Puerto Rican winner first outside mainland
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Somebody who stopped by a Shell station in southern Puerto Rico was potentially $100 million richer on Thursday, winning a share of a $564.1 million Powerball jackpot — the first winner outside the continental United States.
The winner, who will share the jackpot with people in North Carolina and Texas, had not yet come forward, but several Puerto Ricans who bought tickets at the station in the coastal city of Ponce have stopped by to ask about who won, said employee Yomaris Rentas.
She had just started her shift at the 24-hour station early Thursday when the lottery machine began printing a message alerting her that the winning ticket had been sold there. “I couldn’t believe it!” she said with a laugh. “We’re celebrating.”
Neither of the other two winners had been identified.
The winners can claim their prizes starting today, choosing between a lump sum payment of $101.6 million apiece or 30 payments over 29 years, said Antonio Perez Lopez, assistant secretary of the Puerto Rico Lottery.
“We are beyond thrilled with the news that we already have a multimillion-dollar winner just four months after Puerto Rico began selling Powerball tickets,” he said.
The Texas Lottery posted on Twitter that one of the winning tickets was sold at Appletree Food Mart in Princeton, near Dallas. There was no immediate information on the city that produced the winner in North Carolina.
Besides 44 states and Washington, D.C., the game is also played in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but there has never been a jackpot winner there, said a lottery official.
Wednesday’s jackpot was the third-largest in Powerball history and the fifth-largest U.S. lottery prize.
The latest high school graduation rate has reached 81 percent, the Education Department said Thursday in an analysis of the 2012-2013 school year. The rate was the highest since the department started using a new, uniform measure in 2010. Despite the progress, 1 in 5 students still is leaving high school without a diploma. Iowa topped the state list with a graduation rate of 90 percent. Oregon was at the bottom, 69 percent. Even lower was the District of Columbia at 62 percent.
TEXAS
Police video played in court Thursday showed a former Marine telling officers investigating the deaths of two men including “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle that he had “taken a couple of souls” and had more to take. The recording shows police in Lancaster, near Dallas, trying to coax Eddie Ray Routh from a pickup in the hours after famed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were found dead at a shooting range in February 2013. Officers in the video are seen trying to talk Routh into surrendering as he makes comments such as, “Anarchy has been killing the world.” “He told us he’d taken a couple of souls and he had more souls to take,” Lancaster police Lt. Michael Smith testified Thursday.
UTAH
A Utah mother accused of killing six of her newborn babies and storing their bodies in her garage pleaded guilty to murder Thursday. Megan Huntsman, 39, faces up to life in prison on the charges. She will be sentenced April 20. The deaths sent shockwaves through the quiet, mostly Mormon community where Huntsman stored the tiny bodies for more than a decade. Her estranged husband made the grisly discovery in April 2014 while he cleaned out a garage in the home they had shared south of Salt Lake City.
CALIFORNIA
Bill Cosby has postponed a comedy performance Thursday in Bakersfield, Calif., amid allegations of sexual abuse of women. A message posted to the website of The Fox Theater said the show has been postponed and the venue does not have a new date for the performance. The theater did not provide a reason and said it will provide refunds to ticketholders. The 77-year-old Cosby has canceled or postponed more than a dozen shows on his comedy tour in the wake of allegations by numerous women that they were sexually abused by the actor-comedian.