Jimmy Ellingham

Residents of the central North Island town of Ohakune are optimistic a booming winter is on the way after two years of Covid-19 uncertainty.

The chief ombudsman says the mental health ward at Palmerston North Hospital is one of the worst in New Zealand and not fit for purpose.

The family of a man who died in a suspected suicide at Palmerston North Hospital eight years ago are boycotting a coronial inquest later this month. Shaun Gray's family say it's because they can not…

An artist who painted a mural of Murray Ball's Footrot Flats characters told the late cartoonist's family he would not go ahead with the work if he could not use his version of their likenesses.

More than two weeks after elected officials ordered the removal of unpopular brightly coloured planter boxes that line a main highway into Palmerston North, the offending objects remain.

Engines are revving and bar tills ringing in Palmerston North for the city's biggest weekend of the year.

A teen jailed for her part in the violent home invasion of a 90-year-old Levin woman, who died weeks later of a brain injury, will be released on parole.

Frustration is mounting that a long-awaited new bridge connecting two North Island districts can't yet be used.

A huge new rail yard proposed for the outskirts of Palmerston North is a step closer to reality. Affected residents are unhappy, but KiwiRail says the yards are much needed.

Some resthomes are no longer requiring people to show vaccine passes before visiting loved ones after the relaxation of rules this week.

A main highway into Palmerston North will no longer be lined by unpopular brightly coloured planter boxes after city councillors on Wednesday voted for their removal.

Dividing cyclists from traffic on a small stretch of Palmerston North highway has split opinion among city residents.

Days before her death a fat studies conference chaired by academic Dr Cat Pausé was parodied by American conservative figure Steven Crowder.

The New Zealand Air Force can be called on at any time to drop supplies into war zones or after disaster strikes, when landing and unloading are impossible.

Three soldiers suffered burns to their bodies during a training exercise using molotov cocktails to prepare them for peacekeeping duties.

A heavy rain watch remains in place for the North Island's East Coast as the sodden district recovers from last week's flooding.

Huge cranes are towering above the flat Manawatū countryside as construction of two hangars for new Air Force aircraft cruises at altitude.

Health officials have issued an apology after a Palmerston North woman in her 80s waited almost a day in the city hospital's overcrowded emergency department until she was moved to a ward.

As a Palmerston North woman lay in hospital in a coma while an insidious infection took over her body's organs, her family were told to prepare for the worst.

Twenty years after Nicholas Pike was murdered, his body hasn't been found and the man convicted of killing him is still trying to clear his name, Jimmy Ellingham reports.

Sharply increasing costs of living are forcing vulnerable members of society to go without food as their budgets are squeezed.

Cars have briefly given way to horses in the Manawatū town of Feilding as riders clipped and clopped through the CBD with a call to remember them.

More than 40 years ago the man who found a meteorite billions of years old hit it with a sledgehammer - unaware of its significance.

The former lead psychiatrist at the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital's child and adolescent unit died in January without facing justice or action from a professional body despite allegations against…

Rangitīkei District mayor Andy Watson has apologised to former patients of the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital near Marton.