1The controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act should be scrapped and an interim law brought in to recognise Maori customary rights as property rights. That's the recommendation from a review that the government agreed to commission as part of its coalition deal with the Maori Party.

2An elderly man has died after being dragged under a train in the Auckland suburb of Newmarket this afternoon.

3There has been a second Armed Offenders Squad callout in Christchurch in three days, this time after shots were fired near a high school in the north-east of the city. Two 19-year-olds have been charged as a result of the incident.

4The National-led Government has backed off plans to hold an inquiry into the failure of banks to pass on interest rate cuts. Parliament's Finance and Expenditure select committiee has decided to not go ahead with the enquiry, though Labour MPs are still pushing for it to proceed.

5Business News

6Tempers flared in Parliament this afternoon, during a snap debate on the decision to cut jobs and close some offices at the Ministry of Social Development. The government and opposition MPs accused each other of not taking child abuse seriously, leading to firey exchanges across the house.

75:30pm News

8Gisborne businesses have begun counting the cost of a major blaze that engulfed one of the town's main shopping centres last night bringing the central city to a standstill.

9Joan Wiffen, the country's most famous amateur fossil hunter whose discoveries overturned conventional scientific belief, has died aged 87.

10Home owners around the country have started to claim their share of a $320-million government house insulation subsidy through a scheme which was officially launched today.

11The French government says a Yemeni airliner which crashed in the Indian Ocean had been identified as faulty. 150 were on board when the plane went down near the Comoros archipelago off east Africa. The Airbus was on its way to Moroni.

12Waatea News

13The number of houses available to buy in towns and cities is drying up, bringing the possibility of higher prices.

14The Northland town of Waipu has been celebrating its Scottish roots today - with a mass wearing of the Tartan. July 1 is celebrated as International Tartan Day, the day the British gave up trying to make the Scots wear trousers in 1782.

15A French warship has come to the rescue of a New Zealand family of eight after rough weather struck their yacht en route from Tonga to New Zealand.

166:00pm News

17The controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act should be scrapped and an interim law brought in to recognise Maori customary rights as property rights. That's the recommendation from a review that the government agreed to commission as part of its coalition deal with the Maori Party.

18The Human Rights Commission says prisons should remain under state control to ensure prison management can be held accountable for any failings. Parliament's Law and Order select committee is considering a bill that would allow prisons to be privately managed.

19New plans for a 45 million dollar redevelopment of Dunedin's historic Town Hall and the adjoining Dunedin Centre complex have been unveiled this afternoon.

20Business News

21Attempts to find investors to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure have stalled with oil giants finding it hard to overcome tough new restictions.

226:30pm News

23News from China, including: censorship of the internet; unsafe products;

24Scientists have performed the first DNA-based reconstruction of the extinct Moa bird, using pre-historic feathers recovered from Otago.

25Waatea News

26Fiji's interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama says work on a new constitution won't begin for another three years. This is to replace the 1997 constotution after it was ruled illegal last year.

27President Obama's Democratic Party has secured the critical 60 seat majority in the US Senate that can help it override any Republican delaying tactics on Capitol Hill.

28The cost of alcohol is on the rise, but consumers say it won't stop them from drinking.