NZ@Noon: Spontaneous sky dive - at 90

90 year old Ian Williams. Photo / Supplied

Making headlines around the regions today are: a 90-year-old man takes the ultimate plunge and a rare New Zealand bird is in safe hands thanks to a lifesaving operation on a dog.

Fellow residents at Whangarei's Jane Mander Retirement Village joked that Ian Williams didn't have to jump out of a plane 9000 feet up to prove that he was a man.

A dog has undergone a costly surgery to save his leg, which in turn will help conservationists preserve the population of one of New Zealand's rarest birds.

Local women are bravely showing their bodies in a calendar being made to raise funds for the Rotorua Breast Cancer Trust.

Outspoken opponent of legal highs Philippa Baker-Hogan has withdrawn from council deliberations around the drugs, fearing a legal challenge from the psychoactive substances industry.

Driver fatigue has been blamed for an early-morning crash which killed a Dannevirke man after the truck and trailer he was driving hit an RSA building.

And finally, as a young man, Harry Watson was too busy partying to pay much attention to his mum's postcards and letters from India. Thirty years later, by contrast, he accompanied his mum to the Wellington film premiere of her life story - and will do the same when it screens in Masterton this week.