U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan
Credit: © Feel Photo/Shutterstock

Acting as co-captain for the United States at her fourth World Cup, Alex Morgan is a leading star soccer player. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is in Australia and New Zealand. With two World Cup wins, one Olympic gold medal, and hundreds of goals to her name, Morgan dominates the field. Morgan is known for her speed and for her skills as a scorer and playmaker. This year she is playing alongside experienced players Crystal Dunn, Naomi Girma, Lindsey Horan, and Megan Rapinoe. New players adding to the team include Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Alyssa Thompson. The United States Women’s National Team is ranked number one globally. So far, the team has beaten Vietnam 3-0 and tied the Netherlands 1-1. They will face Portugal on Tuesday, August 1. Tune in to watch Morgan command the field!

Morgan, a forward, helped lead the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) to the gold medal in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. She also helped the USWNT win a bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The 2020 Summer Olympic Games were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Forwards are primarily responsible for scoring goals for their team. In 2015 and again in 2019, Morgan helped lead the United States to FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament championships. FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football). FIFA is soccer’s world governing body. Morgan previously played on the U.S. World Cup team in 2011.

Alexandra Morgan was born on July 2, 1989, in Diamond Bar, California. She did not begin playing club soccer until the age of 14. Club soccer consists of teams playing within a league, in contrast to national teams that represent a country. Her progress was so rapid that she was invited to play on the Under-17 and Under-20 national teams. She was also named a high school All-American. In 2008, Morgan scored the winning goal to make the U.S. team the Under-20 Women’s World Cup champions.

Morgan entered the University of California at Berkeley in 2007. She led the team in scoring all four of her years in college, graduating a semester early with a bachelor’s degree in political economy. Morgan was the first player selected in the 2011 draft held by Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), the top American women’s soccer league until it ceased operations in 2012. In 2013, she joined the Portland Thorns of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). She played the 2016 season with the Orlando Pride, an NWSL expansion team, before joining Olympique Lyonnais in France ‘s top women’s league. Morgan returned to Orlando in 2017. In 2020, she played a few games for Tottenham Hotspur in England before, again, returning to play for Orlando.

Morgan made her U.S. national team debut in 2010. One year later, she scored a goal and recorded an assist in the Women’s World Cup final. In 2012, Morgan led the U.S. national team in goals scored (28), assists (21), and points (77), including 3 goals and 4 assists in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. The U.S. Soccer Federation named her the 2012 Female Athlete of the Year.

Morgan is the author of “The Kicks,” a popular series of books for middle-school readers. The books follow the adventures of four soccer-playing seventh-grade girls. The series began with Saving the Team and Sabotage Season (both 2013). Morgan’s young-adult memoir, Breakaway: Beyond the Goal, was published in 2015.

Jacinda Ardern became prime minister of New Zealand in October 2017.
Credit: © Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images

An icon for women and girls around the world, Jacinda Ardern served as prime minister of New Zealand for a little over five years. Assuming the role in October 2017, she responded to a tragic mass shooting and managed the country through the COVID-19 pandemic. Within her first year in office, she had her daughter, becoming the second elected head of government in modern history to give birth while holding office. Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the first, in 1990. Ardern is a strong leader who skillfully led her country through tragedies.

On January 19, 2023, Ardern announced that she would resign as prime minister and as leader of the Labour Party. She officially stepped down as prime minister on January 25. Ardern said that her resignation was part of a decision to help the Labour Party find a new leader before the 2023 general election, as well as to protect her own mental health. She also announced her intention to carry out the rest of her term as a member of Parliament.

Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, on July 26, 1980. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications studies from the University of Waikato in 1999.

Ardern became interested in politics at a young age. She joined the Labour Party, a center-left political party that favors socially liberal policies, at the age of 17. From 2003 to 2004, she served as the vice president of the Young Labour Party. She was first elected to New Zealand’s Parliament in 2008. She was soon appointed the party’s spokesperson on youth affairs. She later served as spokesperson for social development; for justice, children, and small business; and for arts, culture, and heritage.

In March 2017, Labour elected Ardern to be the party’s deputy leader. Polls prior to a 2017 general election showed weak support for the party. To improve Labour’s chances in the election, Andrew Little resigned his leadership of the party. Ardern became Labour leader on July 31, 2017.

