Learning English was just a dream for Ye Tun Oo, let alone being able to start a degree in an English-speaking country.

It was a rowdy household of seven, musical, bookish, articulate, funny. In Wellington. My father was an economist and political scientist.

Lorde has won two gongs at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas and performed her song Tennis Court for the first time on television.

Here are the most read news stories today, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about tomorrow.

From premature celebrating to a smooth baseball fan, Daily Shorts looks at the light-hearted side of sport.

An activist in Chile has burnt documents representing NZ$580 million worth of student debt during a protest at Universidad del Mar.

An Auckland-wide surveillance network of CCTV cameras is being stitched together as the forerunner of a national system which could include facial recognition technology.

Dogs and slammed doors? Sure. But being exposed to stark naked man? That's a bit more than most political party door knockers sign up to.

A midwife who stopped monitoring a baby during birth against instruction from an obstetrician has been ordered to apologise to the infants mother over his death.

Three important writers, all women over 65, were given separate standing ovations yesterday at the Auckland Writers Festival.

New Zealands pop music heritage is being preserved thanks to a push from the recording industry to digitise a vast back catalogue of work.

Auckland Mayor Len Brown will be paid $259,500 from July after the Remuneration Authority approved a 3.4 per cent pay rise.

Radio personality Polly Gillespie says she is glad to have the chance to recognise ordinary New Zealanders doing great things for their communities.

It's been a hard 18 months for philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn, whose name has never been far from the headlines.

Stupendous feats of engineering and sheer endurance built Godzone.

Danielle Wright talks to the talented folk behind the brand new Family Day at the Auckland Writers Festival.

Welcome to my regular column entitled "My Light Bulb Moment". This series highlights a "blinding flash of insight" business, cultural and sports leaders have had in their career, and how this changed their lives forever.

Today we look at the five highest earning musicians whose work is still generating millions of dollars post-mortem.

The cat population at Auckland SPCA has reached critical levels and families willing to adopt pets are urgently needed.

TVNZ Breakfast star Ali Pugh confirmed to The Diary she is engaged to her partner of seven years, Jo Barus, a musician from rock band The Dukes.

Professor White is at the centre of a large international research programme into an experimental drug, darapladib, which has been shown to halt the progression of the necrotic core, the gunk, in heart-artery plaques.

Finance Minister Bill English's next big target will be getting New Zealand's record debt level down, now the Government's books are back in the black.

Scientists have discovered the world's oldest sperm: a "giant" of a cell belonging to a species of tiny shrimp that lived 17 million years ago in what is now modern-day Australia.

The parents of the German teenagers presumed drowned in Foveaux Strait are returning home and say they know they are leaving their daughters behind.

More than 90 per cent of New Zealand rental homes inspected in a pilot warrant of fitness test failed to pass.

Kiwis pay more than buyers elsewhere for some of the most popular consumer goods, a global report shows. So which products will burn a hole in your pocket?

Slow but steady wins the race when it comes to exercising for weight loss, according to a new study out of Australia.