A claim that Tomorrows Schools has increased the divide between poor and wealthy schools. It comes from an American professor who is a former head of education at Massey University. He says while Tomorrows Schools has been successful in leading to greater community involvement in education, its promotion of the market ethos has been a failure. He says schools now have to raise more funds themselves and this places added hardship on those in low socio-economic areas.

Parents are being asked to act quickly if they suspect their children to have hooping cough. ninety cases of the notifiable disease have been confirmed in Southland, and health officials fear it may spread nationwide. So far there have been a few children admitted to Auckland Hospital with hooping cough complaints, but a Middlemore Hospital spokesperson says parents need to be vigilant. Children showing signs of hooping cough should be sent to the doctor immediately.

Claims firefighters are breaking ranks signing new Fire Service contracts. A small number of Auckland fire fighters are expected to sign up today. The contract is based around a re-structuring of the service, which would see the jobs of 400 fire fighters go. Union secretary Derrick Best says those people are not interesting in safety issues, and are the same people who lead the charge in taking the Fire Service backwards.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>