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More than 80 international organisations have signed an open letter asking the World Health Organization to review its nitrate drinking-water limit. Signatories include OraTaiao and Greenpeace Aotearoa, who say the benchmark has not been updated since the 1950s.
New Zealand Police are making enquiries into a referral from the Electoral Commission about Harry Mowbray's Split Your Vote website, which urged National supporters to split their vote. The National Party has confirmed it complained to the commission, and Mowbray has said he took the website offline.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis says she never considered running in the safe National seat of Kaipara ki Mahurangi, citing her family's situation. National's candidate for the seat is Jessica Rowe, who replaces Chris Penk, who is not seeking re-election.
Tests of seven major AI chatbots on voter questions, reported by NPR on November 2, 2026, found outdated or inaccurate answers in 13.9% of October responses on voting logistics. Claude and Copilot produced three-quarters of the clear errors researchers found, and Microsoft said it is continuing to refine Copilot's election answers.
A federal magistrate judge in Washington dismissed the Justice Department's criminal case against former FBI officials Bradley Benavides and Nikki Floris on November 2, 2026. Judge Zia Faruqui found no probable cause, cited mistakes and the rushed nature of the case, and said prosecutors could still seek an indictment or appeal.
RNZ reports that political satire is having a renaissance during the 2026 election campaign, fuelled by social media and AI. Beehiving Badly and Carpool Coalition, two prominent satire pages, mostly target the coalition government, and Winston Peters has responded to his depiction.
The Justice Department said Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, that it plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a divided 9th Circuit panel rejected its emergency request to set aside California ballots. The department says it identified 20,000 likely noncitizens on the state's voter roll, a figure county officials and reporting suggest is much smaller in practice.
Hospital support staff represented by E tū are waiting five months for an agreed pay rise of 2.5 percent plus a $1000 lump sum, which is not expected to reach them until the end of January next year. Health New Zealand said it had a backlog of collective agreements it was working to implement.
An RNZ breakdown of the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll finds 56.9% of National's 2023 voters still back the party, with Labour, ACT and New Zealand First among those who have moved. The full poll put National at 24.8% and Labour at 30.6%.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Monday in Toronto that Thursday's federal budget will include new measures to support small and medium-sized businesses. He described the tax code's 'boutique' provisions as difficult for those firms, and industry and economists outlined what they expected in the budget.
