Drive the winding road from Havelock North to the windblown crest of Te Mata Peak then study the panorama from west to east.

A Hawke's Bay mechanic says he found two women - one unresponsive, the other trapped and covered in blood - as he rushed to the scene of a serious crash near Hastings yesterday.

Former Waipukurau ambulance officer Christopher Roger King has been found guilty on all charges by a jury at Napier District Court.

A jury is now considering the fate of an former St John officer accused of sexually assaulting four women in the back of his ambulance.

A police station has been evacuated after a member of the public brought a hand grenade into the building this morning.

A Hastings primary school is in lockdown, with pupils told to stay indoors, as police search for a gunman in the area.

Staff at a Hastings motel say the mother of a six-month-old boy ran screaming from her room after her son's unexplained death yesterday.

At least one Fire Service crew was remaining overnight at the scene of an acid spill on a manufacturing site in the Whakatu Industrial Park between Napier and Hastings.

Two men have died after a car crashed on a rural road and rolled 600m down a bank near Te Hauke, south of Hastings.

Hawkes Bay and East Coast Aero Club president Bruce Govenlock says the deaths of his friend and a UK pilot in today's plane crash were a "terrible tragedy''.

Hastings' Mayor has criticized the sentence of a local man who broke his baby daughter's legs and was released from prison after little more than 12 months.

A swastika-tattooed Mongrel Mob associate on the run from police triggered an armed police raid in Hastings yesterday, which shut down several streets.

A knife-wielding man made off with a bag of cash after holding up a Hastings service station last night.

A man was critically injured when his motorbike struck a sheep on a road south of Hastings yesterday.

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake struck south of Hastings in the early hours of this morning.

Several witnesses have reported seeing a man who matches the description of a suspect wanted wanted in relation to the attack and sexual violation of an 87-year-old woman.

Police are hunting for a man who attacked and sexually violated an 87-year-old Hastings woman in her home yesterday.

The driver of a council tractor-mower is 'very shaken up' after he hit and killed a 4-year-old described by his gran as 'full of joy and bounce.'

A 5-year-old boy battling for his life after an alleged hit and run in Flaxmere has taken "a turn for the worse" in Starship children's hospital.

A man who seriously injured his 6-year-old daughter when he crashed his overloaded quad bike while driving drunk avoided prison due to the "appalling experience".

Two people have admitted to selling rock lobster gathered with authorisation for whanau gatherings.