Police were justified in shooting a man who attacked his pregnant partner with a hammer and a knife, an independent inquiry has found.

A Wellington grandfather who died two days after falling from a ladder was sent home from hospital with painkillers by a doctor who "seriously underestimated'' his injuries.

A toxic paint that sickened a woman and forced her family out of their home has been pulled from sale as officials investigate what is in the paint that made her ill.

Police are speaking to two 27-year-old men following an early morning police pursuit in Wellington.

A Porirua man who was shot and Tasered by police while allegedly attacking his pregnant partner has appeared in court and been granted name suppression.

The man shot and tasered by police in Porirua is in a stable condition, with two women also recovering from injuries after the incident early this morning.

Police officers who shot and Tasered a Porirua man acted with a "great deal of professionalism and a big dollop of bravery", their boss says.

One of four men convicted in one of Northland's biggest paua-poaching busts in recent history wants the High Court to declare a title issued by the Maori Land Court null and void.

Police are looking for a man who poached 272 undersized paua in Hicks Bay on the East Coast.

Retailers might be enjoying a post-Christmas spending bonanza, but an economist warns the sales boom can't last.

A witness has described how there was a screech of tyres and a "thud" as a car killed a 7-year-old boy running across a road just outside a Wellington school today.

A mother is accused of immersing her 2-year-old son's hands in boiling water then failing to seek medical treatment for at least eight months.