Kurt Bayer

Christchurch teachers have today voted to strike in protest against radical Government education reforms in the rebuilding city.

The widower of a woman who initially survived the CTV building collapse but died before she was rescued has today has criticised a disjointed rescue mission which had "more chiefs than indians".

A woman trapped in the debris of the collapsed CTV building could hear her distraught husband shouting her name as he searched for her, an inquest was told today.

The Government has rejected claims that a failure to officially lodge a scathing report into the Erebus disaster has resulted in New Zealand not meeting its international aviation safety obligations.

A convicted fraudster and blackmailer who racked up more than 100 offences during an Invercargill crime spree will stay behind bars until she is sentenced at the High Court next March.

The royal commission of inquiry into the Canterbury earthquakes has been completed today, with the third and final part of its report handed to the governor-general.

A market gardener who stabbed a young Christchurch mum to death in front of her three-year-old daughter has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Attempts by the former directors of Pike River Coal to shift responsibility for the tragedy onto their managers is "disgraceful" and highlights the need for stronger mine safety laws, the miners' union said today.

A neighbour says she is distraught that she didn't report a "suss looking" man taking photographs outside a Timaru primary school just hours before a 9-year old pupil was abducted.

Two of three fugitives hunted by police in a remote mountain range have appeared in court this morning.

A champion bodybuilder has vowed to fight charges that he was behind a nationwide steroid dealing operation.