Latest news with #Queenstown
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Break-in causes $750,000 worth of water damage to new builds in Queenstown
The burglary happened on O'Meara Street in Frankton. Photo: RNZ/Katie Todd Several new homes at a Queenstown development suffered water damage during a break-in that caused $750,000 dollars worth of damage . Police are appealing for information about the burglary on O'Meara Street in Frankton, which they believed happened between 8am on Friday night and 8am on Saturday morning. RNZ understands the affected properties are new builds at the Five Mile Villas which have not been handed over to their new owners. Commercial dehumidifiers were visible in the windows of at least eight homes on Thursday morning. Commercial dehumidifiers were visible in the windows of at least eight homes. Photo: RNZ/Katie Todd Police described the break-in as "burglary and wilful damage" but would not confirm any further details. Detective Senior Sergeant Regan Boucher said the damage was significant and police wanted to hear from anyone in the area who had CCTV or dashcam footage. "Initial indications suggest there has been in excess of $750,000 worth of damage during the incident," Boucher said. "Police are making inquiries to identify and locate those responsible." Police described the break-in as "burglary and wilful damage" but would not confirm any further details. Photo: RNZ/Katie Todd Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Burglar leaves $750,000 trail of destruction in Queenstown
Police want to hear from anyone nearby with CCTV or dashcam footage. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller A burglar has left a $750,000 trail of destruction in Queenstown over the weekend. A string of homes were broken into between 8pm on Friday night and 8am Saturday morning on Omeara St in Frankton, police have said. The damage was significant, Detective Senior Sergeant Regan Boucher said, and police want to hear from anyone who may have CCTV or dashcam footage in the area. "Initial indications suggest there has been in excess of $750,000 worth of damage during the incident," Boucher said. "Police are making inquiries to identify and locate those responsible." Anyone who had information that could help police with their investigation should call police on 105 and use the reference number 250719/1583. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
CBS News
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Club Calvi spotlights the 2nd book in the private eye "Vandy Myrick Mystery" series set in N.J.
Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE. Find out more about the books below. The author of a 2024 Club Calvi FicPick is back with a follow-up book that reviewers are calling "an absorbing whodunit" and a "twisting mystery." Delia Pitts kicked off her "Vandy Myrick Mysteries" with "Trouble in Queenstown." Her new book "Death of an Ex" is being released on July 15th. Vandy Myrick is her hometown's only Black woman private investigator. Pitts told CBS News New York's Mary Calvi that she knew she would write this sequel as she was writing the first book. "I knew I wanted to include issues about Vandy's past life and I wanted to get into a little bit more detail. I thought the best way to do it is to look at her ex-husband," Pitts said. Pitts says her cousin in Chicago is the inspiration for Myrick. "She, back in the '70s, formed with her husband a small security agency. She was a private eye in a narrower sense. And I'm sure her security agency did not deal with murders or kidnappings or any of the dire things that I put [Vandy] through," said Pitts. Pitts lives in New Jersey. The Vandy Myrick mysteries are set in a place called Queenstown, New Jersey. Pitts says it's close to, but not exactly, her hometown. "I live in central New Jersey, in Hightstown" Pitts told Calvi. "Though there are no murders that I know of in Hightstown, the real Hightstown. But the diversity and complexity that I saw in my hometown, I wanted to bring into this book." Pitts has a doctorate in African history and was an administrator at Rutgers University before she started writing fiction. "I've been writing all my life in one way or another," she said. "But once I left academia, I got to focus full time on my fiction writing. I did some independent publishing, self publishing, before I got into this series. I've always loved film noir. I've always loved detective stories. It seemed a natural for me to go and try to write my own." Pitts says Myrick will be back, as she's now writing the third book in the series. You can read an excerpt, and purchase the book, below. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the publisher: Queenstown, New Jersey, feels big when you need help and tiny when you want privacy. For Vandy Myrick, that's both a blessing and a curse. Now that Vandy's back in "Q-Town," her services as her hometown's only Black woman private investigator have earned her more celebrity—or notoriety—than she figured. Keeping busy with work helps Vandy deal with the grief of losing her daughter, stitching the seams, cementing the gaps. The memories will always remain, and they come crashing back to the surface when her ex-husband, Phil Bolden, walks back into her life. Promising everything, returning home, restoring family. Until she answers her door to the news that Phil has been murdered. And Vandy decides Phil is now her client. It's hard to separate the Phil that Vandy knew from the one Queenstown did. She sees him—and their daughter—in Phil's son, who attends a prestigious local high school. She sees the layers of a complicated marriage with his wife. She sees all of Phil's various roles: parent, husband, businessman, philanthropist. But which role got him killed? Delia Pitts Lives in New Jersey. "Death of an Ex" by Delia Pitts (ThriftBooks) $22 Chapter 2 The rain subsided before I parked my Jeep at the graveyard's black iron gate. The entrance to Bethel Cemetery was a spindly structure, fragile spikes dividing the uneven path from the sidewalk. Now, bars of late October sun slanted through the fence, shedding stripes of brass and copper on the lawns and gravestones. The Flats was the Black section of Q-Town, and Bethel Cemetery, five blocks from my childhood home, was the pride of our neighborhood. The gold-and-red canopy of oak trees, the curving paths, fat squirrels, and brazen deer made the park seem like an enchanted empire when I was young. