Small town New Zealand does wonderful and whacky to keep up our winter spirits.

Tonight's sell-out test between the All Blacks and England is predicted to draw one of the biggest event crowds Hamilton has ever experienced, bar owners say.

A barber was "genuinely fearful" of remaining in the presence of an employer who regularly made fun of him and told him "I hate white people".

Hamilton's measles epidemic is growing with 53 cases confirmed including one where the person was fully immunised.

A baby has been taken from a Hamilton property to Waikato Hospital in a serious to critical condition and police are investigating what happened at the property.

New Zealand could soon have its first female Muslim politician in Parliament.

Measles outbreaks have forced two large Hamilton schools to quarantine students and cancel or postpone all sporting, cultural and academic trips for the rest of the term. One has postponed its school ball.

A judge has dismissed a Hamilton woman’s defence that a young boy’s mother gave him alcohol and not her as “beyond belief”.

Two Hamilton police officers are being praised for catching a man who leapt from the second floor of a burning building.

Police are warning parents to buckle in children after a toddler was discovered asleep in the footwell of a car and two siblings unrestrained on the back seat.

Police are praising a bystander who saved a teenager being assaulted in a bus station from further injury when he intervened to pull off the attacker.

A Scottish Rudolf Steiner preschool teacher has been denied another temporary work visa by Immigration New Zealand because he is taking the job of a New Zealander.

Megatron could be the newest nickname for Hamilton if public and council reaction to new tongue-in-cheek billboards at the entrances to the city are anything to go by.

Rugby players from a top school have been caught shoplifting at a world championship in Japan.

A woman was grabbed by a man who tried to drag her into bushes in broad daylight as she was walking around a Waikato lake, police say.

Severe rain and wind warnings and a drop in temperatures have been issued for parts of the South Island and lower North Island this weekend.

A female jogger was attacked in Hamilton on Wednesday night and police are appealing for help to find the offenders.

From flowers to knitted veges, Hamilton is a garden city, writes Danielle Wright.