Convicted killer Colin Bouwer will remain behind bars after requesting parole be declined at his latest hearing.

A dozen vehicles have been stolen around Southland over the past three weeks and police are urging drivers to protect themselves from

A fire fighter was lowered into the natural limestone shaft - just 40cm wide - to rescue Middy who had been missing since Saturday.

Hutt City Mayor Ray Wallace has refuted claims that neighbours who pushed for a paedophile to be removed from their community acted hysterically.

An emergency services call out to Te Puna Wai youth justice facility last night was due to a group of girls huffing aerosol cans, police have confirmed.

A bus driver's spontaneous detour has come to a unplanned halt at a hairpin turn in Dunedin's Northeast Valley.

Three armed offenders clothed from head to toe stole cash and cigarettes from a Christchurch dairy early this morning.

Diana Plater enjoys some of the best Central Otago has to offer.

A dairy farmer under financial pressure despite working 100-hour weeks has admitted breaking the tails of nearly 50 cows.

A woman is injured after two cars collided in Dunedin.

Shearers' quarters have been damaged by fire on a North Canterbury farm.

Police are searching for a teenage girl after a robbery at a South Dunedin takeaway this evening.

The Fox Glacier School roll has fallen to five, its lowest number in over 20 years when the village school was briefly closed.

Police believe rapist and kidnapper Nigel Robert Gately may be in Marlborough.

A couple travelling in convoy were involved in a four-car crash in Dunedin.

The memorabilia of former All Black Neil Purvis has been lost to fire along with the home and memories of his Tarras family after their homestead was destroyed.

Double the average number of meningitis cases have been identified in the South this year as authorities call for vigilance following the death of an Otago Polytechnic student.

A car has collided with a fire engine just south of Gore.

Gloriavale teen Prayer Ready choked to death in an isolation room. Now, a daughter of the controversial leader says her mother would have been "told what to say".

A young motorcyclist who police say died after colliding with a Chinese driver's vehicle in Otago on Saturday will donate organs to seven different people.

Immigration NZ is changing its practices following the case of the 18-year-old French au pair who was locked in a Queenstown police cell while waiting to be deported.

The motorcyclist who died after a crash in East Otago was a talented and award-winning Dunedin photographer.

A Timaru factory has been damaged after a heating unit used for plastics moulds caught fire.

Two people have been freed after they were trapped in their vehicles in a crash at Timaru.

Two rental cars were broken into and $25,000 worth of cash and property stolen at Hokitika Gorge on Saturday.

Whoever brutally assaulted a Dunedin pensioner is still at large.

A motorcyclist who died after colliding with a car in Otago on Saturday has been named.

One person is dead after a car was discovered submerged in a culvert near Balfour, Southland.

The person who brutally assaulted a Dunedin pensioner is still at large and she is asking why police let the case go cold so quickly.

A motorcyclist was critically injured in a crash with a car in Otago this afternoon.