1Parliament has moved into extraordinary urgency to pass legislation tonight which will immediately increase the excise on cigarettes by 10-percent. The rise will be followed by two additional 10-percent increases in January 2011 and in January 2012.

2The only surviving member of an Air Force helicopter crew which crashed on Sunday is now awake and has begun speaking about what he remembers.

3Prime Minister John Key has confirmed parents might end up paying more for early childhood education, but at the same time says the '20-hours free' policy will not be changed.

4An Auckland actor who police say engineered a confrontation with police has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill two police officers.

5Another finance company says it will be placed in receivership unless investors agree to swap their debt for equity in a new company. St. Lawrence says its capital has eroded with the economic downturn hitting it hard.

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7Flood plans are being prepared in Queenstown as heavy rain begins falling in the catchments around Lake Wakatipu, which is now in danger of over-flowing into downtown Queenstown.

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9The woman fronting a bid by a Hong Kong company to buy the Crafar dairy farms has appeared in court on charges that she left the country and failed to co-operate with liquidators after the break down of her former company.

10Stock markets around the world have fallen again in response to the intensifying debt crisis in Greece.

11The Government has indicated that the agriculture sector's entry into the Emissions Trading Scheme could be delayed after next year's review.

12Patients are to be moved out of Hawke's Bay's only hospice, which has been found to have dysfunctional relationships between managers and staff and a culture of blame and mistrust.

13Waatea News

14Goldman Sach senior executives were grilled for over 11 hours on Capital Hill in Washington DC today.

15Irrigators have been told they won't be given an open slather on water, even though the government wants to accelerate irrigation schemes.

16The New Zealand film director Peter Jackson became a Sir this morning, receiving his knighthood from the Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand.

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18Parliament has moved into extraordinary urgency to pass legislation tonight which will immediately increase the excise on cigarettes by 10-percent. The rise will be followed by two additional 10-percent increases in January 2011 and in January 2012.

19Hostility by some midwives towards immunisation could be turning some parents off vaccinating their children. New Zealand parents are lagging behind most of the developed world in having their children vaccinated.

20Parliament began hearing submissions today on a bill that aims to make membership of student associations voluntary. The legislation is a members' bill from the ACT Party MP Roger Douglas.

21A study of the rate of child offending and prosecutions between 1992 and 2008 show the total number of children under the age of 16 being apprehended by the police has fallen since its peak in 1996.

22The Medical Council is promising better supervision and support for the approximately 3-thousand foreign-trained doctors working in this country.

23Business News

24A parliamentary vote in Ukraine descended into mayhem today.

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26Cannabis users say a two year police operation leading up to busts on indoor gardening retail stores has been a waste of resources.

27With new figures out on youth crime, MPs have been warned that more of today's child offenders will become tomorrow's youth offenders unless there is proper intervention.

28An independent audit of patient care at Hawkes Bay's Hospice has found there's a dysfunctional relationship between staff and management, and the current working environment is unsustainable.

29The sister of the slain school principal and Bay of Plenty regional councillor, Hawea Vercoe, says she is surprised the killer has been released on bail.

30Just over a week out from Britain's general election, a highly respected think-tank has criticised all the major parties for failing to explain how they'd repair the country's public finances.

31Waatea News

32Police in Yemen have arrested several al-Qaeda suspects after a suicide bomber tried to kill Britain's ambassador on Monday.