New Zealand

At the time, New Zealand officials suggested to journalists that the bang of the teenager's gun was a sign falling over or firecrackers going off.

Passengers from the MV Butiraoi, a Kirabati ferry that sank more than a week ago, were picked up by New Zealand's military.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's youngest prime minister in 150 years, will become only the second female leader to give birth in the modern age.

Scientists have uncovered the fossil of an ancestral penguin off the east coast of New Zealand. It was one of the earliest known species of penguin and also one of the largest.

The 166-year-old yacht race, which has featured giant foiling catamarans in recent years, will return to monohulls in 2021. But the new boats are far from traditional.

When Ardern was elected Labour leader just 12 weeks ago, her party's polling numbers surged so rapidly it was dubbed "Jacindamania." She'll be the country's youngest prime minister in 150 years.

Jacinda Ardern had just been announced as the new leader of the Labour party, when a TV host asked her whether she felt like she had to make a choice between "having babies and having a career."

Researchers following a group of New Zealanders over the course of 40 years found an association between childhood lead exposure and declines in intelligence and socioeconomic status later in life.

The researchers say that when the highly intelligent kea parrots hear a call associated with play, they start playful tussling, aerial acrobatics, or throwing objects into the air.

Lawmakers granted the Whanganui River the rights of legal representation on Wednesday. The vote caps over a century of struggle by the local Maori people, who see the waterway as a sacred ancestor.

After two mass strandings left over 650 pilot whales washed ashore at a remote beach and hundreds died, volunteer rescuers finally got some good news: A large pod swam back to sea overnight.

Volunteers gathered early to send some 100 surviving whales back to sea, after one of the worst mass strandings in New Zealand's history. But just hours later, a new large pod washed ashore nearby.