No party won a majority of parliamentary seats in the September 2017 general election. The National Party won 56 seats, and Labour, together with the Green Party, won 54. The New Zealand First Party, led by Winston Peters, won 9 seats. New Zealand First joined Labour and the Greens, forming a governing partnership with a 63-seat majority. Ardern was sworn in as prime minister on Oct. 26, 2017.

On March 15, 2019, a white supremacist gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch before being captured by police. The attacker killed 51 people and injured dozens more in the deadliest terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history. Within weeks after the attack, Ardern’s government introduced new laws banning the ownership of most automatic and semiautomatic weapons. The legislation overwhelmingly passed through Parliament and became law on April 12.

In 2020, Ardern won praise for her leadership role in New Zealand’s rapid and effective response to the worldwide public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government restricted travel to New Zealand, closed schools and nonessential businesses, and encouraged residents to practice social distancing. It also provided financial assistance for workers and businesses. By late April, some restrictions were eased, following a significant decrease in new cases.

In October 2020 parliamentary elections, Labour won a rare outright majority of seats, and Ardern remained prime minister. Ardern’s handling of the 2019 terrorist attack and the COVID-19 pandemic were credited with voters’ strong support for the Labour Party. The nation’s COVID-19 vaccination program began in February 2021, and a high percentage of the eligible population was vaccinated by the end of the year. Ardern announced an end to most of New Zealand’s strict COVID-19 policies in 2022.

New Zealand Filmmaker Taika Waititi
Credit: © Xavier Collin, Image Press Agency/Alamy Images

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Taika Waititi is a New Zealand filmmaker known for his comedies. In 2020, he became the first person of Māori ancestry to win an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. He won for the motion picture Jojo Rabbit (2019), based on the novel Caging Skies (2008) by Christine Leunens. He was also the first Indigenous (native) writer to be nominated for an Academy Award for a screenplay. Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a German boy whose mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home during World War II (1939-1945). The boy struggles with his beliefs in Nazism and anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews). He confronts these ideas in part in the form of his imaginary friend, a buffoonish Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi in the film.

Taika Cohen was born on Aug. 16, 1975, in Raukokore, on the North Island of New Zealand. For his professional career, he later adopted the surname of his father, the Māori artist Taika Waititi, who also went by Tiger. Taika means tiger in the Māori language. The young Taika grew up in Wellington with his mother, the educator Robin Cohen. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in 1997 with a degree in theater and arts. At the school, he formed a comedy duo called The Humourbeasts with the comic musician Jemaine Clement. Waititi later directed and wrote a few episodes of the television series “The Flight of the Conchords” (2007-2009) in which Clement co-starred with Bret McKenzie.

Waititi made his screen acting debut in the motion picture Scarfies (1999). He showed his first short film, John & Pogo (2002), at the New Zealand International Film Festival. His next short film, Two Cars, One Night (2003), was nominated for an Academy Award. Waititi’s first feature-length film was Eagle vs. Shark (2007). Both Eagle vs. Shark and his second feature film, Boy (2010), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Boy is a comedy-drama about the reunion of a Māori son with his father, played by Waititi. Waititi wrote and directed Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). It surpassed Boy as the highest-grossing New Zealand-made film of all time.

Waititi and Clement co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the short film What We Do in the Shadows: Interviews with Some Vampires (2005). It was expanded into a mockumentary (satirical documentary) film What We Do in the Shadows (2014), followed by a television series of the same name starting in 2019.

Waititi directed the Marvel Studios film Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and its sequel Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), which he also cowrote. He provided the voice for the rocklike warrior Korg in these and other Marvel Studios productions. Waititi has also worked on projects set in the “Star Wars” universe. Starting in 2022, he produced the comedy series “Our Flag Means Death.” The show follows Stede Bonnet, an aristocrat turned pirate who sailed with the famous Blackbeard, played by Waititi.

Soldiers take part in a memorial service during an Anzac Day event. Anzac Day is a patriotic holiday in Australia and New Zealand that honors people who served in the armed forces.
Credit: © Kristian Dowling, Getty Images

Today, April 25, is Anzac Day, a patriotic holiday honoring current and former members of the Australian and New Zealand armed forces. ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the name of the combined overseas force that fought in World War I (1914-1918). Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915.

