If the kids are city slickers, get visit a local petting farm to get them in touch with some of New Zealand's favourite animals.

A man is defending accusations that he held a rabbit by its ears and thrust it at passers-by in Auckland's Queen Street.

Bic Runga is returning to the live stage as the support act for Leonard Cohen's tour in late October.

Retired troops came here to defend the colony from the "Maori threat" and stayed to found the settlements of Onehunga, Panmure, Otahuhu and Howick.

The family of Auckland woman Folole Muliaga plan to sue both Mercury Energy and Middlemore Hospital over her 2007 death.

Two men accused of killing an undercover cop were fit, young men who decided to take the law into their own hands, a court hears.

A fire at an Auckland primary is the second major school fire in the upper North Island in two days, after arsonists torched classrooms at Kerikeri High.

John Skinner says the only thing he can remember from the confrontation with a slain officer is firing a single shot before his memory went "blank".

A man accused of shooting dead an undercover police officer in 2008 denied he had guns and weapons at his house to protect a meth operation, the High Court heard today.

The man accused of shooting dead an undercover police officer says he did so out of self defence, the High Court has heard.

Murder accused John Skinner said he fired shots at Sergeant Don Wilkinson because he thought Mr Wilkinson was "reaching for something to harm him with", a jury has heard.