A teenage farmhand became an accidental hero after keeping a potentially disastrous scrub fire at bay.

He spent 18 months without power after his electricity supplier refused to reconnect him after a storm. Now he's won an out-of-court settlement - and an apology.

An Invercargill woman went to great lengths to hide her face yesterday during a court hearing over the 25 cats she keeps on her property.

A Taiwanese visitor who drowned at a Central Otago lake last week has today been named by police.

As hot, dry weather threatens to create a drought, farmers are preparing for the worst.

A search is underway for a swimmer who went missing in Cromwell in Central Otago this afternoon.

A search and rescue operation is underway near Queenstown after a German tourist failed to return a locator beacon by his "panic date".

The object that flew through a windscreen, killing a young driver, has never been found - and now a coroner has said, it's unlikely that it ever will be.

A member of the public stopped a tourist driving a rental car on the Lindis Pass and took the vehicle's keys, after narrowly avoiding a head-on collision.

"He had the wind up him, so to speak." A 5-year-old was found clutching on to reeds after being blown across Lake Waihola on an inflatable toy this afternoon.

She still thinks of them every day. Katharine Webb has penned a touching memoriam for her two children, killed at the hands of their father.

A driver who stole a car and drove it 28km at speeds of up to 160kmh told police he didn't stop, because he had no licence and had been drinking.

Two men employed by a high school in Otago have been ordered to repay the school's board following a Novopay error.

''It's pretty disappointing and done by a sick mind," says a man who discovered dozens of pieces of barbed wire across an accessway to a Dunedin beach.

Sarah Lang gets on her bike for her health – and a slice of history.

A total fire ban is across Otago as authorities warn of extreme risk of a major blaze which could take weeks to put out.

As temperatures soar above 30C across parts of the country, so has demand for firefighters as tinder-dry conditions create the perfect environment for forest and scrub fires.

Auckland are two from two and rolling along nicely in the domestic 50-over competition after cleaning up Canterbury at Eden Park yesterday.

Tears and laughter shared centre stage as Rachel Clark's grieving family remembered a special girl taken too soon.

Mike Rankin counts himself lucky, despite his new truck plummeting over a bank at his Caversham home.

The Cromwell community is reeling in shock at the sudden death of a 17-year-old who was recognised as a young leader with huge potential.

A taxi firm boss whose driver was racially insulted by an off-duty Queenstown policewoman says the company is relieved she has resigned.

A police officer who racially abused a taxi driver in Queenstown last year has resigned.

Silver Fern Farms faces a bill of up to $3 million after it was ruled it made more than 100 Dunedin seasonal meat workers redundant.

A surge in the supply of methamphetamine is being pushed by gangs on a "willing market" in the south, police say.

The family of an Otago man beaten to death in a prolonged and brutal attack cried out with pain and relief as his ''gutless'' killers were found guilty of murder.