Solid Energy is in crisis, with a Government bailout almost inevitable, mine closures possible and further job cuts likely in another restructure to try to salvage it.

This West Coast gem is wild at heart, finds Elisabeth Easther.

Work on a West Coast bridge has been halted after workers were caught on camera dumping material into the river.

A man naked from the waist down stopped to pick up two Chilean women hitchhiking on the West Coast.

A storm battered the western side of the Southern Alps just under a week ago, closing roads and stranding holiday makers across the region.

The body of a man recovered from a creek in the Mikonui River area, south of Ross on the West Coast, has been confirmed as that of 50-year-old Christchurch man Rex Leslie Taylor.

A Westport man who sold whiskey to a Buller High School student prior to the teenager's death has been sentenced to two months in prison.

Having a middleman able to absorb the criticism and stay immune to the moral and emotional elements of the Pike tragedy makes sense politically, writes Gerard Morris.

A Haast man was sentenced to nine months' supervision and ordered to pay his former partner $500 for emotional harm after being convicted of an assault.

The West Coast search for missing Christchurch tramper Rex Leslie Taylor, 50, has been suspended, after another two-day search failed to yield more clues as to his whereabouts.