APNZ

Steven Luatua has been dropped to the reserves bench as John Kirwan looks to get more physicality out of his team for Friday's match against the Waratahs at Eden Park.

A shot was fired during an armed robbery of a service station on the Mt Wellington highway early today.

Greymouth businessman Lance Topliss is ruing the third storm to damage to his Tainui Street premises.

A chronic alcoholic who couldn't resist repeatedly getting behind the wheel despite court orders has landed in jail.

A Czech tramper who went missing on the inland pack track between Fox River and Punakaiki on Saturday was "ill-equipped and ill-experienced", say police.

The truck driver involved in a crash that killed Whenuapai mother Lysette Brown was on his way to deliver chairs to his sister's wedding.

The devastation wrecked by ex-cyclone Ita around the South Island last week has become clearer.

Joseph Parker cuts a relaxed figure as he laughs during a game of euchre with his cornermen in the lobby of a German hotel.

Benji Marshall, the self-confessed "average rugby player", might have to face up to the realities of unemployment, at least in the short term.

In reaching a mutual agreement with Benji Marshall to let him leave the Blues only a few months into his two-year contract, New Zealand's rugby bosses made their best decision of this whole sorry saga.