DES MOINES, Iowa — The Powerball jackpot increased to an estimated $935 million after no one matched the six numbers drawn Wednesday night.
The numbers selected were: 37, 46, 57, 60, 66 and the Powerball 8.
The drawing came a day after a player in New Jersey won a $1.13 billion Mega Millions prize after 30 straight drawings without a winner.
The Powerball jackpot has been growing for months, since the last winner on New Year’s Day. There now have been 37 consecutive drawings without anyone hitting the top prize.
The game’s odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to create big jackpots that will grab attention and increase sales.
The $935 million prize for the next drawing Saturday night is for a sole winner who is paid over 30 years through an annuity. Winners usually opt for a cash payout, which for the next drawing would be an estimated $449.7 million.
Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Washington — Democrat Marilyn Lands won a special election for an Alabama state House seat late Tuesday, flipping a Republican-held seat in the deep-red state in the aftermath of a court ruling in the state that threw access to fertility treatments into question.
Lands, a mental health counselor, made reproductive rights central to her campaign. She’s spoken openly about her own abortion when her pregnancy was nonviable. And she ran advertisements on reproductive health care, like contraception and in vitro fertilization, being threatened in the state, after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that equated frozen embryos to children and led major IVF providers in the state to pause fertility treatments.
“Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation,” Lands said in a statement after her victory on Tuesday. “Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception.”
Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands speaks to voters in the suburbs in Huntsville, Alabama on March 20, 2024.
Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The seat representing Alabama’s 10th district in the state legislature had long been held by Republicans. But former President Donald Trump won the district by a slim margin in 2020, making it a toss-up district that Democrats had set their sights on. Lands also ran for the seat in 2022, but narrowly lost to her Republican opponent.
Heather Williams, president of Democrats’ legislative campaign arm, called the special election “the first real test” of how voters would respond to the IVF ruling in Alabama and reproductive rights more broadly, and “a harbinger of things to come.”
“Republicans across the country have been put on notice that there are consequences to attacks on IVF — from the bluest blue state to the reddest red, voters are choosing to fight for their fundamental freedoms by electing Democrats across the country,” Williams said in a statement.
Democrats are hoping this year for a repeat of the 2022 midterm elections, when the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and subsequent restrictions in states became a major motivator at the ballot box, fending off an expected red wave. Democrats are expecting that fallout from the IVF ruling to reinvigorate the voter base, keeping reproductive rights top of mind heading into the 2024 election.
Kaia Hubbard
Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.
Tokyo — The Tokyo District Court typically garners headlines for high-profile cases, parsing issues such as whether married couples should be allowed to use separate surnames, privacy battles over the “right to be forgotten,” and gender discrimination in academia. But a bizarre lawsuit this month led the court into more prosaic territory.
It could be dubbed the case of the Freebie-Lover vs. the Angry Store Owner.
As chronicled in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the saga began just before opening hours at a shopping mall in Nagano Prefecture. On his way to work, an unidentified bank branch assistant manager happened to spot a nearby store offering modest giveaways — free packets of laundry detergent displayed in front of the store to lure customers.
Noting the “Help yourself” sign, he did so, and then went on his way.
But it did not sit well with the store’s staff. After checking to make sure the security cameras had captured the suds-lifter red-handed, an employee quickly informed the bank that, as the soap-grab had taken place before business hours, it amounted to theft.
The bank executive, the man’s boss, and even the bank’s area manager offered multiple, profuse apologies. All bank employees were ordered to alter their commute routes to avoid walking in front of the cellphone store — no small feat, as the store is located on the corner just opposite the bank branch.
But the store’s management was not to be placated, despite the fact that the promotional giveaways had been provided free by the manufacturer and were likely worth less than $2 each. The store demanded that the bank employee be transferred to another branch.
Worried about possible fallout, the bank ended up firing the man, who then sued his former employer on grounds of unfair dismissal.
Since the detergent was outside for the taking, he argued, grabbing a packet could not possibly constitute larceny — and besides, as a potential customer, he was entitled to one.
