News of New Zealanders via Global Media

2-Metre Peter Poster Makes London Museum

2-Metre Peter Poster Makes London Museum

Two years ago Christchurch medical radiation technologist Peter Dooley loaned his 2-metre body to a Covid-19 social-distancing campaign, Cecile Meier reports for Stuff. Now the posters – featuring him lying down or spreading his…

Geoff Andrews, Kiwi Connector in the Big Apple

Geoff Andrews, Kiwi Connector in the Big Apple

Geoff Andrews, a leader and organizer of the New Zealand community in New York City, died on December 30, 2021, at his home in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, aged 76. He lived in New…

Gang of Youths Bassist Max Dunn on the Bigtime

Gang of Youths Bassist Max Dunn on the Bigtime

Music magazine NME sits down with one of Australia’s biggest bands, Gang of Youths, in their adopted home of London to talk fame, grief and their powerful new album Angel In Realtime. In the…

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott Wins Winter Olympics NZ-First

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott Wins Winter Olympics NZ-First

Wanaka’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, 20, stood on top of the podium in women’s snowboard slopestyle at the Beijing Olympics last week, winning the first-ever Winter Games gold medal for New Zealand, Reuters reports. Cheers erupted in…

Rower Hamish Bond Retires After Three Olympic Golds

Rower Hamish Bond Retires After Three Olympic Golds

Dunedin-born Hamish Bond, 35, has announced his retirement from rowing, bringing down the curtain on a glittering career during which he became the first New Zealand man to win gold at three consecutive Olympics,…

Success for Allbirds’ Tim Brown Has Meaning

Success for Allbirds’ Tim Brown Has Meaning

Allbirds co-founder New Zealander Tim Brown shares his insights on fuelling performance with a higher purpose. Brown tells Inc. magazine that when he retired from professional football, he found himself searching for his next…

Leave No Girl Behind Sings Kimbra in Campaign

Leave No Girl Behind Sings Kimbra in Campaign

Grammy award-winning artist, New Zealand-born New York-based Kimbra, has released an original song to launch the Leave No Girl Behind initiative with the not-for-profit So They Can, Leah Rodriguez writes in a story…

Sonny Bill Williams Our Very Own Antihero

Sonny Bill Williams Our Very Own Antihero

From Iverson and Kyrgios to Vick, Zidane, and New Zealander Sonny Bill Williams, GQ magazine presents the greatest male renegades, rebels, and mavericks in global sports. “As long as there have been sports, there have…

Shining the Light on Actor Melanie Lynskey

Shining the Light on Actor Melanie Lynskey

The Yellowjackets star New Zealander Melanie Lynskey has gone from character actor to leading lady thanks to her singular ability to project simmering rage beneath a placid exterior, EJ Dickson writes for Rolling Stone. This…

Wayve’s Alex Kendall Teaching Cars to Drive

Wayve’s Alex Kendall Teaching Cars to Drive

UK autonomous driving start-up Wayve, co-founded by New Zealander Alex Kendall, has been backed by a host of big name investors including Microsoft, Virgin and Baillie Gifford in a US$200 million funding round that…

Finnegan Tui Releases a Reflection of Darkness

Finnegan Tui Releases a Reflection of Darkness

New Zealand-born multi-instrumentalist and producer Finnegan Tui “has released a haunting electronica ballad, ‘Spring’, describing the search for hope at the darkest time of year,” the UK’s Notion magazine reports. “Tui nurtured his own…

Commentator Niki Bezzant Writes on Menopause

Commentator Niki Bezzant Writes on Menopause

An edited extract from New Zealander Niki Bezzant’s book This Changes Everything: The Honest Guide to Menopause and Perimenopause, was recently published in The Guardian. “For centuries the symptoms of menopause were documented, but women…

Tom Hardy’s Stuntman Jacob Tomuri Opens Up

Tom Hardy’s Stuntman Jacob Tomuri Opens Up

There is an icy chill to the water in Wellington’s Oriental Bay at 7pm. For Jacob Tomuri, after long days filming high-octane fight action, a daring dip cleanses, rejuvenates and helps relieve the off-camera…

Nico Porteous Claims Freeski Halfpipe World Cup Win

Nico Porteous Claims Freeski Halfpipe World Cup Win

Just days after recovering from Covid-19, New Zealand’s Nico Porteous, 20, has claimed victory at the Freeski Halfpipe World Cup in California, Stuff reports. This was a maiden World Cup triumph for the Wanaka skier…

Reappraising Unjustly Neglected James Courage

Reappraising Unjustly Neglected James Courage

“New Zealand-born James Courage is one of those fine writers who, though he enjoyed considerable success in his lifetime, has now more or less slipped from view. None of the eight novels he published…

Track Hero Nick Willis Tries Sub-4:00 Again in NY

Track Hero Nick Willis Tries Sub-4:00 Again in NY

Over the course of five Olympics, the New Zealand mid-distance runner Nick Willis has become a track and field legend. At 38, he recently embarked on an unprecedented quest. GQ went trackside to witness…

