NEW ZEALAND popularity and NEW ZEALAND trends

From the Department of Unhelpful News Items comes this local TV report on Mitt Romney's La Jolla home and the car elevator he's building: "The nice thing about this is that at the grade level it looks like a regular garage floor," said Cheryl Nauman, an employee at American Custom Lifts. "When you hit a button, another comes up." Brad Davies created the sophisticated car elevator. His shop, ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The captain and the navigator of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef last year in what authorities have called the country's worst maritime environmental disaster were each sentenced Friday to seven months in jail. About 400 tons of fuel oil spilled on Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga and at least 2,000 sea birds died in the Oct. 5 grounding of...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- The captain and the navigating officer of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef have each been sentenced to seven months in jail....

A magnitude-4.7 earthquake has rattled the quake-weary New Zealand city of Christchurch. There are no initial reports of serious injuries or damage.

The parents of Austin Brashears, the Huntington Beach resident who died this month in a New Zealand road accident, have returned home with his remains, a family friend said. Debbie Kagawa, an organizer of the Bring Austin Home fundraising campaign, said Brashears' parents flew to New Zealand last week and returned over the weekend with his body. Bring Austin Home, which sought to raise funds to...

Full-back Geordan Murphy decides to quit international rugby after failing to make the squad for New Zealand tour.

Music-streaming site Spotify announced on Monday that it is headed down under. The Sweden-based popular service — which came to the U.S.…

VICTORIA'S sports minister Hugh Delahunty can't wait for Origin clash between Queensland and "New Zealand".

A New Zealand woman who fled overseas with her boyfriend after taking millions accidentally added to his account is found guilty of money laundering and theft.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A mysterious benefactor in Paris is spreading love, cash and hair appliances along a rugged stretch of New Zealand....

Facebook is considering to charge users for highlighting their important posts, as it is testing a new feature in New Zealand that would make comments more prominent on a user's newsfeed, The Sun reported.

Three Boston University students who were studying in New Zealand were killed Saturday when their minivan crashed.

THE pilot in charge of a hot air balloon that crashed in New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board, had cannabis in his system at the time.

A beautiful young New Zealand fern frond unfolding, with mature leaves at left. (C) Jennifer Frazer. [More]

APN News & Media has revealed that it has engaged Deutsche Bank to advise on options for its New Zealand assets.

NEW Zealand singer-songwriter Gin Wigmore has drawn strength from the blues, and is shooting straight with a new album.

A CEREMONY held just after dawn in Dublin yesterday marked the 97th anniversary of Anzac Day, when Australian and New Zealand troops set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula.

New Zealand once was a fiercely protected agricultural producer. With the quotas and tariffs gone, it is now a leading exporter

The 19th-century cathedral that was destroyed during the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand had been rebuilt temporarily using cardboard.

Africa did not exist as a continent 180 million years ago. Africa used to be a part of Gondwana supercontinent together with South America, Australia, the Antarctic, Hindustan, Arabia, Madagascar and New Zealand. In some 30 million years, the supercontinent split and broke into two parts. One of them included Africa and South America

Dean Barker, le skipper néo-zélandais d'Emirates Team New Zealand, a...

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- The founder of file-sharing website Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, is being allowed back online....

That six-year-old kid bent over a coloring book may become a 3D artist when he grows up--you never know. Now a new program can help him get a taste of that future, faster. Members of the Human Interface Technology Lab in Christchurch, New Zealand, have written a program that turns a colored-in coloring page into a 3D, animated scene. They first showed their program at conferences in 2011, and...

The Pacific islanders won the Cathay Pacific HSBC Hong Kong Sevens Cup for the 13th time, knocking off defending champion New Zealand 35-28 on Sunday night.

A procedural error in court documents may force New Zealand authorities to return millions of dollars in personal property to Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom The property which includes luxury cars and cash were seized under a type of court order that should not have been granted a judge ruled last...

WELLINGTON  - New Zealand Cricket (NZC) on Monday dismissed as “baseless” and “irresponsible” a report that some of its players were involved in match-fixing. NZC chief executive David White said the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit was investigating the allegations made in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper but he had no doubt they ...

The 70-year-old Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em star said moving to New Zealand did wonders for his health and cured him of the chronic fatigue which he feared would end his career.

The US government formally calls on New Zealand to hand over the founder of the Megaupload file-sharing site and three of his co-workers.

After 35 years, a giant fossil penguin has finally been completely reconstructed, giving researchers new insights into prehistoric penguin diversity.

In the Eighties and early Nineties bands on Flying Nun Records made tiny sheep-clogged New Zealand seem like indie-rock's last wild frontier -- an aboriginal paradise where post-Velvet Underground guitar rhapsody was pursued for its own transporting sake untouched by irony or careerism This anniversary retrospective samples thirty years of...

GUNNS shares soared today after it announced a $280 million deal with New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler.

Court hears New Zealand police had to cut Mr. Dotcom out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in

A huge crustacean called a supergiant - more than 30cm long - has been discovered 7km down in the waters north of New Zealand.

An Estonian citizen was arrested at the request of American authorities investigating the file-sharing Web site Megaupload, and its founder was held in jail in New Zealand.

AUCKLAND (Reuters) - The founder of online file-sharing website Megaupload argued in a New Zealand court Monday he was innocent on charges of internet piracy and money laundering and said authorities were trying to portray the blackest picture of him.

Beach volleyball. BMX. Table tennis. Tug of war. Trampoline. Each of these sports has been contested at a summer Olympics, and only one of the five* won’t be in the program at the 2012 London Olympics. Imagine making the case for trampoline to be added to the Olympics back in 2000: “Yes, it’s like gymnastics mixed with diving, except you’re bouncing off a trampoline and somersaulting through th...

A CONTAINER ship grounded on a reef off the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island succumbed to stormy weather and broke into two on Saturday night, releasing cargo into the water and prompting fears of a new oil spill.

You can perhaps understand why officials in New Zealand might think that naming a newborn baby Lucifer is not giving it the fairest start in life.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - New Year's Day will come early in Samoa after the tiny South Pacific nation cut Friday, December 30, from its 2011 calendar so it can catch up with Asia, New Zealand and Australia, ending 120 years of its time alliance with the United States.

CHRISTCHURCH has been rocked by a fresh series of powerful earthquakes — just ten months after a devastating quake claimed 181 lives in the New Zealand city.

* NZ's MediaWorks and Australia's Nine both see lender banks selling leveraged debt

This debut offering from New Zealand band Avalanche City is another one of those trying to bring folk back and make it cool again.

John Key guaranteed second three-year term; "New Zealand has voted for a brighter future."

A member of the Sharks management was slightly bemused this week when reporters alerted him to the possibility that the flight the Sharks were booked on to Sydney en route to New Zealand could be delayed or diverted.