Loud explosions could be heard before police battered down the door of a Dunedin flat during an armed standoff today, a witness says.

The principal of an elite Australian Catholic college has suspended a group of boys allegedly involved in a $6000 theft spree in Queenstown.

Rachel Glucina turns her attention to frocks on the rocks at Queenstown's Winter Festival.

A farmer wants TrustPower to check its lines after eight cows died when a 33kV line dropped on his farm.

One of the country's oldest pubs, Central Otago's historic Cardrona Hotel, is on the market again.

NZ scientists have recreated the face of a 2500-year-old Turkish peasant with technology they hope could be used in court in coming years.

After nine days at the bottom of a 60m cliff without food or water, Rusty the collie rewarded his rescuer by almost licking him to death.

Police searching for missing 40-year-old Dunedin woman Gayle Dianne Heath have found a body.