Virginia woman cashes $100K lottery ticket with hours to spare

A Virginia woman won the lottery by cashing a winning ticket at the deadline.

If you're going to win the lottery, you've got to first remember that you've played the lottery. Karen Gentry remembered with only hours to spare, and she's a fair bit wealthier for it.

On Tuesday, Karen Gentry of Alexandria, Va., just happened to see a news report that a Virginia Cash 5 winning ticket worth $100,000 was only hours from expiring. 

"Would you leave a $100,000 lying around on your coffee table for anyone to grab?" ran the Virginia Lottery's plea to players. "Probably not. But one Virginia Lottery player may be unknowingly doing just that."

Then Gentry remembered that she'd bought a ticket a few months back and had tucked it away in her kitchen.

“So I looked, and there it was!” she told the Virginia Lottery. “I called my husband and he said, ‘Yeah, right.’”

The winning numbers, selected by computer, were 6-15-18-23-32. By law, lottery tickets expire 180 days after the drawing. Gentry made it to her local lottery office with just four hours to spare. 

If she hadn't claimed the money, it would have gone to the state's Literary Fund, which is used for educational purposes like technology upgrades. But don't get mad at Gentry for claiming what's rightfully hers: since 1988, the Virginia Lottery has transferred more than $234 million in unclaimed prizes to the Literary Fund. 

So, yeah, come on, Virginia: Collect your winnings.

Contact Jay Busbee at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee.

Hobbies & Personal ActivitiesGaming & LotteryVirginia Lottery

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Lawsuit: Man allowed to curse on NY ticket payment

LIBERTY, N.Y. (AP) — A 22-year-old Connecticut man who wrote obscenities and "Tyranny" on his speeding ticket payment claims in a federal lawsuit that his free speech rights were violated when he was arrested.

William Barboza is suing two police officers in the Catskill-area village of Liberty over the arrest.

Barboza had replaced the word "Liberty" with "Tyranny" and added an obscenity-laced insult on the payment form accompanying an August 2012 ticket.

The lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the Fairfield County man was ordered to town court, where he was handcuffed and arrested for aggravated harassment. He posted $200 bail that day. The charge was dismissed in March.

The NYCLU argues that offensive language is protected speech.

There was no immediate comment from Liberty police.

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German police warn of exploding ticket machines

BERLIN (AP) — German police are warning rail travelers to be wary when using Deutsche Bahn's automatic ticket machines because criminals attempting to break into them may have left them filled with explosive gas.

Hesse state police spokesman Udo Buehler says since April criminals have successfully blown open 10 ticket machines by taping closed all holes, filling them with gas and igniting it. They then steal the money and blank train tickets.

But in six cases the attempts have failed, leaving the explosive gas inside, most recently Tuesday in a train station in the town of Karben, near Frankfurt.

Buehler warns the gas could potentially ignite when an unsuspecting customer uses the machine though so far it has not.

He says incidents have also been reported in neighboring states Thuringia and Lower Saxony.

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Winning ticket for $590.5 million Powerball lottery sold in Florida

By Brendan O'Brien

(Reuters) - A single winning ticket for a record Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said late on Saturday, but there was no immediate word about who won one of the largest jackpots in U.S. history.

The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball number of 11. The odds of winning were put at 1 in 175 million.

The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa, according to the Florida Lottery.

The winner or winners had not come forward as of Sunday morning, said Connie Barnes, a Florida Lottery spokeswoman. The winning ticket holder's name will become part of the public record because a check will be made out to the winner, but that person or persons need not appear in public to acknowledge the prize, Barnes said.

The grand prize, accumulated after two months of drawings, surpassed the previous record Powerball payoff of $587.5 million set in November 2012.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history stands at $656 million, won in the Mega Millions lottery of March 2012. That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

The Multi-State Lottery Association, based in Iowa, announced the Powerball results in a brief message on its website, saying, "There was one winner sold by the Florida Lottery for the last drawing's $590,500,000 grand prize."

The extremely long odds of winning did not deter people from buying tickets at staggering rates. California was selling $1 million in tickets every hour on Saturday, said Donna Cordova, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery, which has only been selling Powerball tickets since April 8.

The $2 tickets allow players to pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35.

(Additional reporting by Karen Brooks in Austin, Texas, and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles.; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Christopher Wilson and Cynthia Osterman)

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Woman accidentally buys winning $14 million lotto ticket

File photo of lottery ticket (Thinkstock)

A single mother of four sons accidentally purchased an extra lottery ticket. Another dollar down the drain? Nope.

Thuan Le told NBCLosAngeles.com that she normally she buys $4 worth of Powerball tickets and one $1 SuperLotto Plus ticket.

This time, Le accidentally put an extra buck into the self-service machine, purchasing another SuperLotto Plus ticket.

It was—no doubt—the smartest mistake she ever made. NBCLosAngeles.com reports that Le plans to use the $14 million windfall to buy a home, travel and visit relatives in Vietnam.

One of her sons told Lotto officials that he and others thought Le was joking after she called to tell them the good news, according to ABC News.

"We thought she was joking," her son said, "but we thought, would she really joke like this? My older brother said, 'Yes, she would.'"

Le’s (very) lucky numbers were 5, 33, 25, 46 and 32. The Mega number was 26.

According to the California Lottery's official site, the odds of getting all five numbers and the Mega bonus number on the SuperLotto Plus are 1 in 41,416,353.

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Facebook video flip the parking ticket in Israel

Jerusalem (AP)-an Israeli woman has turned to Facebook to beat a parking ticket — and expose a crew of street in Tel Aviv.

Hila Ben Baruch says he has parked his car legally near his Tel Aviv home only to find that it's gone and replaced with a handicapped parking sign. Municipality of she slapped with more than $ 300 fine. Making matters worse, says that a city representative accused of lying when he called to complain.
Determined to prove his innocence, he obtained footage from a security camera showing municipal workers disabled symbol painted under his car, then via the towing vehicle.
She told Channel 2 that she was "distraught". The video, put it on Facebook, went viral.
The municipality of Tel Aviv has apologized and refunded fines.

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