Stuff.co.nz - National News

Featherston's Caitlin Austin has had the rare privilege of speaking to a Nasa astronaut as he floated hundreds of kilometres above the Earth.

A Government scheme that sends parents of violent or misbehaving children to parenting courses is to expand to up to 15,000 more families.

John Key will travel the world, meet the Queen and talk to the heads of at least nine countries, including Australia, China and Britain, before he even takes up residence in his Beehive office.

Arguing and banging were heard coming from a Tokoroa flat not long before a mother of five was found dead yesterday.

A power cut in the Nelson region left over 25,000 households and businesses without power this morning.

Police have today charged a 60-year-old Wanganui man with theft of a Colin McCahon sculpture, which was later bought at auction for $25,000 by a prominent Wellington millionaire.

Rural firefighters are today continuing to dampen hot spots after a bush fire swept through more than 60 hectares of Department of Conservation land at Ngawha in the Far North overnight.

Police say they are not ruling out further arrests after three men appeared in court yesterday accused of the murder of New Plymouth man Peri Niwa.

Photographs taken by beachgoers at Corsair Bay on Lyttelton Harbour may hold the key to a police investigation into a pack rape.

The police inspector who led the inquiry into Clint Rickards' alleged disciplinary breaches feels deceived after revelations that the former top officer left the force with a $300,000 payout.