Politics

The New Zealand Government on Thursday announced the creation of a new public holiday, Matariki. Matariki marks the beginning of the Māori New Year, which coincides with the rising of the star cluster Pleiades, known as Matariki in the Māori language. At Waitangi, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said "This will be a day to acknowledge our nation's unique, shared identity, and the importance of tikanga Māori. It's going to be something very special, and something uniquely New Zealand." Ardern also said the new holiday would break up t

Prime Minister Igor Matovič of the Slovak Republic posted a message on Facebook on Friday announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19, and intended to isolate for ten days. This comes a week after he attended a summit with President of France Emmanuel Macron, who was later diagnosed with the disease and which led to contact tracing across Europe and multiple leaders voluntarily self-isolating. European leaders self-isolating from the incident included the Prime Ministers of Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, and France itself, and Euro

Several conservative groups claiming the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen from incumbent President Donald Trump gathered on Saturday in the U.S. capital, Washington D.C., for a rally organized by Women for America First. Reportedly several thousand supporters turned out, with Trump flags and hats, in D.C. to protest, some in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, which rejected, the day before the rally, a lawsuit filed by Texas which tried to overturn the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump tw

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Wikinews interviews Craig Farquharson, Liberal Democrat candidate for 2020 Groom by-election}} Tomorrow, voters in the Australian electoral district of Groom are scheduled to go to the polls in a by-election following the resignation of Liberal National MP John McVeigh for family reasons. Groom is located in the state of Queensland, and is centred around the city of Toowoomba. At the last federal election, the Liberal National Party, Queensland's dominant conservative party, won this seat by over 70% of the two-party-preferred v

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month's biggest stories. This month's spotlight on the campaign trail: the Free and Equal Elections Foundation holds two presidential debates, three candidates who did not participate in those debates give their final pleas to voters, and three political pundits give their predictions on the outcome of the election. Summary Polls

Professor Jo Jorgensen of South Carolina, the U.S. Libertarian Party's 2020 presidential nominee, answered some questions about her campaign from Wikinews accredited reporter William S. Saturn. Jorgensen is a psychology professor at Clemson University.   In 1992, with the Libertarian Party's backing, she ran for public office, seeking South Carolina's 4th congressional seat in the United States House of Representatives. She finished the race in third place with almost 2.16 percent of the total vote. Four years later, the Libertarian Party tap

On Thursday, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition candidate for the Belarusian presidential election to be held on August 9, held a rally in Minsk, Belarus. The rally was visited by several tens of thousands of people, and was reportedly one of the biggest political events in Belarus in a decade. According to reports from the ministry of internal affairs of Belarus on Friday, and Vyasna, an independent Belarusian human rights center, on Thursday, around 18,250 to 63,000 visitors attended the rally. A main issue discussed was the liberatio

The following is the second edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month's biggest stories. This month's spotlight on the campaign trail includes interviews with the vice presidential nominees of the Prohibition Party, Reform Party, and the Life and Liberty Party. Summary As the campaign entered June, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who mathematically secured the nomination of his

Friday night was the fourth night in a row that Serbians protested; the protest started out against the government's anti-COVID-19 measures but has reportedly expanded into more general anti-government protests. Police director Vladimir Rebic said at least 71 people were arrested Friday night. Anti-government protests have been taking place since Tuesday in the Serbian capital Belgrade after the government announced new lockdown measures, which the government dropped after the protests began. According to reports, criticism within Serbia has

Following the expiry of broadcast corporation ABS-CBN's legislative franchise, the Philippine government issued a cease and desist order dated yesterday, forcing the shut-down of broadcasting operations by the company. Later in the evening, the network signed off and went off-air. The last time the Philippine government ordered the network to shut down was during the martial law imposed by former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos back in 1972. Republic Act No. 3846, also known as the "Radio Control Law", states "no person, firm, company, a

Former US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren announced yesterday she was endorsing Joe Biden for this year's presidential election. The move came shortly after fellow former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and former president Barack Obama announced their own support for Biden. In a video message posted to Twitter, Warren commended Biden for his empathy towards US citizens and said she was "proud to endorse Joe Biden as president of the United States." Biden praised Warren's endorsement on Twitter, stating he was "proud to have the

Today, the state of Wisconsin held elections following a court battle over attempts to delay or extend the voting. The elections came amidst concerns regarding the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Wisconsin's elections included the Democratic and Republican Party's primary elections, and the general election for the race to fill a seat on the state's Supreme Court, among others. The Democratic and Republican Parties use primary elections, along with caucuses, to select their nominees for the 2020 United S