In World War I, the Central Powers—Germany and Austria-Hungary—fought against the Allies—an alliance that included the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. As the war progressed, additional countries joined each alliance. Australia and New Zealand, former British colonies, entered the war as allies of the United Kingdom. Allied soldiers from the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere fought troops of the Ottoman Empire, which was aligned with the Central Powers, at Gallipoli. The Ottoman Empire, centered in what is now Turkey, entered the war as a German ally in October 1914.

The ANZAC became known for the bravery and skill of its soldiers fighting against the Ottoman Empire during World War I (1914-1918). ANZAC forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in Turkey, in an area later called Anzac Cove, shown here. After many months of hard fighting, the troops were withdrawn, and the campaign at Gallipoli failed.
Credit: © Bettmann/Corbis

On April 25, 1915, some 75,000 soldiers from Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom landed on Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. At that time, it was the largest military landing in history. The campaign was a costly failure for the Allies, who left Gallipoli after eight months of brutal and fruitless warfare. Some 127,000 people from all nations died there.

The campaign was particularly hard for ANZAC forces. More than 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed in action during the Gallipoli campaign. More than 19,000 Australian soldiers were wounded. More than 2,700 New Zealanders were killed, and more than 4,700 were wounded. During the campaign in Gallipoli, the ANZAC forces gained a reputation for bravery and skill. In Australia and New Zealand, Anzac Day is observed each year on April 25 in honor of people who have served in the armed forces of the two countries.

On April 25, 1916, services in Australia and New Zealand marked the first Anzac Day to remember the fallen of Gallipoli. Today, Anzac Day services are held throughout Australia and New Zealand, as well as at Gallipoli’s “Anzac Cove.” For the last two years, services and celebrations have been limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people stood out on their driveways to safely honor the armed forces. This year, traditional dawn services and marches will resume. In Sydney, the dawn service begins at 4:30 a.m. at the Cenotaph in Martin Place, where many young men enlisted to fight in World War I. Cenotaph means empty tomb. War memorial cenotaphs honor soldiers whose bodies lie elsewhere. The solemn service includes a reading of the “Ode of Remembrance,” part of the poem “For the Fallen” written by British poet Laurence Binyon soon after the outbreak of war in 1914:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”

The audience then responds: “We will remember them.”

Later in the day, veterans and current service members march from Martin Place towards Hyde Park, where the Anzac Memorial is located. National ceremonies begin a few hours later in Canberra and Wellington, the capital cities of Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand screenwriter and director Jane Campion.
Credit: © Kathy Hutchins, Shutterstock

Jane Campion, a New Zealand motion-picture screenwriter and director, won the best director for The Power of the Dog (2021) at the 2022 Academy Awards hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards on Sunday. The Power of the Dog (2021) is a psychological western set in Montana in 1925. The awards are better known as the Oscars. Campion’s win made history as the first time women have won best director two years in a row. Last year, Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for the motion picture Nomadland (2020).

Campion is also the only woman to be nominated for best director twice. She was first nominated for best director for the film The Piano in 1993, which she wrote and directed. It tells the story of a mute young Scottish woman who is sent to colonial New Zealand to marry a stranger. The Piano won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival in France. Campion was the first woman ever to receive this prestigious award. She also won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for The Piano.

Campion was born on April 30, 1955, in Wellington, New Zealand. During the 1970′s, she earned a degree in anthropology at the Victoria University of Wellington, and an arts degree at the Sydney College of the Arts in Sydney, Australia, where she majored in painting. Campion began making short films in the late 1970′s. One of the films, the dark comedy Tissues, resulted in her being accepted in the Australian Film and Television School in 1981. Campion’s first notable short film, Peel (1982), won the Short Film Palme d’Or award at Cannes in 1986.

Campion’s first feature film was Sweetie (1989), which she co-wrote and directed. A sharp comedy about family discord, it won several international prizes. Campion’s next film, An Angel at My Table (1990), won awards at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival. It is a drama based on the autobiography of the New Zealand writer Janet Frame.

