The nation has banned the bags that typically hold vegetables and fruit. Recyclable, biodegradable or plant-based plastic bag are also included in the ban.

A fire ripped through a hostel in New Zealand's capital overnight, killing at least six people and forcing others to flee the four-story building in their pajamas.

The competition withdrew its new category after pushback from animal rights groups. The controversy highlights a broader debate over how to manage the invasive species.

New Zealand lawmakers and other workers inside the nation's Parliament will be banned from having the TikTok app on their government phones, officials said Friday.

The race to Nome began Sunday for 33 mushers in this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Competitors will travel travel nearly 1,000 miles and the winner is expected to take about 10 days.

Cyclone Gabrielle struck the country's north on Monday and has brought more destruction to the country than any weather event in years.

Political experts say that other global leaders can learn from Ardern's moment of gracefully bowing out while keeping reputations largely intact.

Asked whether she met with her Finnish counterpart "just because" of their similarities in age and gender, New Zealand's leader questioned whether reporters would ask the same of her male predecessor.

A woman who was extradited from South Korea this week after the bodies of her two children were found in abandoned suitcases made her first court appearance in New Zealand on Wednesday.

New Zealand lawmakers will vote on whether to lower the national voting age to 16 after the country's Supreme Court ruled that not allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote amounted to age discrimination.

The milestone places New Zealand among a half-dozen nations in the world that this year can claim at least 50% female representation in their parliaments, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The whales beached themselves on the Chatham Islands, about 500 miles east of New Zealand's main islands. None of the whales could be refloated and all either died naturally or were euthanized.

New Zealand's government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. Farmers quickly condemned the plan.

Another six people who had been on the boat off New Zealand were rescued. A local mayor says the water was dead calm and the assumption was that a whale had surfaced from beneath the boat.

As the people of New Zealand confront their nation's troubled past with colonization, a return to the Maori name of Aotearoa is being presented to a parliamentary committee.