Lorde lands her first U.S. Billboard chart-topping album

Excited passengers prepare to fly from Sydney Airport to New Zealand on the first flights to take advantage of a quarantine-free travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand.

For the first time in over a year, people can travel to New Zealand from Australia without having to contend with a strict quarantine. The countries' leaders hope to expand the arrangement.

Hugs, tears of joy and smiles all around at New Zealand airports as families and friends are reunited thanks to a travel bubble agreement between New Zealand and Australia.

The case comes just a day after New Zealand and Australia announced quarantine-free trans-Tasman travel.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party has watered down a parliamentary proposal to accuse China of genocide. The Pacific nation has taken a softer stance than the US and UK.

Police have arrested a man who stabbed five people at a supermarket in Dunedin in southern New Zealand. Three people are in critical condition.

Large areas are flooded in the province of Canterbury in New Zealand, after heavy rains in the region. Authorities have declared a state of emergency in the province on Sunday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern toured flood-hit areas of the country's South Island on Tuesday, expressing shock at the destruction left when three months' worth of rain fell in three days. Swollen rivers swept away bridges and landslides blocked highways in the deluge, which finally began to ease after a 72-hour barrage. While hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate, there have been no reports of serious injuries.

Laural Hubbard's selection to New Zealand's squad for the Tokyo Olympics has opened a wider conversation on the participation of transgender athletes at major sporting events.

An orca calf that was beached and separated from its mother is cared for by conservationists as the search begins for the baby's mother. Named Toa -- Maori for 'warrior' -- the 2.5 metre (eight foot) orca is unweaned and unable to survive alone in the ocean.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces that the country is heading for a three-day lockdown after identifying a single case of locally transmitted Covid-19 suspected to be the Delta variant. New Zealand had not recorded any infections in the community for six months.