1Ranfurly police constable Peter Umbers almost certainly knew Richard Thomas Lakich, the teenager arrested and charged with bludgeoning him to death with his own baton on the weekend.

2Police have ruled out murder in the case of a missing disabled Northland man who disappeared in the Waipoua forest.

3An escapee from Paparua Prison is at large in the Kaikoura area tonight.

4Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was today forced to appear on Soviet television to appeal for calm. Soviet shops have been swamped by panic buying ever since news broke last week about imminent price rises. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was today forced to appear on Soviet television to appeal for calm. Soviet troops and Armenian civilians are engaged in a tense standoff after violent clashes in Yerevan, which killed at least six people.

5Three New Zealand mountaineers have returned to New Zealand after climbing to the summit of Mount Everest.

6A canoeist missing on the Kaitoke River since yesterday has been found safe and well.

7There has been a major bus crash on the Pacific Highway north of Sydney.

8Burmese people may be on the brink of electing their first civilian government in nearly thirty years.

9A Wellington service station at the centre of a pollution scare last month is today getting a $100,000 facelift.

10New Zealand scrap metal waste is being shipped to South Korea.

11Harrods in London is being overwhelmed with orders for New Zealand's Montana Lindauer wine.

12Four hundred People Meters have been installed in homes across New Zealand, and are expected to provide a snapshot of the public's television viewing habits.

13A group of Chicago musicians have taken the idea of recycling bottles to extremes.