By RNZ East Coast iwi Ngāti Porou are urging holiday makers to reconsider travelling to Tairāwhiti over the summer period.Te Runanganui o Ngāti Porou chair Selwyn Parata, in a letter sent out last night, says…

By Michael Hall of RNZ One of the country’s leading biomedical scientists has written to the Prime Minister and Director General of Health urging vaccination exemptions for chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers.The University of…

Voluntary assisted dying laws have passed the lower house in the New South Wales Parliament.

The vote passed 52 to 32.

It will now move to the upper house, the final hurdle before the bill becomes law.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill was put forward by independent member Alex Greenwich, who tweeted soon after the vote passed.

READ MORE: Stories shared during debate on NSW voluntary assisted dying bill

https://twitter.com/AlexGreenwich/status/1464055847198228483

In order to be eligible, a person must be 18 or older, have the mental capacity to make the decision to end their life and be terminally ill with death expected within six months or 12 months for neurological conditions.

The bill was opposed by Premier Dominic Perrottet, who cited his grandmother's painful death in his decision.

Voluntary assisted dying has been legalised in every state by NSW in the past few years.

Test your brains with the Herald’s afternoon quiz. Be sure to check back on nzherald.co.nz for the morning quiz tomorrow. To challenge yourself with more quizzes, CLICK HERE.

Australia's east coast is being battered by a weather system stretching across four states as the November deluge continues.

New South Wales and Queensland are the most-affected areas, with flood warnings in place up and down the entire east coast.

Residents in parts of both states could be cut off, with more than 100 roads already swallowed by rising waters in Queensland.

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Inland NSW and the Central West have also received a soaking, with "significant rainfall totals" recorded.

The highest total was seen in Parma, which saw 170mm.

The area of Scone has also been hard hit after a thunderstorm swept over the region.

"Scone has recorded 64mm, mostly associated with a thunderstorm earlier today," Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) senior meteorologist Agata Imielska said.

Newcastle and the Hunter region were also impacted.

The Central West region has seen "significant rainfall totals" around the 50mm mark.

Residents across NSW and Sydney are being warned to drive to road conditions, with more showers and storms forecast today.

"Don't get complacent, even if there's a break in the weather," Ms Imielska said.

Conditions across NSW are expected to ease over the weekend.

READ MORE: What is La Niña, the weather phenomenon about to hit Australia

'Extensive' flood watch in place for parts of NSW

The Lachlan and Namoi are two catchments being watched for renewed flooding, BoM senior hydrologist Ailsa Schofield said.

"For the Namoi, we are seeing flooding occurring," she said.

"We are expecting that to rise again in upstream locations, so Gunnedah is the most upstream location we're expecting to see renewed rises."

Major flooding has also occurred in the Hunter region, with the town of Scone classified as a flash-flood catchment.

"That rose extremely quickly this morning," Ms Schofield said.

"(There are) quite dangerous conditions with fast-moving water so really remember to stay off the road and don't drive through floodwaters."

https://twitter.com/9NewsQueensland/status/1464051681335951363

Flood warning for Queensland

There is also a warning about extensive flooding for parts of Queensland.

Several parts of the state are on alert and multiple rain bands are sweeping the south-east and central Queensland.

The town of Clermont in central Queensland recorded 169mm since 9am yesterday and roads have been cut off, meaning kids can't get to school.

'Relentless' rain

Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) senior meteorologist Jonathan Howe told Today this morning the rain had been "relentless" across Queensland and NSW.

"(There's been) 160mm-plus through the central highlands of Queensland, but the standout has been Bundaberg," he said.

"191mm overnight and counting."

He said parts of the Namoi catchment in northern NSW had received 100mm, while Canberra has had its wettest November on record.

Mr Howe said there was more to come.

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"Another day of widespread rain, storms and showers across the east coast and eastern Victoria, out through eastern NSW and Sydney and Brisbane," he said.

"We could see heavy falls leading to flash flooding particularly across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney."

