New Zealand

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gestures during a post-Cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand on Nov. 8, 2021. Ardern, whose empathetic handling of the nation’s worst mass-shooting and health-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic led her to become an international icon but who faced mounting criticism at home, said Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, she was leaving office. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP) **FILE**

Ardern, high-profile New Zealand leader, stepping down next month

By Andrew Salmon - The Washington Times

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern grimaces as she announces her resignation at a press conference in Napier, New Zealand. Fighting back tears, Ardern told reporters that Feb. 7 will be her last day in office. (Warren Buckland/New Zealand Herald via AP)

New Zealand’s Ardern to leave office, sets October election

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

People's Alliance Party leader Sitiveni Rabuka gestures during a church service at the Fijian Teachers Association Hall in Suva, Fiji, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. Fijian police on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022 said they were calling in the military to help maintain security following a close election last week that is now being disputed.(Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

Fiji calls in military after close election is disputed

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

Vaping by a man in a street in Auckland, New Zealand, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. New Zealand on Tuesday passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes. (AP Photo/David Rowland, File)

New Zealand bans cigarette purchase by those born after 2008 in bid to snuff out smoking

By Brad Matthews - The Washington Times

A Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center nurse loads a syringe with a Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine at an inoculation station next to Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. Moderna recently announced early evidence that its updated booster induced BQ.1.1-neutralizing antibodies. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

New Zealand seeks guardianship of baby whose parents won’t allow vaccinated blood for surgery

By Matt Delaney - The Washington Times

In this May 8, 2018, photo, a Jersey cow feeds in a field on the Francis Thicke organic dairy farm in Fairfield, Iowa. Small family operated organic dairy farms with cows freely grazing on verdant pastures are going out of business while large confined animal operations with thousands of animals lined up in assembly-line fashion are expanding. Many traditional small-scale organic farmers are fighting to stay in business by appealing to consumers to look closely at the organic milk they buy to make sure it comes from a farm that meets the idyllic expectations portrayed on the cartons. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

New Zealand proposes taxes on animal burping, peeing

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

Freedom and Rights Coalition protesters demonstrate outside Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. About 2,000 protesters upset with the government's pandemic response converged on New Zealand's Parliament — but it appeared there would be no repeat of the action six months ago in which protesters camped out on Parliament grounds for more than three weeks. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

Anti-mandate protesters converge on New Zealand Parliament

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

New Zealand police investigators work at a scene in Auckland on Aug. 11, 2022, after bodies were discovered in suitcases. A family who bought some abandoned goods from a storage unit in an online auction found the bodies of two young children concealed in two suitcases, police said Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (Dean Purcell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

Police: Woman linked to suitcase deaths likely in South Korea

By Kim Tong-hyung - Associated Press

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket waits on the launch pad on the Mahia peninsula in New Zealand, Tuesday, June 28, 2022. NASA wants to experiment with a new orbit around the moon which it hopes to use in the coming years to once again land astronauts on the lunar surface. (Rocket Lab via AP)

NASA satellite breaks from orbit around Earth, heads to moon

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, right, shakes hands with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ahead of a bilateral meeting in Sydney, Australia, Friday, June 10, 2022. Ardern is on a two-day visit to Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, Pool)

Australia, New Zealand unite on China’s Pacific threat

By Rod McGuirk - Associated Press

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pose with agreements they signed at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in San Francisco, Friday, May 27, 2022. Gov. Newsom met with Ardern in Golden Gate Park &quot;to establish a new international partnership tackling climate change.&quot; (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

California, New Zealand announce climate change partnership

Associated Press

Families embrace after a flight from Los Angeles arrived at Auckland International Airport as New Zealand's border opened for visa-waiver countries Monday, May 2, 2022. New Zealand welcomed tourists from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Japan and more than 50 other countries for the first time in more than two years as it dropped most of its remaining pandemic border restrictions. (Jed Bradley/New Zealand Herald via AP)

New Zealand welcomes back tourists as pandemic rules eased

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

Illustration on China's threat to the Solomon Islands by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Solomon Islands a step in China’s Pacific colonization

By Jianli Yang

A health worker gives out Rapid COVID-19 antigen self-test kits at the Waipareira Trust drive-in COVID-19 testing station in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Back in August, 2021, New Zealand's government put the entire nation into lockdown after a single community case of the coronavirus was detected. On Tuesday, when new daily cases hit a record of nearly 24,000, officials told healthcare workers they could go back to work in understaffed COVID-19 wards even if they were mildly sick themselves. (Brett Phibbs/New Zealand Herald via AP)

As virus cases go from 1 to 24,000, New Zealand changes tack

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gestures during the post-Cabinet press conference in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, March 7, 2022. New Zealand's government plans to rush through a new law this week that will enable it to impose economic sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP)

New Zealand will rush through new law to sanction Russia

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

United States forward Mallory Pugh, right, celebrates her goal with midfielder Jaelin Howell during the second half of the 2022 SheBelieves Cup soccer match against New Zealand Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022, in Carson, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

U.S. women take advantage of three own goals to beat New Zealand

Associated Press

Police arrest people protesting against coronavirus mandates at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Feb. 10, 2022. Some countries might send in a riot squad to disperse trespassing protesters. In New Zealand, authorities turned on the sprinklers and Barry Manilow. But the moves to try and flush out several hundred protesters who have been camped on Parliament's grassy grounds since Tuesday, Feb. 8, had little effect. (Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald via AP, File)

New Zealand tries old earworm hits to flush out protesters

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

In this recent photo provided by Charlotte Bellis, Bellis poses in a selfie with her partner Jim Huylebroek in Kabul, Afghanistan. Bellis, a pregnant New Zealand reporter who is expecting her first child with Huylebroek, has chosen Afghanistan as a temporary base for her uphill fight to return home because of her country's stringent COVID-19 entry rules. Huylebroek, a freelance photographer and Belgium native, has lived in Afghanistan for two years. (Charlotte Bellis via AP)

Pregnant New Zealand journalist in Afghanistan can go home

By Nick Perry - Associated Press

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, right, is watched by COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins as she speaks about the omicron situation while visiting New Plymouth, on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. New Zealand is among the few remaining countries to have avoided any outbreaks of the omicron variant — but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday an outbreak was inevitable and the nation would tighten restrictions as soon as one was detected. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

Omicron spreads in New Zealand, spoiling PM’s wedding plans

Associated Press

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga on Dec. 24, 2021. Three of Tonga's smaller islands suffered serious damage from tsunami waves, officials and the Red Cross said Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022, as a wider picture begins to emerge of the damage caused by the eruption of an undersea volcano near the Pacific archipelago nation. (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies via AP, File)

Three of Tonga’s smaller islands badly damaged by tsunami

By Moussa Moussa and David Rising - Associated Press