Shawn McAvinue

Former Glendining Home residents will today mark the centenary of the home's opening.

A Dunedin family living on an unemployment benefit say measures in the Budget announced yesterday were paltry but some of the proposed pilot schemes had potential.

Words, swirling silk and shattered plate iron made the schoolgirls scream in the Otago Girls' High School hall yesterday.

A 40-year-old female learner driver finished a lesson with her husband on Sunday by parking the car ''sideways'' in the driveway of a repeatedly unlucky Dunedin resident, police say.

Pact staff and clients are set to challenge the thinking of Dunedin businesses by role-playing real-life scenarios, with all the ''awkwardness'' included, training co-ordinator Dion MacLeod says.

Peanuts scare former All Black Kees Meeuws, but an allergy specialist says many parents needlessly worry.

The Government's proposal to raise the age for the mandatory use of a child car restraints in vehicles is set too low and should include children up to the age of 12, Plunket national child safety adviser Sue Campbell says.

A teenage foster child might keep their bedroom just as messy as a biological child, but the rewards are equally satisfying as well, foster mother Caroline Hellyer says.

Her caring nature has resulted in Dunedin woman Helen Trainor winning the Otago Daily Times ''Why my Mum is the best!'' Mother's Day competition.

A sensitive Middlemarch colt who sold for $3000 is putting silverware on his rider's mantelpiece and is now worth more than $1 million.

The Otago SPCA says the dumping of nine kittens and two cats near a swede stand between Milton and Waihola yesterday was ''disgraceful'', coming just hours before the Government announced a Bill to create enforceable regulations covering the treatment of farm and domestic animals.

Dunedin budgeting service providers say they will apply for the new pool of Government funds announced yesterday.

A Dunedin mother wept in the Octagon yesterday while signing a petition for an immediate ban of synthetic cannabis.

Clothing shop Wolfenden & Russell, which has been trading in South Dunedin for more than 100 years, is to close.

The war on waterfowl was waged in a mix of weather at the weekend.

An Australian woman who has taken nearly three years to circumnavigate the world on a motorcycle has arrived in Mosgiel to house-sit for a month.

A Dunedin commercial boat owner says Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) prosecutes only when a seafarer dies and has ''no teeth'' to deter commercial boat owners from reckless behaviour.

As the grieving family read the Easy Rider inquiry report, a close friend of one of the victims continues to raise funds for a memorial ''to show the lost souls home''.

Gonzo the cockatoo's timing is off and he ''fluffs'' his lines but he has the starring role in a Dunedin play, which opened at the Globe Theatre yesterday.