Photo essay: Laying the groundwork

Drain layer Ses Tohi (aka Professional Mud Dog) takes Sherry Zhang and photographer Edith Amituanai on a tour around his work site near Auckland Airport – and talks about what he loves about his job, misconceptions about tradies, and what it’s like owning his own business.  Ses Tohi, director of drain laying company SS Civil, … Read more

Allbirds’ Tim Brown: How Covid-19 will help us unite against the climate crisis

Business after Covid: A return to normal might seem appealing, but as Tim Brown of Allbirds writes as part of a new business series, now is the time to strive for something better. The Covid-19 crisis has yanked our freedoms out from underneath us. Our sense of safety, community, and day-to-day life is no longer … Read more

In pictures: Jacinda Ardern travels Europe’s halls of power

Paris, Berlin, London. The New Zealand prime minister has been shuttling the major European capitals this week, and the snappers have been out in force to document the appearances of New Zealand’s ‘pregnant leftie PM’ (© Sun newspaper). Here, a selection of those photographs, and Sam Brooks’ scientific analysis reveals precisely what Jacinda Ardern was … Read more

Shock Spinoff photo-essay exposé: apartments already exist in Auckland

Apartments: long has the debate raged over whether building them would destroy Auckland. Today a special Spinoff pictorial exposé can reveal they’re already here – and loads of them are fantastic. Photography by Rebecca Zephyr Thomas. Story based on research by Catherine Smith. Nothing scares a certain kind of veteran Aucklander more than an apartment. … Read more

Pashing, pot, police, and how I learned to love the impassioned rabble at the Democratic Convention

NZ writer and election tourist Jessy Edwards travelled to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where she spent a day soaking up the highs and lows of a healthy democracy, smoking weed with Bernie Sanders supporters, walking in a Black Lives Matter march and pissing off a Fox News reporter – and left wondering if … Read more

Life in tin boxes: 24 powerful photographs from Azraq refugee camp

Just over two years ago, the Azraq refugee camp was opened in Jordan to house Syrians fleeing their war-ravaged home. Today around 35,000 refugees live there. World Vision’s Simon Day recently returned from Azraq. Here he shares some of what he saw 1 Shimmering on the horizon are the white boxes of the Azraq refugee … Read more