$365 million lottery winner keeps low profile in Neb.
Lincoln, Neb. – Someone, somewhere, held the only winning ticket for the record $365 million Powerball jackpot but likely wasn’t in a rush to come forward, Nebraska lottery officials said Sunday.
The only ticket matching the winning numbers drawn Saturday night for the multistate lottery was sold at a U-Stop convenience store in Lincoln, Nebraska Lottery spokesman Brian Rockey said.
It was the biggest jackpot on record for any lottery in the United States.
No one had come forward to claim the jackpot Sunday, Rockey said. “We don’t know if the winner knows yet,” he said.
Even when the lucky individual or group realizes it, they might not leap into the public eye.
“We have found … that they tend to wait until they have sought legal counsel or financial counsel,” Jim Haynes, acting director of the Nebraska Lottery, said of large jackpot winners.
The store owner will be entitled to a $50,000 bonus.
The winning numbers drawn Saturday were 15, 17, 43, 44 and 48, with a Powerball number of 29, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association of Des Moines, Iowa, which runs the game for the participating states, including Colorado.
The ticket holder has the option of taking the money in one lump sum or installments over 30 years. The cash option is $177.3 million, or $124.1 million after taxes. On the installment plan, the first payment would be $6,507,986 after taxes.
CHICAGO
McDonald’s faces suits over french fries
McDonald’s Corp. is facing at least three lawsuits related to its disclosure last week that its french fries contain wheat and dairy products.
In the latest one, Debra Moffatt of Lombard, Ill., seeks unspecified damages in a suit filed Friday in which she says she has celiac disease that causes gastrointestinal symptoms when set off by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat. One other suit targets the gluten disclosure.
In a third, filed in Los Angeles, a woman said she is a vegan and would not have eaten the fries if she had known they contained dairy products.
McDonald’s said Feb. 13 that wheat and dairy ingredients are used to flavor its fries.
Earlier this month, McDonald’s also acknowledged that its fries contain a third more trans fats than it previously knew, citing results of a new testing method it began using in December.
HANOVER PARK, Ill.
Plane crashes on road but no serious injuries
A small plane crashed Sunday afternoon onto an expressway in suburban Chicago while trying to make an emergency landing, authorities said.
No serious injuries were reported, and the plane didn’t hit any vehicles on the highway, said Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Ted Vernon.
The plane carrying a flight instructor and a student crashed around 12:40 p.m. on the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway, less than a mile from the Schaumburg Regional Airport.
The plane had just taken off when the engine failed.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
U.S. envoy says abuse in Iraq violates policy
The top U.S. envoy for public diplomacy said Sunday that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was a crime and did not reflect U.S. policies in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Dubai-based pan-Arab telecasting giant Al-Arabiya, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes said the U.S. should not be judged by the actions of a few.
“These are horrible crimes, and they are a violation of our laws and our policies. They do not represent the United States, and the president made it clear that we expect all prisoners to be treated with respect and in a humane way,” Hughes said.
VIENNA
Rivals talk tough before Kosovo talks
Kosovo’s rival Serbs and ethnic Albanians staked out tough positions Sunday before the start of U.N.-mediated talks aimed at resolving one of the last disputes remaining from the Balkan wars of the 1990s – the future status of the province.
The closed-door talks begin today over the disputed province, which has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, following a NATO war to stop the crackdown of Serb forces on independence-minded ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of the province’s population of 2 million, want outright independence from Serbia. Serbia, however, insists on retaining some control over the region, which it considers a part of the nation.
CAIRO
Rice: U.S. won’t close Egypt trade pact soon
The United States will not seek to close a free-trade agreement with Egypt this year because the “timing” is not right, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said before a trip to the Middle East that includes a first stop in Egypt.
It was widely believed Washington, which had planned to reach the agreement with the government of President Hosni Mubarak by year’s end, had switched course after what it saw as backsliding on Egyptian promises to reform its political system.
WASHINGTON
Banks told to freeze assets tied to Hamas
The Treasury Department ordered U.S. banks Sunday to freeze the assets of an Ohio-based group the government claims funnels money to the militant Palestinian organization Hamas.
The organization, KindHearts of Toledo, Ohio, was connected with the Hamas-affiliated Holy Land Foundation and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Global Relief Foundation, the Treasury Department said. The government took similar action against those groups in late 2001.
Under the government action, U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with KindHearts.
KindHearts describes itself on its website as a nonprofit charitable organization administering humanitarian aid to the world’s poor and denies any connection to terrorists.
