A mum is demanding answers after her 3-year-old son escaped from his kindergarten unnoticed by staff and walked alone across a busy Tauranga road.

Community social housing projects in Wellington, Tauranga and Hamilton have been announced by Housing Minister Nick Smith.

Egg sandwiches, a thermos of Milo and slightly soggy carrot cake.

A Tauranga Intermediate teacher found guilty of stealing 11 tablets of a young student's ADHD medication has been sentenced to nine months supervision.

The body of a man has been found in shallow water at Pilot Bay, Mount Maunganui.

"It was a shock", said 89-year-old Edna Harrison, but it didn't stop her walking into her neighbour's burning home to try to help him put out the blaze with a garden hose.

Sitting next to his dead colleague as their work van started filling with water after plunging off a bridge, Ashley Donkersley thought he was going to die.

The pregnant partner of a man killed when his van plunged off a highway bridge in Tauranga will remember him as the "best kind of dad".

A 2-year-old toddler with a serious medical condition who was removed from hospital by his parents has been located and has received medical attention, police say.

Police divers have arrived to look for the driver of a van which plunged into Tauranga Harbour yesterday, as an officer who helped save a passenger is praised.

More than 50 people have been injured while working on Western Bay of Plenty roads and bridges in the past two years.

A rose thorn scratch left a fit and healthy Tauranga man with major organ failure and in a four-month battle to save his life.

A devastated father who claims his son's heart was stolen by a hospital has had a setback in his bid to sue for damages.

An Oropi man who stabbed his neighbour three times during a heated dispute over missing trees and tyres being let down, has been sentenced to eight months' home detention.

An elderly Katikati woman lost in the bush braved the cold weather and dark conditions for more than three hours while she waited for a search and rescue team to come to her aid.

Two Bay of Plenty companies are ordered to pay reparation after a man's foot was severed by a winch wire at the Port of Tauranga.

An Auckland bus driver says passengers - including one who tried to use a $100 note for a $1 ride - need to start carrying smaller change for fares.

A jury last night found Witeri Ahomiro Neketai guilty of murdering Tauranga businessman Gary Kimura - but acquitted his associate, Taonui Hiku, of manslaughter.