Efforts continue to reunite a stranded orca with its pod, while work is underway to strengthen its temporary pen as bad weather is forecast.

A woman who murdered her teenage granddaughter has been given a harsher prison sentence on appeal.

Many people are living in an extreme state of stress and the mental health services sector is "overwhelmed", a new community-led strategic group for suicide prevention says.

Analysis: New Zealanders' intention to get a Covid-19 vaccine is at its highest since last year, at 81 percent of the adult population, writes Jagadish Thaker.

New Zealanders with metastatic neuroendocrine tumours - a rare form of cancer - will no longer have to travel to Australia for life-saving treatment.

Hundreds of Inland Revenue staff have been sent home after it was found their central Wellington office tower may not be safe in an earthquake.

Witnesses have described hiding from gunfire, watching an officer fall and seeing an armed man calmly 'stroll' from the fatal shooting of Constable Matthew Hunt.

A biosecurity company has been fined $245,000 after an employee suffered injuries while on international waters.

Saliva testing is being rolled out to all frontline border workers, with 16 workers today fined for not complying with testing requirements, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has announced.

One of the five remaining crew on the quarantined fishing vessel Viking Bay was last night transferred to an onshore quarantine facility in Wellington after becoming unwell.

A farmer group is planning a protest at what it describes as unworkable government regulations and interference in farmers' lives.

Four new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in New Zealand's MIQ facilities, as the government confirms the first mass vaccination event will take place at the end of the month.

The sentencing of a man who drove into a Lower Hutt woman on a pedestrian crossing leaving her seriously injured has been delayed once more.

In the same year that the government declared a climate emergency, imports of an especially dirty type of coal from Indonesia topped a million tonnes for the first time since 2006.

Marlborough trucking firm Broadbridge Transport has been fined fifteen-thousand dollars after its wash water residue contaminated a creek in Renwick.

Police are trying to find the people responsible for firing a gun at a house in Napier on Saturday afternoon.

The best way to mitigate risks posed by 15 Covid-19 infected crew members housed at a MIQ facility is to keep them in their rooms with no breaks, a professor of medicine says.

A rural GP says the inconsistent vaccine rollout could put rural communities at increased risk with less available resources to help them during an outbreak.