Internal Affairs has abandoned an investigation into alleged irregular payments for a thoroughbred racehorse made by Sir Owen Glenn's charity.

From eating ice to picking scabs, people can become addicted to all sorts. Here are six of the strangest addictions we've come across.

'Getting stuck on a benefit is like crack cocaine,' deputy Prime Minister Bill English told a Tauranga crowd yesterday - and beneficiary advocates aren't impressed.

Robin Williams' death today followed a troubled past with cocaine and alcohol, and in July this year he checked into rehab again.

The offending of a former Department of Internal Affairs worker left one of his victims worried that his family's citizenship bid was in danger.

A man caught drink driving twice within two hours - both times at more than triple the legal limit - was described as a "danger to the community" during sentencing today.

A young mother helped stop her former partner - 'psychotic' on synthetic cannabis - from driving her and her child into Otago Harbour.

The wife of TVNZ's political editor Corin Dann will front the network's Sunday programme tonight to talk about her battle with alcoholism.

Gambling products are only harmful when people consume too much of them. Gambling is like alcohol: occasional use is generally safe, this expert explains.

An office worker who stole $1.1 million from a Canterbury family firm to fund a spiralling gambling addiction has lost an appeal against her jail sentence.

Sloth, torpor, idleness. Forget the negative connotations, for it turns out they might actuallybe good for us. Kate Bussmann managed to put down her iPad and allowed her mind to wander for the purposes of research.

With the news that researchers believe they have discovered a compound that could revolutionise the treatments of addiction, Greg Dixon asks why only some people become addicts and why society seems to view some addictions as ‘worse’ than others.

It's been found on nearly every bank note in the UK, in toilets at Parliament - now tests confirm cocaine traces are in Britain's drinking water.

A mum jailed today for almost three years for raising two kids in a clandestine P lab was blasted by a judge as being an "abysmal failure" as a mother.

In a rare case of life imitating art, a 53-year-old goatee-wearing man named Walter White has been caught dealing an "extraordinary" quantity of methamphetamine.

A traveling medical technician was sentenced Monday to 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and infecting dozens of patients in multiple states with hepatitis C through tainted syringes.

An independent report ordered by Brittany Murphy's father has revealed the US actress may have been killed by poison.

Rocker Pete Doherty is preparing to pay thousands of dollars in blackmail money over private film footage shot during his romance with supermodel Kate Moss.

A baby who died while in CYF care was born to a mother who was taking methadone and the infant had to be given morphine to wean him off the drug, an inquest has heard.

Forcing up tobacco taxes every year is having an effect. It's hitting the price point for many smokers, galvanising their resolve to quit.

In some circles you’re the odd one out if you don’t own a phone that can receive emails and browse the net. But that doesn’t bother Amy Williams, who is among a die-hard group stubbornly resisting pressure to upgrade their dumbphones.