East Coast

Weather warnings have been lifted for Tairāwhiti while Northland says its recovery will take several weeks.

An estimated 30 whānau from the Uawa, or Tolaga Bay area have spent the night away from home, staying with relatives on higher ground as Cyclone Hale set floodwaters lapping at their doors.

Cyclone Hale has made landfall with gale-force winds, 6m swells on the coast and heavy rain, and caused road closures, slips and flooding across several regions.

Police believe several other drive-by shootings in the Kaiti area over the holidays are linked to the 24 December shooting.

Rhythm and Vines has sent crews to clean up rubbish believed to have been dumped by festival-goers, in a cherished forest in Tairāwhiti.

Police said they had gotten out of their own vehicle shortly before the incident.

Two people have died in a crash involving a vehicle and two pedestrians in Gisborne on New Year's Eve.

Police have confirmed they will investigate a complaint into allegations of neglect and an unreported death in an IHC home.

Staff are putting their own wellbeing on the backburner to cope with demand.

Nine youths have been arrested by Gisborne Police after multiple reported vehicle break-ins in the past few days.

The country's largest nurses union has issued Gisborne Hospital management with a notice to urgently fix serious issues in one of its wards.

A popular Gisborne river that becomes a "liquid slurry of mud" in bad weather is increasingly unusable for recreationalists and wildlife alike, waka ama groups say.

A Gisborne train group needs to raise the money for repairs to a KiwiRail line so its fabled steam locomotive can continue its usual route.

A person involved in a truck crash on SH35 in Hicks Bay on the East Coast has died.

The clearance of woody debris from popular Tairāwhiti beaches will continue this summer following a district council meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Four arrests have been made following a "brutal assault" on a 61-year-old in Gisborne last month.

Victims who experienced an onslaught of water through their homes and farms accused a forestry company of acting like "cowboys".

An unseasonably cold and wet spring in Gisborne has delayed corn harvests, one of the country's largest sweet corn producers says.

A Gisborne rail bridge cannot be used by the city's iconic vintage steam train, but for how long it has been unsafe remains a mystery.