Holidaymakers heading home this weekend will be hoping a 5km queue of traffic near Whangarei yesterday will not recur.

The Wanganui man charged with helping convicted murderer and child molester Phillip Smith get a false passport met him in prison seven years ago.

Last Friday, Whanganui District Health Board members voted 9-2 to spell the name of their hospital correctly as Whanganui with an "h".

Whanganui man pleads not guilty to rape

A woman who spent 14 hours alone with the wreckage of her car after she crashed down a bank had to set her car on fire to attract attention.

A driver was stabbed by a hitchhiker he picked up near Wanganui at the weekend, police say.

A Whanganui woman who took two and a half years to complete just one hour of a 200-hour community work sentence has been hauled back before a court.

Michael Laws has been asked to take a paternity test to determine whether the son of his ex-girlfriend is his child.

Convicted sex offender Alan Rubick was highly manipulative and skilled at identifying young vulnerable boys, the High Court at Wanganui was told.

Police have given former Wanganui mayor Michael Laws a formal warning after he was accused of smacking his child.

Police investigating the homicide of Wanganui man Brett Hall have arrested and charged a man with his murder.

A bus driver who crashed a bus full of Wanganui college students, teachers and parents near Taumaranui has been given community work and disqualified from driving.

One person died at today's dawn Anzac service in Wanganui.

A Wanganui dairy has gone smokefree - and business has never been better, says its owner.

A woman convicted of the 2008 murder of a Wanganui man, who was attacked in the mistaken belief he was a gang member, is being given the chance to appeal her conviction by the Supreme Court.

Three people have been killed on the roads this weekend, including a young woman who crashed into a tree after fleeing from police in Wanganui.

A woman killed in a crash after a police pursuit in Wanganui last night was caught driving drunk earlier in the evening, police say.

The cost of extreme weather events in New Zealand this year is likely to top $100 million, the Insurance Council says.

Flooding has forced two more blocks of Wanganui residents from their homes, as the city deals with a state of emergency from a swollen Whanganui River.