A former top gay rugby player says life inside NZ's NPC environment was "suffocating and emotionally draining" and a gay All Black represents an important "last hurdle" for the sport.

'I lead this double life because I still have to make a living.' Five women tell the Herald about their lives and challenges they face being Muslim in NZ.

A new apartment complex is being designed exclusively for baby boomers who will be guaranteed no "random tenants to disrupt your busy life".

An Italian MP has “blacked up” to deliver a staggering anti-immigration rant in the country’s parliament.

Partygoers are being urged to boycott a nightclub whose owner made racist remarks suggesting his Indian patrons were predatory rapists.

Labour's target of selecting candidates to ensure women make up at least half of its caucus by 2017 has been given the thumbs down in the latest Herald-DigiPoll.

An Indian IT worker wonders if it was racism that made a bouncer stop him and his friends from entering a bar at Auckland's Viaduct Harbour on New Year's Eve.

Earlier this year, Auckland doctor Sudhvir Singh was filling out a customer survey when he came to a section asking his ethnicity.

Australia's conservative Government intends to dump laws that ban hate speech on the grounds that they inhibit free speech.

David Cunliffe says Judith Collins is a trout. She responded by calling him a "recidivist sexist", as he previously said the human race would die out if she were the last woman on Earth.

Minister for Women's Affairs Judith Collins has accused Labour leader David Cunliffe of sexism after he referred to her as a "trout" in an opinion piece.

A controversial church leader and critic of homosexuality has made peace with a prominent transgender adversary as she battles kidney disease.

It has been hailed as a Schindler's List for slavery, a long-overdue unflinching confrontation by Hollywood of the "original sin" on which the United States was founded.

New Zealand is among the top 10 best places to be a woman, according to a worldwide report on gender equality.

A New Zealand church has been let off the hook for forbidding a gay man from becoming a priest.

Television presenter Gozde Kansu has been sacked for wearing a low-cut dress during a show.

BurgerFuel says it reacted swiftly to snuff out a marketing exercise gone wrong after an employee at a Parnell store dressed up in blackface costume to hand out fliers promoting a Usain Bolt-themed chicken burger.

The Herald on Sunday has obtained documents outlining how KFC demands staff be capable of all duties to an "All Star" level.

It was less than two weeks ago, on August 28, that we saw the 50th anniversary of the landmark march on Washington - the historic event that ended in Dr Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, a watershed for race relations in the US.

The widow of the man slain while working at a stop-go sign was forced to prove she hadn't killed him before life insurance was paid.

After almost 43 years married to George Taiaroa, Dr Taiaroa knew her husband was dead even before returning the call to the policeman.

The International Olympic Committee will consider dropping Russian pole vault star Yelena Isinbayeva as an Olympic ambassador after her comments about gay people, says president Jacques Rogge.

President Barack Obama was set to lead civil rights pioneers Wednesday in a ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech roused the 250,000 people who rallied there decades ago for ra

The head of New Zealand's third-largest church has asked its ministers to consider a temporary ban on gay marriages to preserve the church's "peace and unity".