Campion’s other films include Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on a novel by the American author Henry James; Holy Smoke (1999); In the Cut (2003); Bright Star (2009), about the English poet John Keats; and The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Campion also co-wrote and co-directed the television miniseries Top of the Lake (2013).

Lorde is a New Zealand pop singer and songwriter. She became the first New Zealand solo artist to have a number-one hit in the United States, with the song “Royals” (2012).
© Daniel DeSlover, ZUMA/Alamy Images

In a new EP (extended play) recording, the New Zealand pop singer and songwriter Lorde paid tribute to the Māori, the indigenous (native) people of New Zealand. After her third album, Solar Power, was released on Aug. 20, 2021, Lorde re-recorded five songs from the album in the Māori language, the language of the native Māori people of New Zealand. Lorde is not Māori but acknowledges the influence Māori culture has had on her life. The songs were released on her third EP Te Ao Mārama, which translates to “world of light” in the Māori language, on Sept. 9, 2021. The EP’s name builds off her album Solar Power and a well-known Māori phrase.

Lorde worked with several qualified translators to re-write the songs in Māori. Many of the lines are not translated exactly but use Māori to capture the meaning of the original English lines. The cover features a colorized version of the print  Serene by New Zealand artist Rei Hamon. The album is a celebration of New Zealand.

The Māori are a Polynesian people of New Zealand. They were the first people to live in what is now New Zealand. Māori made a living by fishing, hunting, and farming. By the 1700′s, all of New Zealand was under Māori control. Europeans started arriving in New Zealand in the late 1700′s and eventually took over the land and power. Today, the Māori make up about 15 percent of New Zealand’s population.

Lorde was born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor on Nov. 7, 1996, in Takapuna, near Auckland. She was signed to a recording contract at age 13 and began writing songs soon after that. At the age of 16, she became the youngest person in more than 25 years to have a number-one hit on the United States  Billboard singles chart “Hot 100.” The song, “Royals” (2012), also made Lorde the first New Zealand solo artist to have a number-one hit in the United States. “Royals” reached number one on the singles charts in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom as well. In 2013, Lorde won a Grammy Award for best pop solo performance for “Royals.” She also shared a Grammy for song of the year with the song’s co-writer, the New Zealand songwriter and musician Joel Little.

December 27, 2019

A little more than two weeks ago, on December 9, the violent eruption of a volcano on New Zealand’s White Island killed 19 people and severely injured many more. Also known also by its Māori name, Whakaari, White Island is normally uninhabited. It is a popular tourist destination, however, and all of the volcano victims were people visiting the island for the day.

Ash, gas, and smoke billow from a volcanic eruption on White Island off the northern coast of New Zealand on Dec. 9, 2019. Credit: © Michael Schade

White Island is in the Bay of Plenty, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the coast of New Zealand’s North Island. White Island is small, about 1 1/4 miles (2 kilometers) across. The island is the peak of an underwater volcano that rises around 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) from the sea floor. The volcano is extremely active. It has vented gas almost continuously for its recorded history. The volcano also undergoes more violent eruptions spewing lava, ash, and pyroclastic flows (clouds of hot ash and gas that travel mostly along the ground). White Island became popular with volcano scientists and tourists because it is so active and fairly easy to reach.

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New Zealand.
Credit: WORLD BOOK map

On December 9, the day of the eruption, 47 people were visiting White Island. The volcano erupted with a violent explosion just after 2 p.m. local time, spewing deadly ash and gas some 12,000 feet (3,700 meters) into the air. Soon after the eruption, tourist boats and helicopters rescued many people from the island, but several people had already died and many others had suffered bad burns and other injuries. Of those rescued, three died from their injuries in the days following the eruption. Fifteen of the dead were from Australia. The other four were from New Zealand and the United States.

The British explorer James Cook became the first European to spot White Island, in 1769. The name he gave it may refer to white clouds of volcanic steam rising from the island, or it may refer to a thick, white covering of sea bird guano (waste). A sulfur mine operated on the island from 1885 until 1914, when 12 people died in a landslide at the volcano’s crater. A later mining camp was also abandoned and its remains now serve as a tourist attraction. Thousands of people visit White Island each year, but tourism was suspended after the eruption, pending the results of an investigation into the health and safety practices of tour companies and visitors.

