A homicide investigation has been launched after a 6-month-old baby girl died after sustaining head injuries in Wellington.

A woman interviewed over a murder nearly two decades ago wants to change her police statement.

A man who indecently assaulted and burgled an elderly woman at knife point has been jailed for seven and a half years.

A housekeeper has been sentenced to community work after she assaulted her partner and her brother in a series of violent outbursts.

"While the laying of charges is an important step in the inquiry, there is still a lot of work to be done regarding the ongoing investigation."

He is serving a life sentence for the 1998 New Year's Day murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.

A man killed in a stabbing spree on Wednesday night has been named by police.

The man found dead in an Auckland home yesterday was a 19-year-old from Whanganui.

A 25 year-old woman is in custody after the death of a 67 year-old man in a "tragic" family dispute, police say.

Peter Lawrence Clague is on trial at Auckland District Court charged with male assaults female.

A Kiwi principal at the helm of one of a prestigious English school has flown home to defend a domestic violence charge laid by his ex-partner.

Others stood by while a young woman was being strangled and punched in her car, but five Auckland men took action.

A 27-year-old man has been granted interim name suppression after he appeared before the court over the death of a two-year-old Hawera girl.

One boy has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of a West Auckland shopkeeper but a second has been cleared of the same offence.

A leading family violence expert is welcoming a move to encourage more transparency between agencies dealing with domestic abuse cases.

After half a day deliberating, the jury in the Arun Kumar trial has retired for the night.

The brother of slain North Shore woman Cissy Chen says his family is hurting at not being able to bring his sister the justice they feel she deserves.

The man suspected of massacring nine people in an historic African American church in South Carolina had been planning an attack for six months and wanted to spark a civil war, says his roommate.

Two years ago President Barack Obama predicted that when it came to averting mass shootings through gun control, "sooner or later, we are going to get this right".

Clementa Pinckney was busy on Thursday, not unusual for a man who was both a respected pastor and state senator in his native South Carolina.

A boy who stabbed a west Auckland shopkeeper to death was retreating and trying to defend himself at the time, his lawyer says.

A Christchurch man has today denied killing his 5-year-old autistic step-son.

United States police were last night searching for a gunman who opened fire at a historic African-American church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.

The story of a 13-year-old accused's upbringing that was laced with drugs, alcohol and violence has been told in court this morning.

In an exclusive interview with the NZME.News Service, the man cleared of murdering Cissy Chen says he remained calm during the trial through constant prayer.

A piece of paper was found by police officers in the couple’s Torbay home weeks after the investigation began.

The morning Cissy Chen went missing she allegedly told a close friend that if she died her partner of eight years would be the killer.

Cissy Chen's brother says the jury's decision to find her partner not guilty of her murder is "very unfair" to his sister.

The older brother of a 14-year-old boy accused of murder has told the court how his little brother took synthetic drugs and lived in a drug house.