A man has been charged with the murder of a 23-year-old woman shot at her home in Otaki Beach yesterday.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is investigating the cause of a helicopter crash which left a pilot with head injuries after it came down north of Levin this morning.

Two people are dead and five others have been taken to hospital after a vehicle carrying seven people rolled this morning near Foxton.

A woman who was injured and lost her friend after a drink driver crashed into their picnic says she is still suffering from emotional trauma.

A man has been charged with manslaughter over the death of a woman hit by a car while picnicking with a friend on the roadside north of Wellington last month.

New Zealand's road to the 2012 London Olympic begins in Adelaide this weekend at the Oceania track championships.

The deaths of four people in house fires across the country in the past five days could have been prevented, the Fire Service says.

A witness to the accident in which a truck driver was impaled by a canoe says it was "swinging out on to the oncoming lane like a jousting pole".

Police are searching for a man who smashed a car into an overbridge near Levin and took off on foot early today.

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 woman's habit of buying a Lotto ticket in each new town she visits has paid off.