A referee in a schoolboy rugby game was threatened by players and had to be accompanied off the field, after a game marred by brawling.

Two men are lucky to be alive after missing explosive gel and a box of detonators by half an inch while ploughing with a rotary hoe.

A teen was abducted from a street in a small Hawke's Bay town and driven to a remote field where she sexually assaulted by two masked men.

A 16-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by two men in Dannevirke last night, then left in a paddock.

A horror seven days has seen 18 people die in 12 road accidents and has left police blaming speed and alcohol as a factor in many of them.

Blood, fat and discarded pieces of butchered animals were spread 15km on SH2 after a tailgate opened on a truck.

David Bourke is remanded for a psychiatric report after making no plea in the Palmerston North District Court.

Friends are concerned for the missing brother of alleged gunman David John Bourke as police delay identifying the body found in his crashed car.

Police tackled and disarmed a hypothermic fugitive who had been on the run for about 48 hours in Hawkes Bay today.

Police are this morning resuming their search for a gunman who shot at two people - one a policeman - and fled, leaving a dead body in his car.

Cordons have been set up around 15 square kilometres of farmland as a police helicopter and armed police search for a gunman.

A body was found in the car of a gunman on the run in the lower North Island.

A severe weather warning is issued for the lower North Island while police warn of surface flooding in Auckland.