Cabinet ministers have been meeting with gang leaders as the country targets an ambitious vaccination rateSee all our coronavirus coverageAfter the needle entered his right arm, the man raised his left fist in a brief salute. Surgical mask covering par…
‘Perfect storm’: how Covid is compounding New Zealand’s existing social crises
Experts say the pandemic is multiplying longstanding problems linked to housing and racial inequalityLike clay pressed into a mould, Covid outbreaks tend to conform to the contours of a country’s existing inequalities and cracks, replicating them over …
Home affairs: New Zealanders forced to turn to dating sites to find a mortgage mate
Tinder profiles reveal desperate reality of trying to buy a home as survey shows housing is the number one concern for Kiwis, ranked above Covid“It is a truth universally acknowledged,” Jane Austen wrote in 1813, “that a single man in possession of a g…
New Zealand stabbings: police made repeated attempts to curb ‘highly paranoid’ man
As number of victims updated from six to seven, police say ‘every legal avenue’ was explored to try to contain threat of attackSeven people were injured in the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern has said, updating initi…
Auckland stabbings: calls for tighter terror laws after extremist allowed to roam free
Existing legislation meant the knifeman, who was known to police, could not be jailed despite evidence he was planning an attackAs New Zealand reels from the second terror attack in its recent history, a picture is emerging of an Islamic State-inspired…
New Zealand won’t ‘throw in towel’ on Covid-zero strategy despite rising infections
Covid response minister says it would be a waste to stop aiming for elimination after plan was questioned by foreign mediaSee all our coronavirus coverageNew Zealand’s Covid response minister says the country will not “throw in the towel” with its elim…
‘No second chances’: Can New Zealand beat Delta?
Jacinda Ardern has led a global Covid success story, but other countries have come unstuck when facing the Delta variantSee all our coronavirus coverageAs epidemiologist Michael Baker scrolled through a growing list of New Zealand’s Covid-exposed locat…
Ardern’s Covid lockdown finds favour as New Zealand watches Sydney’s Delta disaster
Asked what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown, the prime minister responded with one word: ‘Australia’See all our coronavirus coverageTo overseas eyes, going into national lockdown over a single case should have been…
Case of the mystery sea snakes: why are reptiles washing up on New Zealand’s shores?
A famously snake-free country, Aotearoa and its beaches are wrangling with the sporadic arrival of yellow-bellied sea snakesIt looked like a rope or a question mark – a black scribble on the sand. The creature had washed up on a Northland beach in May …