For its part, the bank argued that given the gravity of his job handling customers’ assets, the man’s decision to pocket the soap — while perhaps not filthy lucre — fell outside the bounds of acceptable behavior. It was also noted that the man in question had a history of scooping up freebies from the shop.
In its March 8 verdict, the Tokyo District Court ruled that while such an act could be construed as theft, and in specific instances could justify dismissal, such a harsh penalty was unwarranted in this case. The fact that the man was technically still off-duty when the malfeasance occurred, the court said, obviated the need for any harsh penalty by the bank.
Noting the trivial value of the pilfered item, and the man’s repeated displays of remorse, it ordered the bank to give the man backpay, and his job back.
“The time and money invested in this case by all parties,” an Asahi columnist wrote in a postscript, “could have bought thousands of packets of detergent.”
SYDNEY (AP) — China has won a nearly three-year-long dispute with Australia at the World Trade Organization over tariffs on steel products that began during a low point of bilateral relations between the countries, and Australia’s trade minister said Wednesday his government accepted the ruling.
Beijing took its complaint to the WTO in June 2021 over Australia’s extra duties on railway wheels, wind towers and stainless steel sinks imported from China. Trade in these products was worth 62 million Australian dollars ($40.4 million) in 2022.
On Tuesday, the WTO panel adjudicating the case in Geneva, Switzerland, found that Australia’s investigating authority, the Anti-Dumping Commission, had acted inconsistently with some articles of the anti-dumping agreement.
Australia’s Trade Minister Don Farrell said in a statement Wednesday that Canberra accepted the WTO’s ruling and supported a rules-based trading system.
“Australia will engage with China and take steps to implement the panel’s findings,” Farrell said.
“Australia remains committed to a fully functioning WTO dispute settlement system so that the rights and obligations of all WTO members can be enforced,” he added.
Trade tariffs have been a hot topic between Beijing and Canberra in recent years after China imposed a raft of sanctions on Australian goods in 2020 during the most recent nadir in the bilateral relationship. It is estimated that the tariffs cost the Australian economy 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion).
Most of the tariffs have since been lifted as the relationship thawed, but tariffs on wine, rock lobster and some abattoirs still remain.
In April, Australia suspended a complaint to the WTO in a bid to reopen the Chinese market to Australian barley, which had been one of the products targeted by the tariffs and was widely seen as the new Australian government’s attempts to repair relations with Beijing.
The Australian government has also halted another WTO dispute against China over sanctions on Australian wine worth about 1.1 billion Australian dollars ($720 million) in exchange for a review by China to be completed by the end of March.
Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands on Tuesday won a special election for a state House seat in Alabama after making in vitro fertilization and abortion rights central to her campaign.
Lands, a licensed professional counselor, defeated Madison City Council member Teddy Powell, a Republican who once worked as a Defense Department budget analyst. The state’s 10th district in the Huntsville area seat was previously held by a GOP legislator.
“Alabama women have spoken—thank you District 10!!” Lands said Tuesday night in a post on X.
Lands had 63% of the vote to Powell’s 37% with all precincts reporting.
“The voters have spoken and I’m honored to have been considered for this office,” Powell said in a statement to Alabama Daily News. “I wish Mrs. Lands the absolute best as she goes on to serve the people of District 10 in the House of Representatives.”
Powell’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While campaigning, Lands focused on IVF and access to abortions, telling voters that she supports repealing the state’s near-total ban on abortions that went into effect after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Her campaign website notes endorsements from groups such as Planned Parenthood, Alabama AFL-CIO and the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
Lands’ victory comes weeks after Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a GOP-backed bill to protect IVF after widespread backlash to a ruling by the state Supreme Court in February that threatened the procedure. Tuesday’s contest was seen as an early test for Democrats campaigning on IVF after the high court’s ruling.
The special election was called after David Cole, a Republican who defeated Lands in 2022 by 7 percentage points, pleaded guilty to a voter fraud charge last year and resigned his seat.
