Frustrated commuters are calling for a change in retail working hours after a motorway crash caused gridlock across Auckland.

A large glass pane has fallen out of the SAP building on the corner of Queen and Wyndham streets.

An Eketahuna farmer's wife was seriously injured in a two-car crash yesterday.

Inner-city Auckland traffic was brought to a virtual standstill after a motorway crash - gridlock that the Automobile Association described as the worst it had seen.

Tauranga's longest serving paramedic has decided to call it a day after a 48-year association with St John.

A helicopter searched at sea for a man seriously bleeding after he fell through a boat window - only for the man to be found on his boat back in the bay.

When 3-year-old Corban Martin suffered a severe allergic reaction to cashew nuts, his mother was dismayed to be told there were no ambulances available to take him to hospital.

A 2011 plane crash landing could have been avoided if the pilots were taught how hard to pull a landing gear lever, a report has found.

A large scrub fire that endangered buildings in Taupo yesterday has been extinguished.

A scrub fire in Taupo which endangered buildings in the area this afternoon appears to have been deliberately lit.

Police have released the name of the man killed in a crash near Kaiapoi on Friday.

An academic says the loophole that lets people buy "lethal" air rifles should be closed following the death of a south Auckland teenager.

Almost $10,000 worth of specialist tools and 10kg of copper cabling has been stolen from the hangar used by the organisation behind the Northland Electricity rescue helicopter.

A fisherman who died after being swept down the Motu River has been identified as 41-year-old Benjamin Robert Tekira from Waimana, near Whakatane.

Two 15-year-old girls are being hailed as heroes after going to the rescue of men caught in a rip and near drowning at a Northland beach.

An unconscious 61-year-old diabetic man was believed to have been lying on a Dunedin park bench for a day and a night before he died.

The body of a 41-year-old man was found last night after he was swept away while trying to cross an East Coast river earlier in the day.

The body of a man has been found, hours after he was swept away at the Motu rivermouth near Whakatane today.

An Eastern Bay father and his 8-year-old son had to be winched to safety when large waves trapped the pair on rocks near the Whakatane Heads.

Holidaymakers driving home have been urged by police to "take it easy'' on the roads and plan the return journey to ensure they get home in one piece.

Six friends found a 25-year-old Hawke's Bay man, soaking wet, comatose and rigid on Waimarama Beach, following New Year's Eve celebrations.