South Carolina man who won nearly $400 million jackpot withholds name

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - The winner of a nearly $400 million Powerball jackpot has declined to be named, lottery officials said on Monday, but they said the winner who lives near Columbia, South Carolina, told them he bought the ticket while on a mission to buy hot dog buns.

The man stopped at a gasoline station in central South Carolina after his wife asked him to pick up the hot dog buns, but after finding they had none, he bought $20 of Powerball tickets instead, the officials said.

His big win late on Wednesday - the fourth-largest prize in the lottery's history - occurred on just the second time he had purchased tickets, the man told lottery officials.

"This is a life changing event - there are a lot of zeros in this money," Paula Harper Bethea, executive director of the South Carolina Education Lottery, had said last week while the winner remained unknown.

When he came forward on Monday afternoon, the man, who asked not be identified, told lottery officials that he was home alone when he discovered on Thursday that he won. He spun around repeatedly in his kitchen and told only his little dog about his good fortune, lottery officials said.

The man can claim his full prize of $399.4 million paid over 29 years or opt for a more immediate cash payout of $233 million, officials said.

For the state of South Carolina, the jackpot win means an additional $15 million in tax revenue, officials said. The lottery benefits education in the state, they said.

Murphy USA gasoline station in Lexington, South Carolina, where the man bought the machine-generated winning ticket on Wednesday afternoon will be rewarded $50,000 for its role, lottery officials said.

Powerball prizes have been getting larger, in part because the ticket price rose to $2 from $1 in January, and because California, the most populous U.S. state, joined in April.

Powerball is played in 43 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Chances of winning the big prize are 1 in 175 million, the lottery said.

The largest Powerball jackpot was $590.5 million, won by a Florida woman in May. Ticket holders in New Jersey and Minnesota shared a $448 million jackpot in August.

The amounts paid to the winners were substantially smaller because they chose cash over an annuity.

(The story refiles to restore dropped word to headline)

(Editing by Scott Malone, Barbara Goldberg and Ken Wills)

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Atomic bomb nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961, report says

FILE Aug. 6, 1945: Photo released by the U.S. Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after an atomic bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, western Japan.AP

The U.S. Air Force nearly detonated an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961 that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a declassified report published Friday in The Guardian.

The 1969 document, obtained by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, details the Jan. 23, 1961, B-52 crash near Goldsboro, North Carolina, that saw two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs break up in mid-air.

The report said that one of the two bombs behaved exactly as nuclear weapon is designed to function in wartime and that only a single low-voltage switch prevented detonation. Fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, according to the report.

Parker Jones, a senior engineer in the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., wrote in the report that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe".

Jones, analyzing a book by physicist Ralph Lapp on the crash, found that the bombs "did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52" and concluded that the detonation "would have been bad news – in spades."

Three of the eight crew members died in the crash. In July 2012, the state of North Carolina placed a historic marker in the town of Eureka with the words "nuclear mishap," according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

The Guardian reported that Schlosser obtained the document while conducting research for a new book on the nuclear arms race, "Command and Control."

"The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," Schlosser told the newspaper. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."

Click here for more from The Guardian.

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'Toffs' in red trousers a turn-off for nearly half of Britons

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's class-conscious public have voiced their dislike of men in red trousers, associating them with elitism and garish buffoonery, according to a survey this week.

Just under half the respondents (46 percent) to a survey released by market research firm YouGov said they don't like men in red trousers.

"Gentlemen be warned. Wearing red trousers will not win you many admirers," YouGov said in an article about the sartorial study on their website.

Words such as "idiot", "odd" and "clown" sprang to the minds of respondents when confronted with the sight of a man sporting red trousers, YouGov said.

British Esquire magazine's Senior Fashion Editor Gareth Scourfield told Reuters that although continental men in France and Italy have been getting away with colorful clothes for years, Britons tended to be more reserved.

"I think the problem is it has a connotation as a rich man's casual wear," he said.

Class-ridden connotations for RTs, as they are known to aficionados, are hard to shake off in a country where privileged people are often mocked as "toffs" or "rahs".

But socialite and fashion journalist Henry Conway launched a defense of them in the Guardian on Thursday, citing their illustrious history from stylish 15th century scarlet breeches in Britain to Napoleonic army uniforms.

"I have to admit, I have a delicious pair in bold blood," he wrote. "I know they make me look like a total rah, but they are soft and beautiful..."

(Reporting By Amritha John, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Puppy survives after being locked in car for nearly a month

 Kia, the miracle puppy. (Kansas City Pet Project/Kansas City Star)A 12-week-old puppy has miraculously overcome a harrowing ordeal and survived being locked inside an impounded car for nearly a month.

The Kansas City, Mo., animal shelter now caring for the terrier and schnauzer mix they’ve named Kia said she survived by eating trash left in the car from a McDonald’s restaurant. However, she apparently did not have access to water, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A car lot worker spotted Kia on Monday. Danny Rotert, spokesman for the Kansas City municipal government, said the employee was tagging cars for auction when Kia jumped on top of the dashboard of the Chevy Suburban in which she was trapped. The lot attendant then called the police, who broke into the impounded vehicle to rescue her. The vehicle had been sitting in the lot since April 8.

The Kansas City Star reports that on May 1, the owner of the vehicle, who has not been publicly named, showed up to inspect the car. However, he reportedly made no mention of owning a dog. Authorities say they are not sure if the man was actually in possession of the vehicle when it was impounded and noted that he did not have keys to access the vehicle when he visited the lot.

An Arizona Republic article reports that dogs usually cannot go more than two or three days without water and, as a general rule, require twice as much water as food on any given day.

“Without an appreciable amount of water, it’s pretty miraculous for a puppy to survive three weeks in a car,” veterinarian Billie Deam told the Star. “Physiologically it’s possible, depending on what she was eating to survive on,” she added. “But it’s really stretching the outer limits of what’s possible.”

Animal shelter spokeswoman Toni Fugate says Kia is expected to survive, but is currently recovering from severe dehydration and malnutrition.

While Kia won’t be fully healed for some time, the Kansas Pet Project says it is working on finding a foster home for her once she is ready to leave the shelter.

“Four weeks of her life she was trapped in the car, so she has no formal training,” Fugate said.

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