Plummeting numbers of drivers caught speeding in the South Island have coincided with the deadliest year on southern roads in a decade.

Two US passengers from the cruise ship remain in Christchurch Hospital.

The giant November 2016 earthquake has snapped the top decks from a sunken Soviet cruise liner in the Marlborough Sounds.

A major hydroponic cannabis growing operation, with more than 800 plants, has been found by police in South Canterbury.

These sisters will grow up wondering what their big brother would have been like.

Name suppression granted for man accused of almost severing victim's hand.

A Queenstown consortium has bought historic steam train.

People affected by fires may be entitled to free doctor visits.

Breeding colony of 2000 seals north of Kaikoura at risk as part of SH1 rebuild.

Rider dies after motorcycle crash in the Tasman District.

Development West Coast chairman John Sturgeon has had his term cut short by four months.

Cops are warning of a serial masturbator in Queenstown.

COMMENT: Today we mourn but let's also look forward to a new Christchurch as it becomes our most beautiful city.

A terrible season with persistent rain, little sunshine and depressed prices is proving to be "the perfect storm" for stressed West Coast farmers.

Reporter Georgina Campbell was sent down to Christchurch to help cover the Port Hills fires. Here she tells what she saw.

The person who died in a crash on State Highway 1 just out of Blenheim on Sunday was local teenager Lara Jayne Glover, police have confirmed.

A man is in police custody after an incident in Taieri Mouth in which another man was injured in what was believed to be a machete attack.

The driver, captured in footage shot on the Crown Range, ignored repeated efforts to make him pull over.

Aaron Keown still has the $100 he promised to give to the person who could identify a worse intersection than the Harewood, Gardiners and Breens Rds junction.

When a horse walked into the Outram Hotel bar yesterday, the barman didn't ask, "Why the long face?"

Crews have managed to contain a big blaze at high country farm Otematata Station in North Otago.

Fire cordons in Port Hills are being lifted, to give people a few hours' access to their homes.

With temperatures expected to heat up this week, fire crews are racing against the clock to contain the Port Hills blaze and prevent any further loss.

Watch: A 1990 video produced for the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi has resurfaced, and stars a then 10-year-old Steve Askin.

Authorities working to contain the Port Hills fire are being helped by drizzle, which is forecast to turn to light rain this afternoon.

A fault at the Kikiwa substation near St Arnaud knocked out power to almost the entire West Coast this morning.

Bad weather has forced the start of a major air show to be postponed, as much of the country braces for stormy conditions.

Hundreds of firefighters continued working around the clock last night, hosing down hot spots and smothering embers from the devastating Port Hills blaze.

The teen was attacked from behind by an unknown male, police say.

The Port Hills inferno was so powerful that it was spreading up to 160m every minute at it's peak, and water firefighters put on it evaporated.