University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer. Read...

Eighteen-year-old Litia Nacagilevu broke New Zealand national records to finish ninth in the women`s 86kg class. Read...

In his first opportunity to prove Australian selectors may have missed a trick axing from the one-day fold, Marnus Labuschagne has offered an emphatic response. Read...

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has revealed a staggering figure: Over 4.3 million New Zealand account details have been exposed online. Read...

The poll, conducted October 1 to 5, was conducted while dozens protested outside NZ First leader and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters’ Auckland home last week. Read...

Both Labour and National have taken hits, but the centre left bloc could form a government, according to Curia`s polling. Read...

Tonga Rugby League is calling on all Tongans to unite behind their men`s and women`s national teams. Read...

The protesters blockaded the building in an attempt to shut down the National Aerospace Summit. Read...

And RNZ asks the senior Labour and National MPs about the state of the economy and Adrian Orr`s $400,000 payout. Read...

Had it up to here with commercials that crank the volume during your favorite streaming shows? Relief is on the way thanks to a new California law that seeks to dial down the intrusive ads.  Signed on Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, SB 576 mandates that commercials broadcast by streaming services shouldn’t be any louder than the programs they’re accompanying.  If the language of the new legislation sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Congress’s Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (or CALM) Act, which was passed in 2010. That law also sought to curb annoyingly loud commercial breaks, but it only applied to broadcast and cable TV operators, not streaming services.  “We heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a program,” said Newsom in a statement. “By signing SB 576, California is dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms, which had previously not been subject to commercial volume regulations passed by Congress in 2010.”  Authored by state Senator Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana), who introduced the bill after loud streaming commercials had been waking the baby of his legislative director, SB 576 only applies to California.  But as Politico notes, the new law could well become the national standard for streamers considering California’s “massive sway” in the industry. The volume caps for streaming ads will go into effect in July 2026, according to Politico.  SB 576 arrives amid the growing popularity of ad-supported streaming plans, which offer a cheaper alternative to the ever-increasing price of ad-free streaming tiers.   Netflix, for example, charges just $7.99 a month for its “Standard with ads” plan, versus a much pricier $24.99/month for its top-of-the-line Premium tier, which offers ad-free 4K HDR streaming.  But as more and more streamers sign on for ad-supported streaming plans, advertisers are getting more aggressive about the volume levels during commercial breaks—so much so that the FCC issued a call for public comment in February following a spike in viewer complaints about too-loud ads. Read...