Canadian oil company Apache has been talking up the prospects for onshore oil finds on the North Island's East Coast and is trying to play concerns about fracking and the local environment.

A Dannevirke man has been told by a local health board his stomach pain may have been caused by a hysterectomy - the surgical removal of a woman's uterus.

The trial has begun of a freezing worker accused of shooting dead his brother and driving around the lower North Island with him in the back seat, avoiding police during a two-day manhunt.

A legal loophole has allowed an unregistered teacher back in the classroom after having sex with a 16-year-old student.

Slips and surface flooding are causing havoc for motorists in the lower North Island as heavy rain and gale force winds sweep the region.

A referee in a schoolboy rugby game was threatened by players and had to be accompanied off the field, after a game marred by brawling.

Two men are lucky to be alive after missing explosive gel and a box of detonators by half an inch while ploughing with a rotary hoe.

A teen was abducted from a street in a small Hawke's Bay town and driven to a remote field where she sexually assaulted by two masked men.