Herald Maori affairs reporter Yvonne Tahana on the at times frustrating job of covering national kapa haka festival Te Matatini o te Ra.

Greedy "sharks" are already circling Te Runanga o Ngati Porou as it gears up to grow its $110m treaty settlement. The tribe's chairman has already received letters from outsiders promising all sorts of riches for the iwi if it would let

Two big iwi leaders met with Prime Minister John Key to discuss state assets sales today at the national Te Matatini kapa haka competition.

Your guide to Valentine's Day drinking.

A 10-month old boy is in hospital after being attacked by a dog at a Gisborne house yesterday afternoon.

An exhausted swimmer and her boyfriend have narrowly escaped drowning after being rescued by the support crew of the six lifeguards circumnavigating the country in two small rescue boats.

A magnitude 3.1 earthquake, centred 30 kilometres south of Gisborne, struck just after 10pm last night.

Gisborne and Northern Hawke's Bay were rocked by a series of earthquakes on Monday between magnitude 4.2 and 3.3 at a relatively shallow depth, but no damage has been reported.

Another weekend and meh, another cyclone.

The MetService's severe weather warning for most of the North Island remains in place today, and Bay of Plenty civil defence emergency workers are on standby after heavy rain pelted the region overnight.

Campers across the upper North Island are tonight preparing to cope with torrential rain.

Police are disgusted after a crashed driver stole a car belonging to an elderly couple who had stopped to help him.

New Zealand could face strong winds and rain from a tropical cyclone battering the Pacific Islands with winds of up to 225km/hr.