Countdown is bringing in Kiwi workers from Australia to run its chillers and turning office staff into forklift drivers to try and counter Omicron.

Opinion - Social support is badly failing women trying to escape abuse, and often retraumatising them, says a founder of Backbone Collective.

Opinion - Protesters against vaccine mandates and pandemic limits have made personal freedoms a rallying cry, but don't seem to understand such measures enhance our freedom.

There have been 22,527 new community cases of Covid-19 reported today, slightly down on yesterday's numbers, the Ministry of Health says.

Police are about to begin removing barricades blocking roads around Parliament - but Wellington's lower Molesworth Street will remain cordoned off for now.

New Zealanders are booking Airbnb accommodation in Ukraine in a bid to support those in the war torn country.

A large film studio complex proposed near Wanaka also includes a theme park element, but a project director says it won't be like Disneyland.

Auckland health officials are cautiously optimistic that case numbers may have reached a peak in the city, although the number of people in hospital could continue to rise for the next week.

Small groups of anti-mandate protesters are still lingering around Wellington after being cleared out of the Parliament precinct on Wednesday

The government has ringfenced $572 million for a Whangārei Hospital redevelopment.

From midnight tonight, fully-vaccinated New Zealand residents and citizens travelling to Aotearoa will no longer need to complete an isolation period for the first time in nearly two years.

There are hundreds of frontline staff off across the city's hospitals, and emergency departments in Auckland have been swamped with cases on some days.

The Department of Conservation says diving petrel are still under threat, despite an increase in breeding numbers

The Central Library will temporarily close from this Saturday due to staff shortages, while yesterday food scrap collections were also suspended.

Active Covid-19 case numbers could be as high as half a million, or one in 10 New Zealanders, with many unreported positive results and others asymptomatic, according to modelling.

A day after one of the most violent days in the country's history, tons of rubbish were being removed at the start of a costly restoration project.

Distraught women and children face an uncertain future, often in freezing conditions in the likes of a town on the Romanian border, a World Vision worker says.

The Environmental Protection Authority says it is working hard to fill big gaps in the regulation of chemicals but needs more funding.