Saying cheese puts a smile on Catherine Smith's face as she tours Waikato.

Food writer Leanne Kitchen has had an enviable career, including writing a new cookbook, which took her to delicious Turkish nooks and crannies.

Massive earthquake damage in Christchurch means Kirifi Mila, the New Zealand soldier killed in Afghanistan last week, will be buried in Hamilton without a formal military farewell from his army mates.

I have to go to a barbecue this week. This, in itself, isn't exactly newsworthy - even though it may very well be one of the last barbecues of the summer, which is always a poignant little mini-event worth noting.

A horror head-on collision near Karapiro yesterday afternoon left two people dead in a car which was crushed against a bank.

A Hamilton man run over by his own bus in December has left hospital.

One of the girls who allegedly attacked a fellow student at Morrinsville College last week is to be pulled out of school voluntarily by her mother.

A man is being questioned over the stabbing of three people, including a 13-year-old boy, in Hamilton last night.

The teenaged son of a woman who died after an out-of-control driver smashed into a group of cyclists and killed three of them has described the scene of roadside carnage which will haunt him for the rest of his life.

A young woman involved in a fatal collision that killed three cyclists late last year has been sentenced to 300 hours community service and fined $10,000 on each of three charges.

A rescue boat skipper made one of the toughest decisions of his life today as he tried to rescue two boaties from the boiling surf at Kawhia on the North Island's west coast.

Police say four people are lucky to be alive after two boats capsized on the Kawhia bar in Waikato today and are praising two local boaties and two commercial vessels for their quick rescue.