Sydney is also facing a blustery afternoon, with a low-pressure system bringing very strong winds and dangerous surf conditions with it.

The rainy conditions, which stretch for thousands of kilometres across northern and eastern Australia, are expected to linger for about a week.

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Stay up to date with flood warnings at the BoM website.

The wet weather is expected to continue for the rest of summer due to a La Niña event occurring in the Pacific for a second consecutive year.

The BoM declared a La Niña has developed in the Pacific Ocean, leading to wetter than normal periods for eastern, northern and central parts of the nation.

La Niña often brings above-average rainfall, cloud cover and cooler temperatures.

A terrifying incident in a West Auckland street earlier this week was a stoush between rival Head Hunter and Comancheros gang members, the Herald can reveal. Police descended on Virgo Place in Glen Eden on Tuesday afternoon after…

A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 250 metres underground, Russian officials said.

Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes yesterday, rescuers found 14 bodies but then were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a build-up of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire.

Another 239 people were rescued.

The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.

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The Interfax news agency cited a representative of the regional administration who also put the death toll from Thursday's accident at 52, saying they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.

A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies.

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Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, the news reports said.

Regional officials declared three days of mourning.

Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark.

The miners who survived described their shock after reaching the surface.

“Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” one of the rescued miners, Sergey Golubin, said in televised remarks.

“We didn’t even realise what happened at first and took some gas in.”

READ MORE: Man charged with murders of missing Victorian campers

Another miner, Rustam Chebelkov, recalled the dramatic moment he was rescued along with his comrades as chaos engulfed the mine.

“I was crawling and then I felt them grabbing me,” he said.

“I reached my arms out to them, they couldn’t see me, the visibility was bad. They grabbed me and pulled me out, if not for them, we’d be dead.”

Explosions of methane released from coal beds during mining are rare but they cause the most fatalities in the coal mining industry.

The Interfax news agency reported that miners have oxygen supplies normally lasting for six hours that could only be stretched for a few more hours.

Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire over violations of safety regulations that led to deaths. It said the mine director and two senior managers were detained.

President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured.

READ MORE: Torrential rain to get worse across multiple states

Thursday’s fire wasn’t the first deadly accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In 2004, a methane explosion left 13 miners dead.

In 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times.

In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia's far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analysed the safety of the country's 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34 per cent, potentially unsafe.

The Listvyazhnaya mine wasn't among them at the time, according to media reports.

Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, inspected the mine in April and registered 139 violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.

Waka Kotahi is being forced to close on and off-ramps to State Highway 1 overnight after repeated attempts to drive the wrong way on the motorway. The ramps will close overnight between Johnsonville and Tawa after several drivers…

Police in Spain have recovered a 2000-year-old sword which was allegedly stolen from a grave and put up for sale online.

Authorities say the Iberian sword is believed to date back to between the 3^rd and 2^nd century BC and was being offered on a "well known social media site" alongside 202 other archaeological pieces.

Described as an "Iberian falcata", this type of sword was a personal weapon and tended to be buried with its owner when they died.

READ MORE: Man charged with murders of missing Victorian campers

READ MORE: Torrential rain to get worse across multiple states

The blade would typically be bent or damaged when it was buried to prevent graverobbers from using them.

This one however, was found with the blade intact, something police say would have added significant value if it were to be sold.

"The investigation began after officers discovered that a social media user had posted on a well known site about an Iberian falcata, with a bird's head hilt, that had been plundered," the Spanish Policía Nacional said in a statement.

"Following various efforts to confirm the existence of the archaeological piece, determine its location and recover it, investigators managed to track down the person offering it for sale, who turned out to be a Spanish citizen living in the (Andalucían) province of Jaén."

The sword and the other artefacts were seized by police and the man was arrested on suspicion of misappropriation and a historical heritage offence.

Armed police are blocking access to roads in Hamilton after it was reported a person presented a firearm in the area. What did you see? Email us Cordons are in place and members of the Armed Offenders Squad are at an address…