An independent report aimed at proving the economic viability of the Gisborne to Napier railway line is expected to be released to the public this week.

A 20-year-old Hastings man was stabbed nine times in an early-morning attack at a Napier house on Sunday which police say was domestic related.

A man who bit the face of his partner and gagged her with her own scarf during a vicious beating has been sentenced to two years and five months' imprisonment.

As fire tore through the house leaving her with nothing more than she was wearing, Maraenui woman Sharron Paramore collapsed to the ground in shock and tears.

Police say charges are unlikely for a man at the centre of yesterday's mass search for a family feared taken hostage, as no offences are believed to have taken place.

The search is over for a mother and her two children who were feared taken hostage by a man who was reportedly armed.

A Napier man under the influence of drugs broke into a school garage because he thought he was on the set of the Lord of the Rings and had found a shed in a forest.

A yellow plastic watch could be a crucial clue in a police investigation into a broad daylight sexual assault on an 11-year-old girl in Napier.

The home detention sentence imposed on a young father after he broke his baby daughter's legs does not reflect a sterner approach to child abuse, a court has heard.

A family of two adults and five children escaped their burning house with just the clothes they were wearing.

A live-in caregiver who stole $35,510 from her widowed Napier employer accepted a $2500 severance payment and dinner with her victim's family when she resigned in April

Plans to transform Napier's Marine Parade have not dampened the resolve of Marineland supporters who want marine animals to feature in the site's redevelopment.

A retired orthopaedic surgeon lay dead in his Napier home for three days before being discovered by his ex-wife, a coroner has found.