oddly enough

oddly enough

Irish grandmother busted for possessing cocaine at bingo hall

DUBLIN

Helen Heaphy’s number came up at the bingo hall. The prize was a trip to court.

The 50-year-old grandmother pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of possessing cocaine for sale or supply after Irish police caught her with the narcotic outside a Cork bingo hall.

Cork District Court Judge Leo Malone accepted her lawyer’s plea for clemency citing her family obligations and her possession of a relatively small amount of the drug worth $400.

Heaphy insisted she was holding the cocaine for an unspecified friend.

Malone fined Heaphy $870 but gave her no jail time, despite having two prior convictions for drug possession and obstructing a police narcotics unit.

She even was allowed to go back to playing bingo at the hall after the owner relented.

Former postal worker says he ‘got lazy,’ failed to deliver mail

EUGENE, Ore.

A former U.S. Postal Service worker who failed to deliver nearly 1,000 pieces of mail has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor mail obstruction and has been sentenced to a year of probation.

The Register-Guard reports that 27-year-old Alex Douma also was ordered to pay a $500 fine. He entered his plea in federal court in Eugene, Ore. Douma worked at a post office in Eugene.

Though most of the mail found last summer in two bins on his front porch was junk mail, there also were 27 voter ballots from last May’s primary election and more than 200 items of first-class and standard mail.

Court documents say he told investigators that he “just got lazy” and had failed to make his rounds on multiple occasions between late April and early July. He apologized in court and said he set aside the mail because he had “felt pressured for time” while working in a job that required him to sort, scan and deliver mail.

Dancing genitals clip not progressive enough for some

STOCKHOLM

In socially liberal Sweden, an educational video for children featuring dancing genitals has become an online hit — and has drawn criticism for not being progressive enough.

The one-minute animated video by public broadcaster SVT, promoting a television series about the human body, has been seen by more than 4 million YouTube viewers.

Producers say many parents found it a great way to explain private parts to children, though some called it inappropriate for a program aimed at children age 3 to 6.

Programming director Peter Bargee said Thursday the clip also drew “unexpected” criticism from some Swedes, who said portraying the penis with a mustache and the vagina with long eyelashes reinforced gender stereotypes.

Bargee said the video was meant to be fun and not a “statement on gender politics.”

Associated Press