August 26, 2019

In New Zealand, a newly identified species of ancient giant penguin—or “monster” penguin as dubbed by the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch—has added to the southwest Pacific island nation’s roster of extinct oversized animals. The leg and foot bones of Crossvallia waiparensis, a 5-foot, 3-inch (1.6-meter) tall, 180-pound (80-kilogram) penguin, were found in Waipara, North Canterbury, on New Zealand’s South Island.

This illustration shows the ancient giant penguin Crossvallia waiparensis alongside a modern human. Credit: © Canterbury Museum

The ancient “monster” penguin bones were discovered in 2018 at Waipara Greensand, a geological formation that has produced significant penguin fossils before. Researchers from the nearby Canterbury Museum and the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, studied the penguin fossils, and they named C. waiparensis as a new species in the Aug. 12, 2019, issue of Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.

C. waiparensis, which lived during the Paleocene Epoch between 66 million and 56 million years ago, was roughly four times larger than the emperor penguin, the largest of all modern penguins. During the time of C. waiparensis, New Zealand was still attached to Australia, which was once connected to Antarctica. A related prehistoric giant penguin, Crossvallia unienwillia, was discovered in Antarctica’s Cross Valley in 2000. The leg bones of both giant penguins suggest their feet were more adapted for swimming than those of modern penguins, and they may not have stood upright as modern penguins do.

Emperor penguins, seen here in Antarctica, are the largest living penguins. They stand about 3 feet (1 meter) tall and weigh as much as 100 pounds (45 kilograms). (Credit: © Shutterstock)

Prior to the discovery of C. waiparensis, New Zealand’s legacy of ancient giant critters already included the world’s largest parrot (Heracles inexpectatus), a massive eagle (Hieraaetus moorei), a dog-sized burrowing bat (Vulcanops jennyworthyae), the more than 6-foot (2-meter) tall moa, and other giant penguins.

July 22, 2019

Saturday, July 20, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famed New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary in 1919. Hillary was one of the first two men to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, and return. On May 29, 1953, he and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa tribesman from Nepal, reached the summit, which at the time was thought to be 29,002 feet (8,840 meters). Its official height now is 29,035 feet (8,850 meters). Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom knighted Hillary for his achievement. Hillary died on Jan. 11, 2008.

Sir Edmund Hillary, left, and Tenzing Norgay, right, became the first two men to reach the top of Mount Everest and return. Hillary was born 100 years ago on July 20, 1919. Credit: AP/Wide World

Hillary made his first five expeditions on Himalayan peaks after World War II (1939-1945). He climbed part of the way up Everest in 1951 and 1952. He recounted a 1953 climb in the book, High Adventure (1955). In 1957 and 1958, he blazed a trail from McMurdo Sound in Antarctica to the South Pole for Sir Vivian Fuchs’s transantarctic expedition.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in the Himalaya range on the frontier of Tibet and Nepal. Credit: © Robert Preston, Alamy Images

In 1960, Hillary headed an expedition, which was sponsored by our own World Book Encyclopedia, to climb 27,824-foot (8,481-meter) Mount Makalu I (also in the Himalaya). The expedition tested the ability of human beings to live without oxygen at high altitudes. The climbers also searched for but did not find evidence of the Yeti, a hairy beast said to live in the Himalaya and other mountainous areas of central and northeastern Asia. With the author Desmond Doig, Hillary wrote High in the Thin Cold Air (1962) about the expedition.

New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary shows an artist’s illustration of the legendary Yeti. Hillary hoped to discover proof of the Yeti’s existence on a 1960 expedition to the Himalayas sponsored by World Book Encyclopedia. Credit: © Bettmann/Getty Images

Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand. His first job was in apiculture (beekeeping). Following his successful ascent of Mount Everest, Hillary spent much of the rest of his life supporting environmental causes and sponsoring humanitarian work in Nepal, building clinics, hospitals, and schools.

