A motorist left with a crumpled mag wheel is waiting for Waka Kotahi to fix the hole that caused it, while compensation remains uncertain.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says mask use and isolation remain important but there is no talk of a change in Covid traffic light settings for tomorrow's announcement.

More are expected to go as the months roll on, a former prosecutor-now defence lawyer says.

Government ministers were on site for a ceremony to open a new special care baby unit in Auckland last month. But the Waitākere Hospital facility isn't actually open because of a problem with the power supply.

Unlike many people, Owen Burt is delighted when the temperature gauge plunges below zero, and looks forward to intense frosts, even hoping for snow and blizzards - it makes training with his huskies much easier.

Efeso Collins has edged ahead of his Auckand mayoralty rivals, according to the latest Curia poll.

Sewage overflowing onto a Timaru golf course has prompted neighbours and golfers to raise health and safety concerns – but council says it is working on a solution.

Helena Wakefield, 72, was found dead in her car last week. Her brother said he hired a private investigator to find her.

Its owner says it comes down to a combination of rising food prices, impending earthquake strengthening and a lack of staff.

The move comes after a spate of tit-for-tat shootings in Auckland that saw innocent residents shot at.

One witness said she was with her daughter at Meadowbank Shopping Centre when she saw the woman in her seventies jump into action.

There are 729 people in hospital with the virus, 18 in ICU/HDU, as the seven-day rolling average of cases nears 10,000.

Olympic Games bronze medallist Dylan Schmidt will be competing in nationals for the first time since 2016 in Invercargill this week.

Rusiate Vakalakovi, 44, has five mouths to feed, but made just $2 for a day's work. The Pacific Islands Forum, held a few minutes down the road, doesn't factor as he struggles to make ends meet.

The only guaranteed new faces on the council will come from the new Māori ward and from the South Taranaki ward, which has two of three currently elected members finishing up.

A vehicle was recovered with some of the stolen goods still inside.

Jake William Macdonald's actions were not only disgusting, but posed a health danger too, Judge Phillip Cooper said.

Emergency services were called about 6pm; the car was burnt out.

He said he cleaned $54,000 of a meth dealer's proceeds through his construction company. He now says the cash was clean all along.

The private health sector always does better when the public sector is unable to deliver, which is "deeply inequitable", says Otago University Professor Robin Gauld.