Wayne Brown has asked for a briefing from emergency management officials over potential heavy rain and wind headed for the super city.

The Metservice has a weather watch in place for Auckland because of a subtropical low expected to hit the North Island this weekend.

The Auckland mayor was widely criticised for his handling of severe weather at the start of the year, with flooding in January leading to four deaths. Brown later conceded he had “dropped the ball” and a substantive report released earlier this month condemned city leaders for failing to communicate with locals.

“The mayor has requested a briefing from emergency management staff. At this stage we have no further information,” a spokesperson for the mayor told the Herald. 

On Twitter, the mayor said he’d be monitoring the situation closely and asked Aucklanders to be “mindful and take care”.

* This is an excerpt from The Spinoff’s TV newsletter Rec Room. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday here.

Rachel Weisz pulls double duty in Dead Ringers (Prime Video), the reboot of David Cronenberg’s creepy 1988 film into a six-part series that is scoring rave reviews. Critics say Weisz, who replaces Jeremy Irons’ roles to play ethically dubious twin gynaecologist, Elliot and Beverly Mantle, is incredible. “A genuinely unsettling tour de force,” declared Decider’s critic, who says Weisz is “operating at the top of her game”.

This week’s other big release is the second season of Sweet Tooth (Netflix), the New Zealand-shot, family-friendly comic book caper that was a massive hit in our house. The kids are counting down the days until they can see this (it’s out today!) and while episodes weren’t provided to critics, it seems unlikely they’re going to stuff up this delightfully cute apocalyptic yarn now.

Elsewhere, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into, from David E. Kelley’s dark HBO suburban murder mini-series Love & Death (Neon), to the second season of the star-studded murder mystery show The Afterparty (Apple TV+) and Lizzy Caplan’s reboot of Fatal Attraction (TVNZ+, from April 30). Critics say you’re best to skip the Drake-produced “dead-girl” show Saint X (Disney+) – “Aims high, lands low,” quipped The Guardian.

There’s little landing in theatres to get excited about this week, but there’s a large slate of at-home films to work your way through. The Russo brothers attempt a streaming spy caper with Citadel (Prime Video), Clock (Disney+) looks like a companion piece to Dead Ringers, a body horror about a woman trying to fix her biological clock, and you can rent the Thandiwe Newton thriller God’s Country on Neon. If you’re after a rom-com – who isn’t? – A Tourist’s Guide to Love apparently features lovely scenic shots of Vietnam for you to drool over.

A controversial planned memorial for those who died in the Erebus disaster will be moved to a new location.

The memorial was expected to be constructed at Dove-Myer Robinson Park in Parnell, but due to severe weather damage caused by January’s floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, it’s no longer deemed safe.

Newshub’s reported that a new location will be looked for. “This has been a difficult decision to make because I know how upsetting it is for families,” Leauanae Laulu Mac from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage said. “They remain at the absolute heart of this kaupapa.”

“Based on careful consideration of the advice, and after discussions with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust, Auckland Council and our other project partners, I have decided a new, enduring site for the memorial needs to be found.”

The memorial faced lengthy delays after opposition to its location and design.

It feels like we can’t catch a break when it comes to the weather in 2023. The Metservice has reported more heavy rain is on the way for the top of the North Island in the days ahead.

“An active front associated with a subtropical low moves over the upper North Island during Sunday and Monday bringing periods of heavy rain and easterly gales,” said the forecaster.

Heavy rain watches are now in place for Northland, Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula, while there are strong wind watches for Northland and northern Auckland.

More details on the weather watches can be found here.

The Civil Defence has shared the message and advised people to stay up to date with the latest weather forecasts.

The prime minister could be close to securing his first face-to-face meeting with US president Joe Biden.

Unlike his predecessor Jacinda Ardern, the current PM’s unlikely to get an up close look at the Oval Office. Instead, according to Fran O’Sullivan writing for the Herald, Hipkins may have the chance to meet Biden in Papua New Guinea next month.

It’s been reported the US president could be heading to the Pacific nation as a brief pitstop between a G7 meeting in Japan and a leaders summit in Sydney.

While there would be time in the schedule for Hipkins to get a quick pull aside at the Sydney meeting (New Zealand isn’t a part of this particular event), it could make more sense for the PM to meet the president in PNG alongside other Pacific leaders. As O’Sullivan noted, a visit to New Zealand by Biden would also be possible – but logistically this would be unlikely, owing to the intense security arrangements of a presidential tour.

If this May meeting is confirmed, it will add another busy date into the prime minister’s calendar. Next week he’s heading to the UK for trade meetings and the coronation of King Charles. Then, he’ll return back to Wellington for the annual budget – which is expected to be an agenda-setting, though “no-frills”, affair.

An IRD investigation into the wealth of New Zealand’s richest 311 families found they paid an effective tax rate of just 9.5%, less than a third the 30% effective rate being paid by single PAYE-taxpaying renter on $80,000 a year. This week on When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks to the report’s commissioner, revenue minister David Parker, to break down what the report says and discuss the fairness New Zealand’s current tax system.

Listen below or wherever you get your pods

A man who posed as a doctor and saw dozens of hospital patients over the course of months has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Yuvaraj Krishnan’s defence lawyer told the court Krishnan had been described by a psychiatrist as “fluid with the truth” and his offending driven by a “bizarre compulsion to want to work as a doctor” and possible undiagnosed bipolar and dissociative identity disorders, the NZ Herald reports.

Krishnan worked as a research fellow in respiratory medicine at Middlemore Hospital for six months and saw 81 patients, conducting chest examinations, prescribing medicines and making referrals. Eventually, “a fellow student from his Auckland University days recognised Krishnan’s name in a referral document and raised the alarm with the Medical Council”. Days after being stood down from Middlemore, he applied for a role as a dermatologist at NZ Skin Health in Howick using a fake CV.

Want to read The Bulletin in full? Click here to subscribe and join over 38,000 New Zealanders who start each weekday with the biggest stories in politics, business, media and culture.  

We’re about six months away from election day and that means we can start to get a feel for how the political field is shaping up.

The Herald’s new “poll of polls” has Te Pāti Māori in prime position to be the election day deciders – if an election was held this weekend. Using polling data from a range of sources, including previous elections, and 3,000 possible simulations, the minor party has come out most often in the position of “kingmaker”.

That means, like Winston Peters in 2017, Te Pāti Māori could be in the position of choosing which party to enter into government with.

The super-poll found that in just over three quarters of all simulations – 75.1% – a Labour-led government involving the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would have enough seats to form a government.

However, close behind in 74.2% of all simulations, a government comprising National, Act and Te Pāti Māori was also possible. Politically speaking, however, the chances of this happening seem more slim – Te Pāti Māori and Act have openly stated they couldn’t work together, and despite historical precedent it seems unlikely National would particularly want this arrangement either.

The poll also shows that the chances of a single-party majority, like we have now with Labour, are incredibly low. And even a two-party coalition seems statistically unlikely: Labour and the Greens came out on top in 11.4% of the time, while National and Act could form a government 10.3% of the time.

Of course, anything could change between now and October 14 – but it certainly appears we’re in for a tight election.

For more possible arrangements, and to see how the poll of polls actually works, click here.