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was my mother's favorite retreat. My father, also Evander Myrick, never attended with us, which diminished Bethel's value in my eyes. My father claimed my Saturdays for baseball or football games, museum visits, and chess tournaments. Now retired after twenty-seven years on the Queenstown police force, Evander lived in a nursing home. He was the robust, cheerful, and eternally oblivious victim of advanced Alzheimer's. I stepped onto the cement track winding through the cemetery. Water glinted like lost coins in the chips and crevices of the path. My family's graves occupied a plot of balding turf in the northeast quadrant of the cemetery. As I dawdled, I studied the older graves, flattened mounds barely discernible in the grass, their headstones buffed smooth by decades of caresses. When I reached my goal, I sat on a stone bench beneath an oak tree before the double-wide family plot. Splashes of sun turned the marble headstone from gray to ocean white; chiseled script announced the precious names below the square blocks forming our shared plot: MYRICK ALMA MARIE, LOVING WIFE DEVOTED MOTHER MONICA ALMA, BELOVED DAUGHTER I pictured them lying side by side, arms entwined, my daughter resting her head on my mother's breast. Alma smoothing Monica's fuzzy hairline the way she used to stroke mine. The dimple flashing in my baby's cheek as my mother's hand flexed. I knew Monica's entire life from lonely beginning to ugly end. But I wished I'd known more of my mother's life. Her drives and desires, her creations and conquests. As a certified daddy's girl, I'd never tried to know my mother. This visit to her grave made me want to learn about that Alma. The one I'd ignored for so many decades. Now, before our time burned to cinders. "I've been away too long," I whispered. Settling elbows on knees, I spoke louder. "But I've been thinking about you. Always." I meant them both, but Monica most of all. I touched a thin gold chain around my throat. I adjusted the dangling letter M so it nestled within the notch of my collarbone. Monica's necklace, now mine. Inheritance inverted. As often happened, visiting Monica here summoned thoughts of her father. My ex-husband, Philip Bolden, had quit me before our baby was born. Did he ever visit her grave? Did Phil even mourn her loss? Was I gone from his life and forgotten, too? Reconstructing our split, I felt the decision was all mine. Philandering Phil was more than a catchy nickname for an ex. But sometimes I worried he'd wanted the divorce just as much as I did. Where did that balance teeter in my heart? That tilt between pride and desire that kept Phil's image scratching at my memories even twenty years after the death of our marriage. I tugged from my coat pocket a folded white envelope. Shaking it helped scatter unruly thoughts of Phil. I read the return address out loud. "That's the name of the fraternity, Mama. And Monica, that's their national headquarters." I pulled out the crumpled stub and ran a finger along the edge where the check had hung. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I tried the "two," but didn't get further. I wouldn't recite the numbers out loud. No point. Alma and Monica already knew. Overhead, a squirrel scolded. I looked up at the orange quilt of leaves when he repeated the chatter. Of course, they knew the fraternity had paid me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to forget Monica had drowned in her own vomit on a chintz-covered sofa in the parlor at a party in the campus house they owned. The fraternity bought a quarter million dollars of my forgetfulness. Blood money settled on my blood kin. I felt filthy. Dirty and rich. I stood from the bench. "I can do this much." The squirrel yipped in reply, but I was talking to my family. "Not enough. But I'll make this money mean something. Watch me." I clawed a hole in the bare soil on Monica's side of the grave. From the back pocket of my jeans I pulled the green Bic lighter, then knelt. The lighter's flame leaped to the stub in my hand. When it was well torched, I dropped the sheet into the hole. As fire consumed the papers, wind caught a plume of smoke, carrying its gray feathers toward the church. After the fire guttered, I patted dirt into a mound over the ashes. The scent of burnt paper drifted around my head as I walked to the car. When I reached the end of the path, I saw a Black woman standing at the gate. Her posture was stiff, like a sentry. She wore a navy blue pantsuit, her fists buried in the lapels to pull the jacket tight across her chest. No coat or gloves, a fuchsia blouse buttoned to her throat, as if she'd run from inside the church to intercept me. I hitched my shoulders, then offered a semi-cringe. I had every right to visit the cemetery; but still I felt like an invader. The woman said, "You shouldn't start fires here, you know." She cinched her lips. When I didn't reply she added, "Any spark could set off the grass." "It was a small one." I thinned my voice. "I smothered it before I left." She raised her eyes to the sky, as if she could see smoke scrawled on the clouds. Then she looked straight to my face. "I know you." Thrust lip, no smile. "You're a Myrick, right?" Nailed, but how did this newcomer know my business? From "Death of an Ex" by Delia Pitts. Copyright (c) 2025 by the author and reprinted by permission of Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group. Return to top of page
News.com.au
