A small school community is mourning two "happy and content'' children who were gunned down in their Dunedin home last night.

Hunger pangs resulted in a Dunedin couple winning $500,000 in Saturday night's Lotto draw with a ticket bought while picking up a bacon and egg sandwich.

A bruised and bleeding Mosgiel woman blames the Dunedin City Council for her seeing in the new year at Dunedin Hospital.

A 25-year-old Dunedin student is fighting for her life after she was struck by a petrol tanker yesterday morning.

A driver 'made the right decision' to stay in his car after it skidded off the road in the wet - leaving him hanging on - literally - for help to arrive.

OceanaGold plans to scale back its operations and is expected to axe more than 100 jobs at the Macraes goldfield in Otago in response to a falling gold price.

Firefighters in Dunedin are worried about the tempting trail of trash left on student streets in the city as Scarfies "can't help setting things on fire".

Christmas Day hasn't even arrived yet, but for the past few days the Stainer family has been celebrating like all its Christmases have come at once.

A brief deluge yesterday had central Dunedin on standby again as the mop-up continues from a storm on Monday that overwhelmed the city's stormwater system.

A flash storm that dropped hail stones the size of golf balls caught residents near Ashburton off guard last night.

'It's not the sort of thing you'd want to come across when you're getting the paper from the mailbox.' A fur seal surprised Dunedin residents yesterday.

Parts of Dunedin were flooded late yesterday afternoon when a thunderstorm struck, causing havoc for some central-city businesses.

'Not knowing whether they're going to survive is stressful,' says a man who hit a woman on a pedestrian crossing. The pair now want to prevent similar accidents.

Violent drunken offending in Dunedin was unrelenting and something needed to be done about it, Judge Michael Crosbie yesterday told a man who headbutted another man while drunk in a Mosgiel pub earlier this year.

Dunedin police will not reveal how a man, whom they described as a dangerous criminal, was able to escape from custody at the Dunedin Central police station this week.

Student numbers are expected to increase at the University of Otago next year, turning around three years of declining enrolments at the institution.

A Seventh Day Adventist Church pastor has denied encouraging members of his congregation to lend money to a church member now on trial for an alleged $850,000 scam.

Ireland as an opponent hold a special significance for Sam Cane.

A pastor and members of his congregation lost $850k to a fellow church member who falsely claimed he had $30m owed to him from a Nigerian oil contract, a court hears.

Offensive graffiti appearing on the site of a proposed secondary boarding school for Muslim boys, and negativity circulating about the Muslim education system, has dismayed the Al-Noor Charitable Trust.

A warrant of fitness rating system for Dunedin rental properties is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

A man who tried to a rape a woman in a Dunedin park and later told police it was because he could not "get a missus" has failed to get his sentence overturned.

Sarah Lang finds Dunedin is much more than a city of Scots and scarfies — and a special spot for a weekend getaway.

A swift crackdown is expected on what the New Zealand Taxi Federation calls illegal and unacceptable moonlighting by unqualified Dunedin drivers charging fees, having passengers buy them petrol, or accepting donations for their services.