Weird news - Mom drives car, while overdosing on drug

It seems so weird. First of all, those who have not taken drugs and know the danger of drug addition wonder why people get caught up in drug addiction; and then there is the additional case where you wonder how a parent can put their children, especially minor children, at risk through drug addiction. After all, the concept is that minor children do not have all the abilities to survive in this world, and need the support of adults to some degree to survive and thrive; and that parents are hard-wired to care for their children and ensure that they come to no harm.
So this case where a lady was driving a car when she was basically out of control because of having over-dosed on a synthetic drug. It can be so dangerous; can easily have an accident, or drive across a red traffic light and be hit by another vehicle which was driving carefully. And of course, when police come across somebody who is being so dangerous, they are liable to take strict action (link to article):

Police say a Dallas woman was driving with her two children last week when she overdosed on a drug called Brainfreeze. Angela Williams, 37, remains in the Dallas County Jail on a charge of driving while intoxicated with a child under 15, as well as a hot check charge. Her bail is set at $7,000. About 8:20 p.m. last Thursday, Williams parked on a median at Samuell Boulevard and St. Francis Street, apparently having a seizure in her Chevy Malibu, a witness told police. Her two children, ages 11 and 13, told officers that Williams was driving “crazy” and acting irrationally, laughing at nothing in particular. The witness removed both children from the car for their safety, the police report says.

Weird news - Door to door magazine salesman exhibits shocking behavior

There is an increasing air of insecurity that shows up in today's world. Parents are more scared for their children, for the safety of the children, and so on. Gated communities keep on popping up in more cities, people are warned against strangers. Some of the common stories relate to not letting strangers into the house for any reason, with the fear that once they come into the house, some trouble could happen.
Consider the following weird story, where a door to door magazine seller came into the house and made a sales pitch which was astounding, and liable to get the seller a jail term; you would never think that a normal person would make such demands as the person was making (link to article):

The man, Jerad Michael (pictured at left), who was peddling magazine subscriptions, allegedly forced his way into a woman's home, and refused to leave unless the woman either "submitted to drug use and sexual activity" or bought what he was selling, reports TV Station WCYB in Bristol, Va.
The woman said that she bought the magazines and promptly called the police. Arnold was charged with common law robbery, and was booked under a $20,000 bond.

Weird news - 16 kg of cocaine mailed to UN headquarters, now stored there

One hears of all kind of measures that people use for smuggling drugs. There are small submarines that are used, people eat the drugs (put into small plastic vials) - some of which burst inside the person and can kill the courier, there are low flying planes that are used for the same, and numerous other such measures that are used for trying to smuggle drugs. After all, drug smuggling is extremely lucrative, to the extent that if some are caught, and others get through, the amount of money involved still makes the entire deal profitable.
But this method was interesting, trying to use the UN diplomatic route to try and get some cocaine through without inspection (link to article)

The UN is home to its fair share of diplomatic tussles and international scandals, but this was a very different kind of intrigue: more than 35 pounds of cocaine wound up in the mailroom of the United Nations headquarters in New York, authorities say, sent probably by someone who figured the drug would elude detection because of how it was packaged.
New York Police spokesman Paul Browne said the powder, discovered January 16, was in two white bags meant to look like diplomatic pouches, stamped with a bogus U.N. logo and sent from Mexico City through a DHL shipping center in Cincinnati. But a real U.N. diplomatic pouch is blue, has a lock and features the authentic seal of the organization. By international law, those pouches are not normally inspected or opened.

So, the UN finds itself in the position of holding 16 kn of cocaine, which would have an extremely high value if it was ever sold.

Using your own Robocop for chasing off people

Imagine loitering on a street in Atlanta at night, when suddenly you see something from a science fiction movie, a contraption that can throw icy water at you, or use its infrared camera at you, and then shines a spotlight at you. Further, you can hear what unmistakably sounds like words on a loudspeaker. Enough to scare most drug dealers or other such unsavory characters. And this is exactly what a bar owner in Atlanta does at night = he has built this device to scare people away from a property in the downtown area. And the reason for doing so ? It is a place where children play during the day, but is used for far worse things at night by drug dealers and other criminals:

It's a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet. Operated by remote control, the robot spotlights trespassers on property down the street from his bar, O'Terrill's. Using a walkie-talkie, Terrill belts out through the robot's loudspeaker, "That's private property. You guys need to get out of here."
Terrill, an engineer by trade, is also a board member at the day care center. Tired of cleaning up after the shady characters, he decided to take action. That's when he built his downtown Darth Vader of sorts.
"He's a neighborhood vigilante," says Meredith, "and when he came up with this -- you know, I call it Robocop -- I said, 'Praise God.' "
The daycare center is a block from a homeless shelter. Meredith has a security guard at the center who leaves in the early evening. "They know when the guard leaves," she says. "They know when the cleaning crew leaves and then here comes the drug dealers to prey on the homeless people."

The police are not yet opposing this, although if somebody is sprayed with icy water, they could potentially sue and get the police involved.

Firefighters on high

Imagine taking a drug test of people on government rolls, and finding that most of them tested positive; further imagine that this drug test was held after they had completed a job, and still they tested positive. Indignation would go high, and there would be screams of investigations, suspensions and firing of these people.
Now imagine that people got high on a job. Well, that has happened. Firefighters reporting to a fire in a wareouse also had around 2,000 pounds of marijuana burnt, and the fumes of these drugs were so strong, that even after protective masks, the fire fighters inhaled enough marijuana fumes to reach a condition where they would have failed drug tests:

Firefighters who spent half an hour fighting a blaze in which 2,000 pounds of marijuana went up in smoke breathed so much of it that they would have failed a drug test, a fire chief said.
Snider said Thursday the firefighters were exposed to so much marijuana smoke that they would not be able to pass a drug test, despite wearing air packs to prevent them from inhaling toxic or hazardous fumes.

This is also another sign of how much people are dedicated to doing the jobs that make us safe. Firemen have volunteered to enter fires from which people are desperate to escape, in order to do their duty of rescuing people trapped, and to put out the fire.