It would be dangerous to instantly suggest that the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was the product of a poisoned political climate in the United States.

There was something awfully inevitable about the Tucson shooting, writes the Herald's Foreign Editor Nicola Lamb.

The brave actions of a 61-yr-old woman may have stopped the Arizona gunman from inflicting even more carnage.

Jared Lee Loughner walked up to the crowd and opened fire... if everything had gone to plan he would no longer be around.

The man arrested for allegedly trying to set fire to a campervan with two people in it has been charged with the attempted murder of the pair.

The woman who was discovered seriously injured in Christchurch early today says she believes she was intentionally mown down by a driver.

A former Australian soldier has been sentenced to 20 years in jail in Afghanistan for murdering a colleague.

The Michael Jackson hearing hopes to determine whether the pop singer died of natural causes or criminal negligence.

Police are appealing for anyone who may have seen a man and a woman walking away after a man was stabbed in Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula on New Year's Day to come forward.

Police stopped a gunman 40km away from where he allegedly shot a man in the face.

A woman who was allegedly violently assaulted by her partner attacked police officers who came to help her in Hamilton this morning, allowing her partner to get away.

The family of young mother Jackie Allister is dumbfounded at her murder.