Richmond, Ind. – There was one winning ticket for the $314.3 million Powerball lottery prize, and it was sold in this city on the Indiana-Ohio state line, lottery officials said Sunday.
Lottery officials won’t know who holds that ticket until someone comes forward, said Mark Sirkin, a spokesman for the Hoosier Lottery.
“Whoever it is, they’re wealthy,” Sirkin said.
The ticket bearing the winning numbers – 2, 8, 23, 29, 35 and the Powerball of 19 – that were drawn Saturday night was sold at a Speedway convenience store.
Hoosier Lottery executive director Kathryn Densborn said at the store about 70 miles east of Indianapolis that aside from the winning ticket, a ticket matching five of the six numbers was sold in Munster and is worth $200,000.
“Indiana is a very lucky state. … It’s a big day in Indiana,” she said.
The Richmond store will receive $100,000 from the lottery for selling the ticket.
KAHULUI, Hawaii
Superferry launches with voyage to Maui
Loaded with people paying just $5, the $95 million Hawaii Superferry made its maiden run Sunday with a rushed launch for a three-hour voyage to Maui – the first passenger ferry service between the islands.
More than 500 passengers and crew, and 150 cars, were aboard when the four-deck, blue-and- white vessel pulled away from the dock to a chorus of cheers.
“It’s beautiful,” exclaimed Stephen Imamoto of Honolulu, who was traveling with his wife and 6-year-old daughter. “I don’t like to fly.”
A dozen protesters concerned about the environmental impact greeted the passengers in Maui.
The environmentalists’ attorney, Isaac Hall, said he will seek an injunction today to prevent the Superferry from doing business until environmental studies are completed.
HYDERABAD, India
Islamic militants blamed for bombings
India blamed Islamic militants based in Pakistan and Bangladesh for bombings that killed at least 42 people in the south.
“Our country is so big that even if we have the information that something is planned, we do not know where or when,” Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil said.
He did not say if authorities had any advance warning of Saturday’s blasts, which killed 42 people in Hyderabad.
Officials blame the attacks on foreign militants with ties to Pakistan or Bangladesh, saying the extremists want to foment tension between India’s Hindu majority and its Muslim minority.
WASHINGTON
Va. Tech wasn’t told about killer’s disorder
Fairfax County, Va., school officials determined that Seung- Hui Cho suffered from an anxiety disorder so severe that they put him in special education and devised a plan to help him, according to sources familiar with his history, but Virginia Tech University was never told of the problem.
The disorder made Cho unable to speak in social settings and was deemed an emotional disability, the sources said. When he stopped getting the help that the Fairfax school system was providing, Cho became even more isolated and suffered severe ridicule during his four years at Virginia Tech, experts suggested.
In his senior year, Cho killed 32 students and faculty members and himself in the deadliest shooting by an individual in U.S. history.
Since the April 16 shootings, stories have emerged from Cho’s teachers and classmates at Virginia Tech. They say it was common for professors to call on Cho and for him to remain silent. The teachers would become angry, and students would taunt him.
WASHINGTON
Most Army recruits opt for “quick ship”
More than 90 percent of the Army’s new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 “quick-ship” bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September, putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately.
Many recruits who take the bonus – scoring in many cases the equivalent of more than a year’s pay – leave their homes within days, recruiters said.
The initiative is part of an effort by Army officials to meet year-end recruiting goals after a two-month slump this year.
But the effort, experts said, could pose problems later because those who might have filled quotas later are instead joining now.
WASHINGTON
Enough peacekeepers pledged for Darfur
A hybrid U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for the strife-torn Darfur region of Sudan has received sufficient pledges for participation, though critical needs remain for technical support and an engineer corps, a top United Nations official said.
“It is unprecedented, what we are trying to do here,” said Jane Holl Lute, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations.
But “the political process is the heart of the peacekeeping mission. It can only walk alongside the process, not substitute it,” she said.
Lute, an American, said the headquarters for the 31,000- member force would open in the capital of North Darfur state by the first week of October.
