Just what the doctor ordered

'Kia ora,\" said the text message from the AI, \"your ACC claim has been No human had needed to read my explanation that I had injured my back bending badly to stack the dishwasher on a Sunday morning.

Sleeping with strangers

To wear pyjamas or not to wear pyjamas? That is an increasingly common question for Europeans as they contemplate catching a night train around the continent and sleeping with strangers, rather than dealing with angry airport security staff.

Nowhere to run

Pre-election claims are coming back to bite the embattled PM as his deputy goes off on a tangent of his own.

Let's get ethical

People power led to investments being pulled from financing Putin's war in Ukraine. It can do the same to protect the environment, says Barry Coates.

Track and trace

New Zealand is a perfect natural laboratory to test the capability of a satellite designed to track methane emissions.

Attack the snacks

Health advocate Paul Rangiwahia and his sister, Jane, a cook, have produced a book that matches kai with kindness.

The eve of the beholder

As he opens his first solo exhibition at home in more than a decade, painter Sandro Kopp talks about the emotions driving his latest work and what it’s like to whip up a faux oeuvre for a Wes Anderson film.

Living in the past

Going to town in an annual celebration of art deco style doesn’t require embracing the era’s suspect values.

Friend or foe

Some call him a panda-hugger, others say he’s gone native’, but a Kiwi Sinophile is unapologetic. He believes it is time for us to embrace China.

Going but not forgotten

The Kiwi television institution that is Fair Go faces the axe after 47 years on screen. Here’s how the Listener captured the history of the once-pioneering series and its effect on New Zealand.

I just had to do better'

A desire to prove himself is just part of the reason Alastair Carruthers has so many jobs. Just don’t ask him to talk about the main one that’s in the news at present.

Doctor DNA

Using genetic information to prevent and treat illness is touted as medicine’s holy grail but NZ has largely been a bystander until now.

Behind the pain

Self-harm is on the rise, and it is not just something that young people do.

Sound check

A new app is giving hope to, s6me of the more than 200,00Q'people who suffer from tinnitus.

Big in Japan

The first adaptation of samurai epic Shogun made television history. The new remake goes deeper.

In MacGowan's wake

Lisa O’Neill who sang at Shane MacGowan’s funeral is bringing her distinctive sound to Womad.

Fifth symphony

Composer John Psathas talks about the careful thought and cross-cultural collaboration that went into a work to be performed by the NZSO marking the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Love in the murder factory

An extraordinary romance was somehow able to blossom amid Auschwitz’s horrific conveyor belt of death’.

Words do not fail her

Smart, funny, playful novel tackling the 21st century’s most pervasive fear dementia is a delight to read.

A touch of magic

Christchurch writer spins an enchanting story around shape-shifting kelpies.

You say you want a revolution

Beginning with the Arab Spring, the 2010s ushered in a new dawn of protest. This lucid account of recent political and social history explains why the uprisings failed.

(S)mall fortunes

What was intended as a pedestrian-friendly version of European street life has become the bane of many shoppers' lives.

A class of their own

Dontt dismiss the bottom-feeders’ in today’s schools history shows us the battlers can make it through, with some focused guidance.

A blank canvas

For Melbourne-based Richard Lewer, discovering the brutal history of the Waikato War meant confronting the silence he encountered in his Kirikiriroa upbringing.

Primary colours

The presidential primaries set the stage for a November rematch that most American voters don’t want, but seem unable to avert.

Green ticket to ride

She has geckos behind her bread board, long-tailed bats and eels on her property and she drives an electric all-terrain vehicle. Is Celia Wade-Brown the perfect Green MP?

Ahead of the curvature

Research suggests declining bone health may have links to brain disease. What can we do to slow these processes?

Treading water

Even some of our national parks are failing the bare-minimum water-quality standards.

What's your poison?

A global survey of recreational drug use can help policymakers and consumers to reduce risk.

The King and I

Sofia Coppola delivers a poignant portrait of the powerless Queen of Graceland.