Author: CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-MCLAY Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” of agreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand Foreign Minister’s office said Thursday. New Zealand, which is the smaller Pacific nation’s biggest funder, won’t consider any new […]

New Zealand lawmakers Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, top left, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, bottom left, and Rawiri Waititi, bottom right, watch as other legislators debate their proposed bans in parliament in Wellington on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay) The Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Before Erin Patterson’s in-laws and their relatives arrived at her home for lunch, she bought pricey ingredients, consulted friends about recipes and sent her children out to a movie. Then, the Australian woman served them a dish containing poisonous death cap mushrooms — a meal that was fatal for three of […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An Australian woman accused of murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives with poisonous mushrooms told a court on Tuesday she accepted that the fatal lunch she served contained death caps. But Erin Patterson said the “vast majority” of the fungi came from local stores. She denies three counts of murder […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand court on Thursday discharged the husband of an Australian diplomat without convicting him, months after the man pleaded guilty to assault for drunkenly spitting on a teenager during a street altercation on the night of a rugby match in Wellington. The man was granted permanent name suppression. Judge […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Samoa ’s Prime Minister said she would seek to dissolve Parliament, prompting an early election, after a vote on her government’s budget for the next year failed Tuesday. Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa’s admission of defeat followed months of political havoc in the South Pacific island nation, during […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ’s laws. The ceremonial lottery at Parliament, where bills are drawn randomly from what’s known as “the biscuit tin” in local parlance, is a […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The haka, a chanting dance of challenge, is sacred to New Zealand’s Māori people but it’s become a beloved cultural institution among New Zealanders of all races. Spine-tingling performances at sports events, funerals and graduations often go viral online, a non-partisan point of pride for the country abroad. But one haka […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Three New Zealand lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori Party, will receive temporary bans from Parliament and severe censure, it was announced Wednesday, over their protest of a proposed law by performing a haka, a chanting dance of challenge, directed at their opponents. A committee of their peers recommended the […]