NZ at Noon: Thieving bees and stoned tourists

Bees, similar to this one pictured, have been going into Maori manuka without permission.

Stories making headlines across New Zealand at noon include Maori angry that bees are getting unauthorised access to manuka, a call for cannabis to be legalised to encourage tourism and a problem with mobs of spitting tourists.

A Maori trust official in Northland is apparently angry that thieving bees are gaining unauthorised and unpaid access to Maori manuka and is threatening retaliation.

After the American states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalise cannabis, some Northlanders want to do the same in a bid to increase tourism.

Meanwhile in Rotorua mobs of tourists are blocking footpaths, spitting, leaving their cigarette butts everywhere and taking up all the carparks with their buses.

Angry people living close to a halfway house where sadistic sex offender Ivan Andrew Campbell fled are apparently terrified of the criminals paroled to the Salisbury Street Foundation home in St Albans St.

A proposed kingfish farm in Whangaroa apparently risks polluting Northland's most spectacular deep-water harbour.

Spin fishing will now be permitted in the Utuhina Stream, between Devon St bridge and Pukehangi Rd bridge, from December 1.

A woman was taken to hospital after driving her car through a fence and into a house in Waihi.

Meanwhile a couple missing for more than a week had simply let time get away from them.

Elsie Toms, 104, passed away on Friday.

Getting a spot in the Beachside Holiday Park in Mt Maunganui over New Year is almost impossible.

Revenue from parking meters in the Gisborne city centre has dropped by about a third since parking fees were doubled. Meanwhile here's lots of people caught on film tagging in the city.

A curly-coated retriever owned by Gisborne man Chris McFadyen has made history.

Five kaka are flying to Hawke's Bay today to join three others already in the area.

Employee-related fraud has skyrocketed in Hawke's Bay.

Over in Wanganui, councillors Clive Solomon and Michael Laws remain habitual non-attenders at council and committee meetings.

A Waitotara farm bought first by one of the Crafars and then by "a Chinese lady" is now back in New Zealand hands.

The number of people on the dole in Wairarapa has more than doubled in the past four years.

Meanwhile the Greytown Butchery has once again captured national sausage awards.

In Christchurch, tensions are apparently rising between earthquake repair workers and their bosses over free days off.

Using three blonde Playboy playmates to market a New Zealand menswear brand has apparently worked a treat despite being labelled "obvious", "cheap" and "sexist".

After Richard James Crooks stole $12,000 from his employer he escaped conviction because it would affect his ability to travel overseas.

Ten non-sworn police jobs will be cut in the South which will apparently get police away from "filling out endless forms."

Forsyth Barr Stadium will give Dunedin residents the blues tonight.

The Topp Twins kicked off filming for their new television series Topp Country in Waimate last week.

Meanwhile on the West Coast four kittens were discarded and left to die at the aerodrome end of Blaketown beach.

Top trending topics on Twitter in NZ at noon were: #eclipse, #MyOldTwitterName, #DNAouttoday, #replace1Dlyricswithseafag, #nzsecretsanta, SBW, New Zealand, Wellington, Christmas and Australia.

-Herald online