Fears have been raised that motorists might fail to recognise a 3-D crossing in North Dunedin, putting pedestrians at risk.

There've been no flare-ups overnight following a lakeside scrub fire at Wanaka, which sent huge fireballs into the sky.

A lakeside Wanaka scrub fire that was shooting "huge, big fireballs" into the sky has now been contained.

A woman was able to flee a sexually motivated assault, by biting the man who was attacking her.

Effort to cap rates didn't quite work out as planned this year.

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.

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.

COMMENT: Yesterday our nation paused just before one o'clock to remember.

Four Otago students were seriously assaulted by non-students.

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.

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.

The end of a three-year affair with a Dunedin businessman allegedly led an Auckland woman to harass her former lover's wife.

The stereotype of the couch-burning student is becoming a thing of the past as University of Otago's tough stance on fire-lighting pays dividends.

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.