Nine To Noon RNZ Radio

Sam looks into a few examples from over the weekend - of how what happens - when the focus is on who you've lost from sporting organisations rather than who is still there - and what the first weekend of the Six Nations tells us in the first on-field step towards the World Cup.

If 2022 was about the rise of unions in the US, 2023 is shaping up to be the year of the strike - but this reaches far beyond America's shores. Britain faces the largest ever strike by health workers today as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers walk out. There are transport strikes, education strikes, civil servants are striking - the Guardian website is now running a "strike calendar" to keep track of them all. And this week bids will start coming in to buy one of the world's biggest sporting names: Manchester United. The club is up for sale by the US-based Glazer family, who are despised by the club's fans for siphoning billions out of the club and eroding its dominance on the field.

Political commentators Gareth Hughes and Brigitte Morten join Kathryn to talk about Auckland's flood recovery and Wayne Brown's independent inquiry into the Auckland flood response - which he announced at the weekend. How did the new PM go at Waitangi, what to make of his Cabinet reshuffle and will the latest poll numbers have buoyed Labour? Gareth Hughes is a former Green MP and now works for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa. Brigitte Morten is a director with public and commercial law firm Franks & Ogilvie and a former senior ministerial advisor for the previous National-led government.

RNZ reporter Sam Olley has spent six days in Waitangi covering this year's commemorations and joins Kathryn to explain how they shaped up compared to last year's Omicron-affected event. She'll look at the exchanges between politicians and the chairs, key messages delivered and the reception new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins received.

Melanie O'Loughlin Lamplight Books in Auckland reviews Self Portrait by Celia Paul, published by Vintage

Common factors for longevity from the neuropsychiatrist with oversight of one of the world's largest studies of centenarians, is reaching 150 possible?. Much of Professor Perminder Sachdev's work relates to the epidemiology of dementia and cognitive ageing. In particular, the focus is on identifying risk factors for dementia, especially those that can be modifying, in diverse communities, so that strategies can be developed to help delay the onset of dementia. The idea behind this is that if dementia can be delayed by even 1-2 years, it will lead to a significant reduction in disease burden.