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Surely the preliminary report of the WHO investigators is good news – certainly puts the hypothesis that Covid-19 leaked from a research lab in the bin. Isn t that a relief? After all, why on earth would anyone hope that hypothesis was true? Peter Daszak, a British-American member of the WHO team in Wuhan, previously told USA TODAY that in peoples imaginations there might be this image of one person in a lab in China who drops a petri dish and that somehow leads to a massive outbreak. It s just not like that. Every year there are millions of people going in bat caves and hunting and eating wildlife. It happens every day. ....
No Right Turn wrote last week: The Auckland Council will soon be consulting on a Regional Land Transport Plan, setting their transport priorities (and funding) for the next decade. Obviously, this will have a huge impact on the city’s emissions profile. And to make sure they think hard about that, Lawyers for Climate Action is threatening to take them to court if they get it wrong: Climate change lobbyists are warning Auckland Council it could face legal action if its decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions fall short of promises made.The message came from Lawyers for Climate Action during a presentation to the council’s planning committee on Thursday. ....
New Zealand s bad results in an international maths and science test are being blamed on factors including grouping children by their ability and the previous government s national standards in reading, writing and maths. Scores for New Zealand nine and 13-year-olds fell in both subjects in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, with the 13-year-olds recording their worst results ever - 482 for maths and 499 for science. That was significantly lower than countries New Zealand traditionally compares itself to such as Australia and England where average scores exceeded 500, and the leading nation, Singapore, which scored more than 600 in both subjects. ....