Jacob Beck-Jaffurs, who was in his final year of medical school, has died after a spear-fishing trip near Tauranga.

Former bank manager Vanessa Adams' family and friends sobbed openly in court as she was sent to prison for stealing more than $200,000 from customers' accounts.

Four-year-old boy is battling one of the world's rarest genetic diseases

A Far North man has been charged with murder following the discovery of an Auckland man's body near a popular hiking track in Northland.

Ground staff have painted out about 10 slogans, including a swastika, at Toll Stadium in Whangarei.

A Whangarei policeman sacked after he was acquitted on an assault charges has failed to win his job back.

A police officer who was driving a patrol car that struck and killed a 16-year-old walking along a state highway at night gave an emotional apology.

A police officer has denied he was texting when the patrol car he was driving hit and killed a 16-year-old youth in Northland in 2009.

Two Northland dairy farmers have come up with a novel way to express their boyracer tendencies - from the comfort of their own couch.

A search resumed this morning for a four-year-old boy who went missing in Northland last night.

Quick-witted rescuers scrawled a line in the beach to point others to the site of a helicopter crash.

In a scene straight out of a desert island castaway story, a line scrawled in the beach pointed rescuers to a helicopter crash in the sea near Whangarei today, helping save a pilot's life.

A 23-year-old man has been taken to hospital after being pulled from the sea after his helicopter crashed off the Northland coast. He was the pilot and only occupant of the chopper and escaped with minor injuries.

An air search has started off the Northland coast after reports an aircraft may have crashed into the sea.