1Mystery surrounds the deaths of five people found dead in a car that had crashed into a tree near Tokoroa. Two more people were killed after a crash near Atiamuri in the Waikato.

2The Government will raise fuel tax by 3 cents a litre each year for the next three years.

3Prime Minister John Key has agreed to a pay-rise for Members of Parliament.

4A massive clean-up has begun in Fiji following Cyclone Evan, however there have been no reported fatalities.

5Five bodies have been found in Samoa in the wake of Cyclone Evan, however twelve people remain missing.

6Police say 22 year old Ashburton mother Sina Solomona suffered several cuts to the face and throat when she was murdered in her home on Saturday.

7The wife of James Takamore has won the long-running legal battle to have his body exhumed from Tuhoe land and reburied in Christchurch.

8Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse at the centre of the Royal prank call, has been laid to rest in India.

9The funerals for the tiny victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut have begun.

10Medical professionals have taken offence at an image on a National Party website which symbolises men as doctors and women as nurses.

11A paralysed woman has learned how to move a robotic arm using just the power of her thoughts.