May 13, 2019

The island nations of New Zealand and Sri Lanka are separated by nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) of ocean. But in just over a month’s time, the distant neighbors were connected by ghastly mass killings. On March 15, 2019, a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Islamic people worshipping at a mosque in Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island. A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday, April 21, an Islamic terrorist group orchestrated coordinated attacks that killed 257 people, mostly Christians, in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city, and other areas. The Islamic State terror group claimed to have organized these attacks with local Sri Lankan terrorists. They also claimed that the attacks were in retaliation for the mass shooting in New Zealand. Law enforcement agencies questioned the direct connection, however, as such a coordinated attack probably required more than a few weeks to plan.

On March 18, 2019, students display the New Zealand flag during a vigil for the people killed in a mass shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch. Credit: © Anthony Wallace, AFP/Getty Images

New Zealand is not generally known for extremism or violence, but that changed—at least for one day—on the afternoon of March 15. A gunman, inspired by hateful and racist rhetoric (influential speech), entered the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch and began firing. Minutes later, he returned to his car, retrieved a second weapon, and re-entered the mosque to continue his rampage. The shooter then fled in his car, arriving a short time later at the Linwood Islamic Centre. Unable to find a door quickly, the attacker began shooting at the windows. A worshipper chased the gunman back to his car, and he again fled. Police then captured the shooter, a 28-year-old Australian man carrying various weapons and explosives.

The gunman planned his attack for wide exposure over social media. Shortly before starting his attack, the shooter posted a lengthy manifesto (a public declaration of his motives) on several websites. The gunman, who had decorated his weapons with white supremacist slogans, live-streamed the attack over the internet using a head-mounted camera. Both the manifesto and the video of the attack quickly circulated widely across the internet, particularly on such sites as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The postings raised questions about whether or not such sites were doing enough to stop the spread of white supremacist material and other extreme content.

The government of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern worked quickly to draft a gun control bill. The bill overwhelmingly passed through Parliament and became law on April 12. In addition to banning the ownership of most automatic and semiautomatic weapons, the law established a buyback program under which owners of now-outlawed weapons could turn them in for fair compensation.

Ardern was widely hailed for the compassion and leadership she displayed in the aftermath of the attacks. She visited the survivors and publicly repudiated the gunman and his ideology. Ardern also vowed never to speak the gunman’s name in order to deny him the attention he sought.

Sri Lankan officials inspect the ruins of St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, a Colombo suburb, in the days after terrorist bombs struck the church and other targets on April 21, 2019. Credit: © Stringer/Getty Images

In Sri Lanka, a civil war ended in 2009, and since then the country has experienced little violence. Religious extremism is not prevalent in Sri Lanka, where Christians and Muslims together account for less than 20 percent of the mostly Buddhist population.

On April 21, 2019, however, the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), a Sri Lankan Islamist group linked to the Islamic State, carried out coordinated attacks on Easter, the most important Christian festival of the year. The attacks occurred in the morning as people were attending church services or enjoying breakfast with family members. NTJ suicide bombers hit several targets within minutes of each other: Saint Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, a Colombo suburb; the Shrine of Saint Anthony in Colombo; the Zion Chuch in Batticaloa, a city on Sri Lanka’s east coast; and the Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury, and Shangi-La hotels in Colombo. Later in the day, two more attacks occurred in the Colombo suburbs of Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia (at the Tropical Inn) and Dematagoda (at a housing complex).

Initial reports listed the dead at 359, but that number was later revised to 257. The discrepancy was caused by the difficulty in identifying body parts separated by the violent explosions. Another 496 people were injured in the attacks. Sri Lanka’s government declared a state of emergency as it began investigating the attacks. Police quickly identified a number of the attackers, and in the following days, they captured or killed a number of people suspected of aiding in the attacks. Numerous weapons and bomb-making materials were confiscated.

Sri Lanka’s government looked inward for blame, finding serious lapses in domestic and international security. Several government officials resigned, and the inspector general of police was placed on compulsory leave. Social media was blacked out for several days after the attack, some government offices and university campuses were closed, and previously slack restrictions on extreme Islamic rhetoric were greatly tightened. Religious services—both Christian and Muslim—were temporarily cancelled for fear of further attacks or reprisals, and the numbers of foreign tourists in Sri Lanka dropped sharply.