Firefighters have contained a large scrub fire in Masterton which was burning on about six hectares of land.

Yesterday, New Year's Day, the sun settled in for the week, with a promise of hot, dry days to come.

Major South Island roads remain closed by flooding after a storm that swept through New Zealand yesterday.

A major storm has swept right through the country, leaving warm, summer temperatures for the rest of the week.

A remote-controlled toy plane given to a teenager for Christmas nearly claimed his family's lives after it set their house on fire.

The death of a man found on top of a fire heap near Hamilton today is not being treated as suspicious.

A senior Western Bay of Plenty police officer has been seriously hurt in a horror smash north of Te Puke this morning and a motorcyclist has died following a crash at Mount Maunganui yesterday.

A road policing boss says police did not breach policy by continuing a pursuit during which an innocent Auckland was shot dead.

A field hospital has been set up in the heart of London's financial district to treat blind-drunk corporate revellers.

A former police superintendent has told an inquest police should have abandoned the pursuit which eventually led to the police motorway shooting of an innocent Auckland courier early last year.

Multiple breaches of police policy have been found in a pursuit where an officer was hit and seriously wounded by a drug-affected fleeing offender. The IPCA found a pursuing officer ignored two orders to abandon the chase.

Witnesses to a fatal car crash in Auckland's Mission Bay heard a survivor scream, 'Bro, I told you not to speed'.

Text messages and the internet may be used to contact emergency services in the future following a Government review of the 111 service.