16-07-2025
- News.com.au
World's ‘most tranquil' destination just three hours from Australia
Our friends over the ditch live in a country home to the most tranquil city in the world, with three surprising Aussie locations also on the list. If there was ever a reason to visit New Zealand, it would be now, with Queenstown topping Travelbag's 'Most tranquil destination for 2025' study. The UK-based long-haul travel specialists analysed 36 global destinations using key indicators such as noise and light pollution, cleanliness, the quality of green spaces, and levels of local congestion. The popular adrenaline destination, known for its unparalleled landscape on the South Island, scored the highest overall average across each category noting its impressive cleanliness score of 92 out of 100 and green space quality of 94, reflecting its pristine surroundings. It scored 25 for noise and light pollution levels, ensuring peaceful days and starry nights, and 88 in low travel congestion. In fact, the small coastal town of KaikÅ�ura, on the South Island, officially became an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, making it the 22nd location globally and the third sanctuary in New Zealand, alongside Aotea Great Barrier Island and Rakiura Stewart Island. The achievement supports New Zealand's goal of becoming a dark sky nation. The hotspot is where most tourists visit, with 43 per cent of Aussies visiting Queenstown and 58 per cent flying direct to the South Island, according to a Tourism New Zealand study. It also helps it's just a three-hour plane journey. 'Often referred to as the adventure capital, the variety of experiences on offer proves popular among Australians,' Andrew Waddel, General Manager – Australia, Tourism New Zealand, previously told 'From exploring local award-winning wineries, gliding down the luge at Skyline Queenstown, taking in the view on a scenic cruise to mountain biking through world-famous trails, there's something for everyone.' Queenstown was also previously ranked one of the most loved destinations in the world in 2023 – so it's definitely a destination high on travellers' lists. Meanwhile, its sister city Auckland located on the north island ranked sixth on the tranquil list with a noise and light pollution ranking of 44, cleanliness of 68, quality of green spaces 82 and travel congestion 166. Three Aussie locations on the list Coming in second place was Seychelles in East Africa followed by Cairns in Australia, sharing equal third with Kyoto, Japan and Banff in Canada. Travelbag described Seychelles as an island paradise that blends unspoilt natural beauty with serene ambience, 'making it an ideal retreat from urban life'. 'The islands boast the lowest noise and light pollution score of just 16.7, with the most tranquil spots being La Digue, Praslin, and Silhouette Island,' it stated. Cairns, which is considered the gateway to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, had a surprisingly low noise and light pollution score of 25. 'Cairns also stands out for its cleanliness score of 69.9 and a green space quality score of 78.5, reflecting its well-maintained, nature-rich environment,' Travelbag said. It also sits in second place with golden sands and tropical waters. 'Its beaches boast an impressive rating of 4.7 stars, supported by a strong cleanliness score of 69.6 and low water pollution (34.3).' Meanwhile, the Gold Coast also made the cut, ranking fifth with a score of 42 for noise and light pollution, 73 for cleanliness and 85 for green spaces. But for low travel congestion it scored 180. Sydney ranked seventh with a score of 40 for noise and light pollution, 69 for cleanliness, 80 for green spaces and parks and 192 for low travel congestion. Rounding out the top 10 were Whistler, Canada in fourth, Orlando, Florida in eight, Tokyo Japan in ninth and Cape Town, South Africa in 10th.
RNZ News
15-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Queenstown hotel fined $22,000 for breaches under Fisheries Act
The hotel had been offering 'The Rees Ultimate Heli Crayfish dining experience' to guests which included the illegal sale of recreationally caught crayfish. File picture. Photo: Malcolm Francis A Queenstown hotel has been fined $22,000 for illegally selling recreationally caught crayfish and failing to keep records. The Rees Management Limited, which trades as The Rees Hotel, was sentenced in the Queenstown District Court on Monday for charges under the Fisheries Act and Fisheries (Record keeping) Regulations. The hotel had been offering 'The Rees Ultimate Heli Crayfish dining experience' to guests which included the illegal sale of recreationally caught crayfish. Guests were invoiced between $4650 and $7750 for the total day's experience. Fisheries New Zealand regional manager south Garreth Jay said under the Fisheries Act, a commercial fishing permit is required to take any fish for sale. Any use of seafood as part of a business' commercial activities is considered sale under the Act. "The rules are there for a reason - to safeguard the resource for current and future generations, protect the integrity of the fisheries management system, and ensure a level playing field for businesses' using seafood as part of their commercial activities," Jay said. "In this case it is our view the offending persisted despite clear advice being given to the operators involved that the helicopter experience package did not comply with the Fisheries Act." The hotel also did not keep required records of the crayfish making it difficult to quantify the scale of the offending, Jay said. "We all have a role to play in ensuring the ongoing sustainability of our fisheries. We encourage people to report suspected illegal activity through our free-calling 0800 4 POACHER number (0800 47 62 24)," he said. Fisheries New Zealand is also prosecuting another business in relation to the offending, with the matter still before the courts. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
