Stories making headlines across New Zealand at noon include a school that now apparently looks like a prisoner of war camp, tax collectors ready to pounce at farmers' markets and how to play rugby with a home detention bracelet on.

After barbed wire went up around the Tahatai Coast School boundary, neighbours say the area now looks like a "prisoner-of-war camp".

The taxman - or taxwoman - may soon be lurking at a farmers' market near you.

The man convicted of New Zealand's biggest Trade Me fraud to date has been sentenced to home detention. Meanwhile Nathan Rolls wrapped his home detention ankle bracelet in a blanket to protect it from damage so he could play rugby.

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A central Rotorua street was blocked for a short time while eleven cops from six squad cars handcuffed and took away six people.

At the Maunu Shops just before Whangarei Hospital a woman was taking money out of a cash machine when two men came up and broke her nose then robbed her. Meanwhile a school, butchery and two homes have been burgled in the town.
More people die from suicide in Northland every year than on the roads.

A teenager trimming avocado trees accidentally touched an 11,000-volt power line with disastrous results.

A covert surveillance operation has cost a Tauranga fish dealer $22,500. Meanwhile three Bay of Plenty dairy farmers have been caught discharging large amounts of cow poo into streams.

Turns out Tauranga drivers are really bad at stopping at controlled intersections.

Former Tauranga MP Bob Clarkson wants to build a thousand homes at Tauriko.

There will be 150,000 tonnes less newspaper pages next year.

The crowd completely over-rode the sound system at a Gisborne wrestling match.

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Meanwhile locals have been learning which weeds they can eat.
The Polkadots is giving a free concert in Hawke's Bay.

If you get tired of cycling around Hawke's Bay you can now chuck your bike on a bus.

Cat lovers look here.

After many alterations done to a classroom block over the years, the roof at Dannevirke South School is apparently ready to collapse.

A Masterton mother accused of trying to force her 9-year-old daughter to take a gun and shoot her former partner has appeared in court.

Here's a list of 17 parks and reserves you can visit in the Wanganui district without having to worry about bumping into paroled serial sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson.

A 44-year-old Christchurch woman would regularly take her elderly neighbour shopping and rip off money from her ATM card. Meanwhile the media is accused of being misleading.

Nine-year-old Ashburton girl Ocean Waitokia is now a 'junior celebrity'.

The median price of a house sold in the Ashburton District in August is up $30,000 on the same month last year.

If you don't believe it, here's video evidence that it is snowing in Kenmure. It was pretty damn cold in Dunedin this morning.

After a 9kg lpg bottle was reported stolen in Milton on Sunday, police found a Dunedin man nearby inhaling gas from the stolen bottle.

Meanwhile the hope is rugby fans will leave the All Blacks match in Dunedin on Saturday thinking about the match they had just watched "and not some catastrophic event of nature".

Former police detective Richard Edgar Anderson was once highly regarded, trusted, respected and even admired.

Over on the West Coast, the suspended Spring Creek Mine workforce may return to work this week.

Top trending topics on Twitter in NZ at noon were: Andy Murray, Djokovic, #usopen, Wellington, Auckland and New Zealand.