Police have been performing covert operations in a bid to catch people throwing rocks through windows.

The best secondary school basketball players in Canterbury will get their chance to impress.

On her first day at the Riverside Market, Pinar Bozkurt sold almost 70kgs of Turkish delight and 900 pieces of baklava.

Draped among the rocks on a Riverton beach enduring the cold of the ocean and a sandfly invasion without a stitch of clothing for protection is all in a day's work for Invercargill fine art nude model Shannon Taylor.

Hundreds of schools have been closed as New South Wales braces for what could be the most dangerous bushfire week in Australia's history.