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1 Jul 2025

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'Fifa should consider playing World Cup final at 9am'
Extreme weather during the Club World Cup in the United States this summer means Fifa should think about playing the men's World Cup final at 9am next year, according to an expert.

MetService quizzed on agency's weather warnings during coronial inquest
The agency's chief meteorologist has been quizzed on its colour-coded weather warnings during a coronial inquest into the deaths of 18 people during Cyclone Gabrielle and the preceding Auckland floods.

'Overwhelming': Animal sanctuary under water, more wet weather forecast
The alpacas might have enjoyed the swim, but for all the other animals at a Marlborough sanctuary the floods cost them their home and their feed.

Live: Marlborough homes flooded, heavy snow in Otago as wild weather continues
MetService is checking out a possible tornado in Waitara, while Civil Defence says parts of Motueka flooded last night.

Live updates: Homes damaged after reported Waitara tornado, thunderstorms to disrupt travel plans, south braces for snow
MetService warns severe weather will continue, with more thunderstorms on the horizon.

In pictures: Flooding swamps Nelson, strong winds batter Auckland
Wild weather is lashing parts of New Zealand.

What you need to know: Travel disruption, flooding and evacuations as severe weather hits New Zealand
Explainer - Travel disruption, flooding and evacuations - here's what you need to know.

Flights struggle to land at Auckland Airport as bad weather lashes city
At least seven flights have been circling or diverted this morning.

Weather live: Thunderstorm warning for parts of North Island, states of emergency in South
The top of the South Island is cut off with a number of state highways closed, while parts of the North brace for thunderstorms and torrential rain.

Watch out! These 3 Internet travel scams can ruin your summer
Warmer weather often means travel—a fact that scammers know very well. You just want to plan your vacation, so they flood the internet with fake booking sites, phony emails, and bogus deal links to take advantage of the unsuspecting. To avoid losing your money to fraud, it pays to stay sharp when making reservations or buying gear for your trip. Fortunately, you can do so pretty easily if you ask yourself the questions below. Is the booking site you’re on legitimate? Whether booking direct on a carrier website or through a third-party online travel agency, make sure the website you’re on is legit.PCWorld You can save a lot of headache by double-checking the reservation website you’re on before committing to plans. For direct bookings, make sure the URL matches the known address. Scammers can buy a search engine sponsored link to promote false websites that look like the real ones. Or they can display copies of real websites when you enter the wrong address into your browser. For third-party travel sites, run a search to see if the online travel agency (OTA) is well-known, as well as what the reviews say about the booking process and customer support. Travel forums and Reddit are good sources for opinions, good and bad. Is that email deal real? The first Travelzoo email I ever got was a forward from a friend—and I spent some time checking out the source before clicking on any links.Travelzoo / PCWorld You should only be getting travel deal emails from sites you signed up for—and those messages should be easily traced back to legit senders. A first clue that an email is fishy: The sender email address doesn’t match the official URL. (e.g., deals@expedia.com) To be more sure, you can dig into the message headers to see if the email was sent from a server owned by an official travel agency. In Gmail, you can click on the three-dot icon in the far right of a message, then choose Show original. Is the deal reasonable? ravel sites gush about this $275 suitcase—and it sells quickly whenever it goes on sale.Even before I looked up historical data, that tells me I’d still pay at least $200+ after the best discounts. (Research on Slickdeals bears that out.)Away / PCWorld Maybe you saw a deal shared on social media, or a friend forwards you a link. Whether shopping for a flight or hotel, or a new suitcase or power bank, go into your purchase knowing what a reasonable discount price is. For flights, hotels, car rentals, and cruises, you can compare costs against the big online travel agencies (Expedia, etc.) or find recent reports from people who’ve visited your destination. If a price seems absurdly low, you can gauge from online discussions if it’s reasonable. (e.g., I saw nonstop flights between San Francisco and Tokyo for under $600 on ZipAir, but didn’t recognize the airline. A little searching showed it was a new budget airline, and people had already tried it out.) For gear like power banks, suitcases, and the like, you can look up past deal prices for that model (or at least general style of the item) with a quick online search. You can also look up reviews—maybe a discount is unusually high due to a new version having released, or there’s a flaw that caused the product to be unpopular. Travel booking resources I like to use Current fares for SFO-JFK on Google Travel—September looks like a good time to visit.Google / PCWorld Deal hunting is one of my side hobbies, and for travel, I have a few sites that help me find good discounts with very little fuss. Google Travel’s flight search engine helps me see which dates have the cheapest prices for a particular route (e.g., SFO to JFK). I like this data because it’s the prices on the airlines’ direct sites, which I can then compare against online travel agency offers. Usually I book direct for better customer support, should something go wrong with my flight. Google Travel also offers a hotel search feature that lets you scout hotels and their prices near a given location (e.g., 6th and Canal in Manhattan). It gives a list of various third-party booking sites (some I think of as less established than others). I use that info to get an idea of what’s reasonable, and then I look directly on a hotel’s website for equal or better deals. (Booking direct sometimes works out more in my favor.) Costco comes through strong for its members, especially on car rentals. A second driver is included, and you can cancel your reservation any time before pickup without penalty. Depending on how good a deal you get on a vacation package or car rental, the savings can end up covering the cost of a yearly Costco membership for access. Finally, searching on Slickdeals.net helps me see historical data for previous deals on a given product. Sometimes none exists though, so then I turn to the Keepa.com extension to see if price history exists for the item on Amazon.

Woman let girl under 10 drive car through village, court hears
Footage on social media showed the girl driving barefoot and in bad weather on the road in Aberdeenshire.

Why is the top of the South Island in the wet weather firing line?
It feels like the top of the South Island can’t seem to get out of the bad weather right?

'Not football' - Maresca questions Club World Cup hosts after 'joke' delay
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca criticises the decision to stage the Club World Cup in the US following a two-hour weather delay during their win over Benfica.

Soho Basin at Cardrona not ready yet due to lack of snow
Bad weather and not enough snow have done their best to delay the opening of a new terrain and lift at Cardrona ski field in the South Island.

Weather live: Severe weather lashes parts of North Island, flooding, state of emergency in South Island regions
One of the stopbanks being monitored by Marlborough Emergency Management has become unstable, prompting a warning for Renwick residents.

Former MP, TVNZ weather presenter and New Zealand Iron Man champion runs for council
Brendan Horan says he plans to stand for a seat on Whakatane District Council in this year’s local body elections.

Weather live: Heavy rain lashes top of South Island, storm alert for Far North
A localised state of emergency has been declared for parts of Marlborough, while transport officials say the Auckland Harbour Bridge might close due to winds.