Every grandparent will know the electric charge that four of us experienced for the first time last Saturday.

Countdown has stopped funding breakfasts for children at 61 low-income schools.

Brains behind successful Hawkes Bay scheme given chance to put ideas into practice nationwide.

Think of preventive health care as the condom that most governments don't want to wear.

When Confederate forces fired the first shots at Fort Sumter on April 12, 150 years ago, triggering the American Civil War, almost four million African Americans were slaves.

Commitment and some sacrifices only way to fix growing social and economic problems.

Welfare agencies alarmed at extreme lengths some people go to just to eat. One desperate case of a Bay of Plenty child and his three siblings has been offered as a stark example of the degree of poverty in our communities.

The Government won't consider reductions to main benefit levels including the sickness, invalid's, unemployment and domestic purposes benefits as part of any welfare overhaul recommended by the Welfare Working Group tomorrow.

About 300,000 welfare beneficiaries who are judged capable of work will face a day of reckoning tomorrow with the release of a report.

John Key has been accused of being disconnected after saying that beneficiaries who resort to food banks do so out of their own "poor choices".

Maverick Maori Party MP Hone Harawira says he is "hugely disappointed" by the decision to suspend him from caucus, saying it showed "complete disregard" for the complaint process two days out from a disciplinary committee meeting.

Rogue MP Hone Harawira has been suspended from the Maori Party for what its leadership describes as a five year legacy of ill discipline.

A pub tenant is being sought for Auckland's historic Birdcage Tavern near Victoria Park.

The UN has expressed concern over shortfalls in the rights of NZ children, including "staggering" infant and child mortality rates, and a lack representation for children in legislation. It questions why NZ does not have a department of

A New Zealander gives a harrowing account of how Haiti's nightmare is continuing.

The Salvation Army says it is seeing an increase in the number of people unable to put food on the table, having spent all their money during Christmas.