The New Zealand Herald

Team NZ To Run Viaduct - Baby Abandoned - School Turns Around - Companies Market - Drug Taking Down - Dream Job Before Death - Kids Commit Suicide - Few Sign Up - Weekend Prisons Defended

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TEAM NZ TO RUN VIADUCT: Team New Zealand will try to rule the land as well as the waves at the next America's Cup regatta. The defenders will today announce an agreement in principle with the Auckland City Council to run events at the Viaduct Basin for the next regatta in exchange for exclusive and lucrative naming rights until 2003.

- BABY ABANDONED: It began with a car journey. A 39-year-old Wellington woman put her 4-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son into her white Volvo and headed north on State Highway 2. Her husband was in Australia on business. Police believe the Volvo wound its way through the steep Rimutaka Ranges, and passed through Featherston, Greytown and Carterton before arriving in Masterton, about 100km from Wellington.

- SCHOOL TURNS AROUND: A school has turned a scathing Education Review Office report on its head, attracting new students and respect just four months after being described as "at risk." Hard work has turned Sunset Junior High School into a success story. But in May, the Rotorua school was in crisis after the ERO criticised the curriculum, financial management, untidy school grounds, board of trustees management and student behaviour.

- COMPANIES MARKET: A marketing initiative by seven furniture companies could be a blueprint for other small exporters, says Trade NZ. Along with a subsidiary company of Fletcher Challenge, the furniture companies have created Furnz, to market New Zealand products in the United States.

- DRUG TAKING DOWN: Drug taking in Mt Eden Prison is soaring while jails around the country record falling rates of substance abuse. Of the 177 prisoners who were randomly drug tested at Mt Eden in the year to June 30, 44 per cent returned positive results.

- DREAM JOB BEFORE DEATH: Rob Alcorn got his dream job just 10 days before his death. The Auckland man was on cloud nine when he rang home from London this month to tell his family that his life-long dream of flying jet aircraft had come true - he had been given a coveted position as pilot for the McLaren-Mercedes Formula One motor racing team.

- KIDS COMMIT SUICIDE: Children as young as seven have committed suicide in New Zealand, a new study has found. The study comes as counsellors are overwhelmed by calls for help and advice following the screening of a controversial television programme on youth suicide.

- FEW SIGN UP: Fewer than half of the women eligible have signed up for free checks for breast cancer, a big killer of New Zealand women. Only 40 per cent had signed up to the national screening programme by March 31, according to the latest figures. Even fewer women had had mammograms.

- E-MAIL EMBARRASSES: The Government was left red-faced last night after a wrongly addressed e-mail allowed National to leak details of next week's high-powered Business-to-Government Forum. The details included the likely establishment of a task force to attract more foreign investment.

- WEEKEND PRISONS DEFENDED: Corrections Minister Matt Robson denies that measures including "weekend prisons" flout the results of last year's referendum on crime. He said yesterday that the Government had taken action in response to the referendum, including looking at ways to implement its call for "hard labour." It had already strengthened victims' rights and was planning tougher parole rules, among other initiatives.