No one likes a sick kid. You feel sorry for them, but you don't want one next to you if they are not your own offspring. I learned

Olympics The greatest sporting show on Earth will burst into life in Rio next weekend, with New Zealand predicted to enjoy its most

Turning 18 is a big deal in New Zealand. Once you're 18, you can drink, vote, smoke, buy scratchies, place bets at the TAB or use

They've been the best of times, surely, free of war and famine, well fed and medicated, never needing to bother about things that

No matter the circumstances, the loss of a young life is always a tragedy. Shargin Stephens, who died on Tuesday nearly two weeks

Correct me if I'm wrong but picking the school your children will attend is a relatively important decision for parents. That's why

Observation and knowledge of reality are topics that raise all sorts of prickly philosophical questions, chief among them the one

Have you ever walked past someone and said to yourself: "geez he looks familiar - in fact he looks just like me?" I remember watching

If a medical emergency played out before you, would you know what to do? For most of us, it would be a call to 111 - but what about

While a number of families have - much to our collective shame - struggled to put a roof over their heads, there has been much scrambling

It's hard in today's connected, catalogued world to go off grid and be intrepid. Unless you're prepared to go to some fairly extreme

It's a mind-blowing level of corruption, even for Russia. A report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency has revealed that

United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg recently told the New York Times that if Donald Trump became President she would

Perhaps living at the bottom of the world has its advantages. Of course we're a long way from anywhere. You just can't get into a

To be honest, I don't know what all the fuss is about this Pokemon Go craze that is sweeping the world. For those of you who have

It's long been said that it takes a village to raise a child but if you read the updated 21st-century manual it seems that all it

We don't only get older, many get wiser as well. I thought so this week when in conversation with two gang members. One Mongrel Mob

This month we are celebrating 75 years of women being in the New Zealand Police. As a police reporter for this newspaper for more

For many parents, the next two weeks will be met with a mix of relief and trepidation. School holidays bring that mix of feelings. First

We need to have a wee korero, Aotearoa. If you are reading this and don't know that korero means talk, then it's even more needed. It's

Everyone loves a good market and Rotorua will soon be spoilt for choice, with another to be launched in October. According to Rotorua

Both my grandfathers made it back from the Somme, which is miraculous. Commemorations this past week for that appalling waste of

It's well established that weather has a major impact on mood. Which is why everyone should just leave me the *@!* alone right now

I can tell when people are disappointed when I say no. They get huffy. I rarely, if at all, have used my weekly opinion piece in

Call it entrapment if you like, but something's not quite right about the Lotto fever. With Powerball's first division expected to

Not a lot impresses me these days. I guess it's the combination of having seen and experienced so much by so many in such a small

One of my first jobs at the Rotorua Daily Post 20 years ago was calling our lovely kaumatua Anaru Rangiheuea to ask for his comment

Like many who work in media, I'm a bit of a news junkie. I always read it, always watch it. I follow big stories obsessively. Scott

It seems lumbercube management may have been the only ones who saw yesterday's shock news coming. The sudden closure of the mill