The West Auckland parents accusing of abusing their nine-year-old girl have appeared in court today.

Chinese authorities are to travel to NZ to gather evidence on the murder of a taxi driver in Auckland.

Flickering candles, flowers and stuffed toys cram the pavement in the immediate vicinity of shot congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's office.

The family of a girl, 5, found dead last month had to be restrained when the man accused of sexually violating her appeared in court today.

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.