Powerball mania hit the US on Saturday as numbers were drawn for a US$1.6 billion jackpot, a world record.
No winner was immediately announced and any winner could take days to come forward.
“Guess I’m going back to work on Monday #powerball,” wrote a Twitter user with the handle Greg after the drawing.
Photo: AP
The Powerball jackpot is the biggest ever amassed and it set many minds spinning about what they would do with such wealth.
“Dream homes, travel, help family and friends,” said Dontel Ducksworth, a 28-year-old visiting a 7-Eleven convenience store in the US capital. “But you gotta take care of yourself first.”
A steady stream of customers was snapping up Powerball tickets in the run-up to the drawing at 10:59pm on Saturday.
“I keep saying: ‘Good luck,’” said Bezu Wondi, the 28-year-old 7-Eleven cashier.
He was hoping that a winning ticket might be purchased by a customer visiting his store.
“They say, if they win, ‘I’ll give you money,’” Wondi said. “They make promises,” he added.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, the Powerball organizers said. If there are duplicate winners who select the same combination of numbers, they would share the jackpot.
“I don’t know how to play it,” said Yoss Aguilar, a 25-year-old cashier at a Wawa convenience store.
However, she has seen the stream of people buying Powerball tickets at a vending machine inside her store adorned with a big sign: “Lots of people win.”
It costs US$2 to buy a Powerball ticket, and a winner could choose a lump sum payment, calculated for Saturday’s jackpot at US$782.4 million. Or they could opt for payments over 30 years.
“I wonder how much they really get after taxes?” Aguilar asked.
Still a lot, even with US tax authorities taking about 40 percent.
Ducksworth and his friend, Karl Holland, a 28-year-old artist, debated how they would deal with such huge winnings.
“It could be overwhelming,” Holland said.
“There’s never too much,” Ducksworth said.
“There is always too much money. You become a target,” Holland said, adding that all kinds of friends would hit him up for cash. “I don’t say ‘no’ too easily.”
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS