At first she thought the body was a rubbish bag, mother of accused told the court today, before realising it was her colleague.

Two days after a Dunedin woman was found dead outside her workplace last December, the blood-soaked hammer allegedly used to bludgeon her was found in a bin outside a colleague's home.

A group of golfers playing through the mist at the St Clair Golf Club on Saturday morning came up against an unusual hazard.

A float carrying two horses has crashed in the Waitaki District this afternoon. Emergency crews were called to an area near Hampden-Palmerston

A Dunedin cleaner beat his boss to death with a hammer because she had complained about his conduct at work, the Crown says.

Shareholders of a Central Otago winery are fighting over a share sale.

Police are investigating after a milk tanker ran off the road in North Otago, killing the driver.

An 11-year-old boy has been rushed to Dunedin hospital after falling almost four metres from a rope swing.

This will be a good weekend to check out the museum or cuddle up with a book as heavy showers and thunderstorms are forecast for parts of the country.

Two New Zealand universities are among the top 100 in the world for these subjects...

A bus driver and the blind woman he knocked over have shared an unlikely embrace outside court.

We will find you and we will kill you - that is the message the Otago Regional Council is set to issue today to Bennett's wallabies that enter Otago.

A Balclutha man who stabbed a sheep to death told the farmer he did it because he was hungry.

A knife-wielding man who paraded around in public with his shirt off, challenging people to fight him, has been jailed for nearly two years.

The Minister for Primary Industries has approved a customary fishing reserve in Otago Harbour following an eight-year consultation and proposal process.

The Dunedin City Council faces a potentially protracted legal battle as New Zealand's supermarket giants join forces to fight the city's local alcohol policy.

A Lord of the Rings sightseeing flight crashed, killing the pilot, after he flew low to clear livestock from the airstrip.

A group of students went out for a dive in Otago Harbour yesterday and came back with a whale of a tale.

A former North Otago star rugby player charged in a fatal crash in Hakataramea Valley Rd, near Kurow, in May last year has pleaded guilty to all charges.

A wooden fence post fell off the back of a truck and went through the windscreen of a vehicle the driver was passing.

About 100 farmers in Otago and Southland were forced to dump milk over the weekend in the aftermath of the milk silo collapse at Fonterra's Edendale site.

Four Queenstown men are lucky to be alive after their kayaks overturned and they were swept out to sea off the Otago coast.

Police were called to reports of disorder following a large student party in the Dunedin Botanic Garden yesterday.

Nine ducklings survived a deadly dash across a motorway yesterday afternoon. Their mother wasn't so lucky.

A judge has labelled an Arrowtown road rage incident as an "appalling piece of behaviour" while a couple was assaulted while their kids were in the car.

Elisabeth Easther finds a small South Island town that rocks and regularly dances.

A quick-thinking fast-food worker extinguished a bus fire in Dunedin.

On an insider tour of Dunedin's hidden treasures, Eleanor Ainge Roy discovers the other Edinburgh deserves a second glance.

COMMENT: I think we have a winner for Lawyer of the Year. The award goes to the wizard who side-stepped jail time for Nikolas Delegat.

The sentence given to Nikolas Delegat for assaulting a policewoman has been widely condemned.