Thursday's news in 5 minutes.

1. Teenager got off ice after becoming addicted at 13 years old.

A teenager has shared his story of his struggles with ice and how he got off the drug after becoming addicted at 13 years old.

Nowra teen Zack first tried the drug when he was 13. By 14, he was completely addicted and dealing the drug, stealing cars and taking part in armed robberies.

“I stayed up nine weeks (without sleeping). That’s all we’d do, we’d sit in the room and smoke it,” the now 18-year-old said in an ABC documentary about the drug ice in the rural town of Nowra.

“My main priority was just ice, that was all I cared about.”

Zack’s mother Tracy said she realised her son was on ice when he came home one day agitated because he hadn’t had a hit.

His spiral continued after the-mother-of-four said her son was living on the streets, stealing cars to feul his drug habit.

The teenager eventually asked his nan if would take him in and help him get off the drug.

“Zack was strong enough to just wake up one day and say I don’t want to do it, but it’s so different for so many people,” Tracy said, speaking to the makers of the documentary, The End of The Line.

The teen has been clean for over a year now but his mother said the drug eats away at the brain and he has now “developed a few mental issues” and sees therapists as a result of using it.

2. London station evacuated after knife-wielding man allegedly spotted.

A central London train station has been evacuated after a man was reportedly spotted standing on the platform with a knife.

British Transport Police stated they received a report of man wielding a knife at Bank Station at 5.11pm local time (3.11am AEDT), The Daily Mail reports.

The station was evacuated and trains going to through the station each way were suspended during the evening peak hour.

However, after a search, police found “no trace of the man.” Officials later confirmed that the incident was “now over,” and all stations have reopened, according to a local TV news channel.

3. Man loses weight after eating only potatoes all year.

Melbournian Andrew Taylor has revealed the results of his year-long potato only diet – he has lost more than 50kg.

The man was criticised when his experiment was reported earlier this year, but through documenting his progress on Facebook, has proven  a person can survive on nothing but potatoes.

Mr Taylor had said he was addicted to food, but the diet had changed his life.

“I was clinically depressed last year and eating potatoes has really helped me with that,” he told News.com.au.

“I am not taking any antidepressants and I feel like I’m completely over that and I’m sleeping better too.”

“Over the past 10 years I’ve had joint pain from football injuries, but that’s gone away. Eating only potatoes has improved my life in more ways than I could ever imagine.”

4. Tony Abbot slammed for comments criticising welfare recipients.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been slammed after suggesting welfare recipients might be suffering “a bit of depression”.

The daughter of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Jessica, has joined the Australians outraged by his insensitive remarks made on 2GB on Wednesday.

In an interview which included talk of the federal budget, host Ray Hadley asked Mr Abbott about people who received money, but were unable to work.

“If people are doing the best they can for themselves and for their families and it is literally impossible for them to find work, fair enough,” Mr Abbott said.

“We were far too ready to put people on the DSP [disability support pension], with bad backs, a bit of depression and so on. These are not permanent conditions.”

Ms Rudd took to Twitter to voice her frustration at the comments, describing the former PM as an “able-bodied triathlete pensioner in Lycra”.

“Outstanding material from Tony Abbott today,” she wrote.

5. Cab driver jailed after killing elderly woman in a hit and run.

A taxi driver has been jailed for 18 months for hitting an elderly woman and then leaving her to die on a Sydney highway.

Mohammad “Mark” Farhad struck and killed 94-year-old Suzanne King on the Pacific Highway at Crows Nest in August last year.

Footage played in court, showed the 52-year-old looked in his rear vision mirror, briefly stop and then speed away from the scene. He cotinued to work for six hours.

Mrs King’s family rejected claims Farhad was remorseful, telling the court the 52-year-old’s actions had caused them a great deal of pain.

“That doesn’t sound like a person that’s remorseful,” Mr Cooper said.

“We’ve not seen [any remorse] and that’s the thing that hurt us the most.”

Farhad was sentenced to three years’ jail, with a non-parole period of 18 months.

“Not sure which is worse: a “bit of depression” or a bad back-bencher?”

6. Reindeer are shrinking because of climate change.

Norwegian reindeer have been getting smaller due to climate change, scientists studying a herd in northern Norway have discovered.

The researchers have been studying the herd in Svalbard, an archipelago, for 20 years and have noticed the calves have been getting smaller, the Washington Post reports.

They found average reindeer weight dropped from 54kg for those born in 1994 to 48kg for those born in 2010.

Pregnant female reindeer were unable to eat enough in winter, which led to losses in pregnancies or smaller calves, who in turn had smaller calves, the study suggested.

Researchers from James Hutton Institute in Scotland, the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences found the reason behind this was the snow that would normally fall in winter has turned to rain.

The reindeer could push aside the snow to eat the grass underneath, but since it started falling more often as rain, it froze on the surface and the reindeer could no longer get to the grass underneath.

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