An elderly man was flown to Whangarei Hospital yesterday after being trapped by a piece of timber for about 24 hours on a property in Northland.

When Whangarei Pak'nSave checkout operator Rebecca Mclean, 18, helped an elderly customer pay for her groceries last week she did not intend to tell anyone.

A 50-year-old man has been arrested over a kidnapping incident in Whangarei last month.

North is just the tops, Elisabeth Easther discovers on a trip up to Whangarei.

A rare Nissan Skyline racing car, valued at $60,000, has been stolen from a rural property in Whangarei.

A wounded postwoman is believed to have been accidentally shot with a pellet gun while making her rounds in Northland yesterday morning.

An elderly woman was beaten with her own walking sticks during a home invasion in Whangarei last night.

The chief executive of the KiwiYo company says he is deeply sorry that a Whangarei teenager quit her job after she was told not to greet customers with a traditional "kia ora".

A 68-year-old woman died and three people were injured after a car crossed the centre line and collided into two vehicles, police say.

The High Court hears a Whangarei teen stabbed her boyfriend in the heart after he smashed her phone and they'd argued over access to Facebook.

A woman waiting in a car while her husband paid for petrol at a central Whangarei service station had to fight off a man who got in the driver's seat and tried to drive away.

With the school holidays over, forecasters are warning to brace for another cold week as the main highway north of Auckland remains closed for repairs.

Torrential rain last night caused slips which partially closed State Highway 1 as Northland was lashed by stormy weather for a second straight weekend.

Home alone with no readily available food or heating, police found four children in a darkened, dirty house, lit only by a computer screen's glow.

Severe rain and wind warnings and a drop in temperatures have been issued for parts of the South Island and lower North Island this weekend.

Cooking oil left burning on stoves has caused serious burns to an elderly lady and left a young family homeless in two separate house fires in Whangarei over the weekend.

A brief hail storm that covered the ground in Whangarei seemed to come out of nowhere, said a long-time resident.

The senior Northland police officer who suffered serious injuries in a BMX biking crash on Sunday has died.

The search for more Queensland fruit flies will be wrapped up by Easter Sunday providing no more of the pests are found in Whangarei.

No further Queensland fruit flies have been found since the potentially devastating pest was detected in Whangarei this week.