elective surgeries and outpatient appointments would also be rescheduled, with student visits banned and the hospital's vaccination clinic restricted to serving only hospital staff.

Though 81 per cent of Queensland Health staff, 41,000 in total, have been vaccinated, Dr Young said the nurse had been on leave and was not vaccinated.

READ MORE: No new NSW COVID-19 cases but premier warns more could arise

She worked a shift on the Princess Alexandra's COVID-19 ward on March 18 but Dr Young said, based on preliminary information, she wasn't infected until a shift not managing COVID-19 cases on March 23.

"I don't know whether she's got it directly from that patient, because she wasn't working with COVID cases that night — but we have to confirm that — or whether she's got it from someone else in the hospital," she said, on Tuesday morning.

"All that has to be worked through."

The rollout at the hospital has gotten to a point that staff have opted to have their first dose of the COVID vaccine administered elsewhere, telling 9News it's just "too slow".

"You do worry that you're going to get (COVID-19) — anybody who isn't vaccinated should stay right away," Australian Medical Association Queensland president Dr Chris Perry said today. 

An original Banksy artwork sold at an auction in Auckland tonight for $1.45 million. Banksy’s Keep it Real went under the hammer at the International Art Centre in Parnell. Bidding started at $500,000. The 2003 artwork depicts…