Stories making headlines across New Zealand at noon on Monday include carnage on the roads, perhaps the most photographed moon ever, talk jockey and sometimes at council meetings Michael Laws, a 600kg boar taking a boy for a ride and a change in Dunedin student's drinking culture - well in the halls anyway.
On the roads, a suspected drink-driver has slammed into a parked car in Papamoa, emergency services chopped the roof off a minivan to free a passenger trapped for an hour near Turangi, a 5-year-old girl has been hit by a ute in Rotorua and there's been a horror smash in Hawke's Bay. In Dunedin, a man failed to take a corner and crashed into a bank.
News photographers have been obessed with taking photos of the moon in places such as Dunedin and Hawke's Bay and in fact just about everywhere across the globe.
Northlanders are pumping over $85,000 per day into pokie machines and $34,000 of that is believed to come from problem gamblers. Meanwhile angry politicians have managed to get the finish date for the Puhoi to Warkworth section of the Auckland/Northland highway brought forward by seven years in about a day.
Two Wanganui councillors have big gaps in their attendance records, and not mentioning names but radio Talk Jockey Michael Laws is one of them. Meanwhile Wanganui men have built a Men's Shed but it's not really because women can hang out there as well.
A Masterton man has been found unconscious in a pool of blood but it is unclear how he got there.
Seven people are interested in the long-term plans for Masterton while 20,000 people were interested in guzzling wine and food at the Martinborough Fair at the weekend.
The global wine glut has caused a slump in Gisborne's economic performance.
The Ashburton Library may have inadvertantly shot itself in the foot after providing free internet access for all-comers. Meanwhile ducks were teasing hunters in Mid Canterbury at the weekend.
In Otago, a 14 year old boy had a great weekend riding a 600kg boar called Toby.