Olivia Shivas Helps Those with Disabilities Travel

Olivia Shivas Helps Those with Disabilities Travel

In a Washington Post story, three travellers with disabilities, including New Zealand journalist Olivia Shivas, relate how they cope with an added layer of worry and logistics. In the podcast “What’s Wrong With You?”,…

The New York Times Sends the World to Northland

The New York Times Sends the World to Northland

In Northland, “cultural lessons await, as do hot springs where visitors can recharge body and soul,” according to Daniel Scheffler writing for The New York Times. The region is included in the publication’s 2022…

Revival for Moriori Pushed Close to Cultural Death

Revival for Moriori Pushed Close to Cultural Death

On the windswept coast of Chatham Island stands a statue of a thick-jowled, cheerful man, his gaze fixed on the endless sea stretched before him, Pete McKenzie writes for The New York Times. The memorial…

Gemma New a Highlight of 2021 Classical Calendar

Gemma New a Highlight of 2021 Classical Calendar

The year in classical music was marked by challenge and determination as the pandemic continued its cultural stranglehold for much of 2021. But for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), which Wellington-born Gemma New conducted…

Neil McLachlan’s London Folly on the Market

Neil McLachlan’s London Folly on the Market

New Zealand interior designer Neil McLachlan’s “eccentric two-bedroom apartment is available  in London’s Bloomsbury neighbourhood on the ground floor of Russell Court, a renowned Art Deco building designed by late architect George…

The Power of the Dog Among Worthy Globe Winners

The Power of the Dog Among Worthy Globe Winners

Jane Campion’s “handsome, complex and brilliant” western The Power of the Dog won best picture (drama) and best director at this year’s Golden Globes, along with best supporting actor for “the excellent” Kodi Smit-McPhee,…

Outdoors Vital for Children Agrees Rachel Carrell

Outdoors Vital for Children Agrees Rachel Carrell

Home Nursery, an offshoot of New Zealander Rachel Carrell’s Koru Kids childcare agency, has been launched to address the growing number of parents wanting their city-dwelling kids to learn while surrounded by Mother Nature,…

Temuera Morrison’s the Only Face for Boba Fetta

Temuera Morrison’s the Only Face for Boba Fetta

New Zealander Temuera Morrison vividly remembers the first time he tried on his Boba Fett suit, David Betancourt writes in a story for The Washington Post. He sat in a meeting room with Star Wars…

Newcastle United Sign Striker Chris Wood

Newcastle United Sign Striker Chris Wood

New Zealand striker Chris Wood has readily admitted he never envisaged a club triggering the £25m release clause in his contract at Burnley but, once Newcastle United activated it, he felt powerless to say…

Booker Prize Winner Keri Hulme Always a Storyteller

Booker Prize Winner Keri Hulme Always a Storyteller

Keri Hulme, the New Zealander whose 1984 novel The Bone People won the Man Booker Prize, has died at her home in Waimate, South Canterbury. She was 74. Hulme worked as a tobacco picker,…

Podcast Explores Vibrant Roots of Our Hip Hop Scene

Podcast Explores Vibrant Roots of Our Hip Hop Scene

In podcast Aotearoa Hip Hop: The Music, The People, The History, Phil Bell aka DJ Sir-Vere talks to some of the genre’s most iconic figures and unsung heroes, exploring how music helped Māori and…

Pop Artist Billy Apple Defied Parochialism

Pop Artist Billy Apple Defied Parochialism

In an article for New York-based magazine Artforum, contributing editor Thomas Crow looks back on the life of New Zealand artist Billy Apple, who died aged 85 in 2021. “Though he was much else besides,…

Dreaming up 1925 Montana with Grant Major

Dreaming up 1925 Montana with Grant Major

Oscar-winning Palmerston North-born production designer Grant Major has transitioned from The Lord of the Rings to the wilds of 1925 Montana for The Power of the Dog, director Jane Campion’s acclaimed western drama that,…

Newsreader Oriini Kaipara Presents World-First

Newsreader Oriini Kaipara Presents World-First

Newshub broadcaster Oriini Kaipara has made the headlines herself in Britain with the Evening Standard reporting the Whakatane-born journalist is the first person to present a prime time news programme with a moko kauae. Kaipara,…

Predator Free 2050 a Force for Nature

Predator Free 2050 a Force for Nature

“Across the world conservation groups, researchers and volunteers are working to combat the key drivers of biodiversity loss identified by scientists,” Max Benato writes for The Guardian in a story that looks at “five…

Rose Matafeo Arguably Breakout Star of 2021

Rose Matafeo Arguably Breakout Star of 2021

After winning a New Zealand international comedy festival award for stand-up in 2007, at the age of 15, Rose Matafeo has conquered just about everything she has ever attempted, Stuart Heritage writes for The…

Invivo Launches World’s First Winery Airline

Invivo Launches World’s First Winery Airline

Before the pandemic halted in-flight booze service aboard a majority of airplanes, airplane drinks used to be something many passengers looked forward to. With select airlines slowly bringing that service back, New Zealand-based winery…