Republicans hold a 75-27 advantage over Democrats in the Alabama state House.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022, abortion has repeatedly appeared on the ballot and has consistently delivered blows to anti-abortion activists. It’s expected to remain a key issue in November but it’s unclear whether it’ll be as potent as it was in the midterm elections.
Shreveport, La. — Months after his disputed one-vote victory in a Louisiana sheriff’s race was tossed by a court, a career law enforcement officer was decisively elected on his second try Saturday.
Democratic candidate Henry Whitehorn got 53% of the vote in Saturday’s election in northwest Louisiana’s Caddo Parish. He’ll be the parish’s first Black sheriff.
Henry Whitehorn, in February 2007.
AP Photo / Judi Bottoni
Returns from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office show Whitehorn defeated Republican John Nickelson – this time by more than 4,000 votes.
Turnout was considerably higher in the second race. State figures show 65,239 people voted Saturday – up from 43,247 in November.
Whitehorn is a former head of the Louisiana State Police and former Shreveport police chief. He won by a single vote in November but courts ordered a new election after finding evidence that two people illegally voted twice and four others voted despite being ineligible.
Whitehorn had come out of retirement to run for sheriff after longtime Sheriff Steve Prator announced his retirement.
“I’m troubled by the violent crime that’s plaguing our community. I had retired and I could have just sat on the sidelines, if I chose to, and watched. But I’ve been called to serve. I couldn’t just sit and watch this community suffer,” Whitehorn told The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate.
Nickelson conceded Saturday night as Whitehorn’s victory became apparent. “I called Mr. Whitehorn and congratulated him and wished him and the sheriff’s office well,” Nickelson said. “I want the very best for this community, which has been such a good home for me and my family for generations. And I wish him every success because his success will be Caddo Parish’s success.”
Whitehorn will be sworn in on July 1, replacing interim Sheriff Jay Long who took over from Prator on March 1.
It’s not every day Vang Cha plays the lottery, but the last two times, he’s won – and won big. The California resident recently won $1 million, but didn’t realize until hours later when he got home from work.
Cha says he rarely plays the California Lottery Scratchers games. Then the Sacramento man decided to “give it a shot” with $30 California 200x Scratchers. He won $500, but decided to use that money to try and win some more.
“I decided to just go all-in and buy an entire book of the $10 games,” he told the California Lottery, saying he didn’t even realize he had a winner among them until later in the day – after a full day of work. “I went to work and scratched probably about 20 of them, went home and scratched the rest.”
Vang Cha reached millionaire status recently after taking home the jackpot on a California scratch-off game.
California Lottery
That’s when he saw it, lucky No. 16 in the final row of the ticket with a big and bold $1 million prize written underneath.
“I was stunned! I scanned it in the Lottery app to make sure it was true, and it was,” he said.
But the financial gains may not be over for Cha. He said that he’s planning on investing his winnings and didn’t detail any plans to spend it – other than on some more lottery scratch-offs.
Lottery officials said that Cha was one of several people to collect a millionaire status in recent days. Two people who played the Set for Life Scratchers are going to split a $20 million prize and several others took home $1 million to $2 million prizes for various scratch-off games.
The wins come as the Mega Millions jackpot rose yet again to an estimated $1.55 billion – the largest prize in the game’s history. If confirmed, that prize would be the third-largest overall jackpot in U.S. lottery history. The next drawing for the game is Tuesday night.
Li Cohen
Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.
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Simone Biles began her first competition in 732 days by briefly running around during introductions, unsure of where she was supposed to go.
It’s the only time she seemed out of place. Once Biles saluted the judges, it was the same as it ever was.
Biles soared to victory in the U.S. Classic on Saturday night in her return following a two-year layoff after the Tokyo Olympics, the case of “the twisties” that forced her to take herself out of multiple events in Japan seemingly firmly in her rearview mirror.
Wearing a black-and-white bedazzled leotard, the 26-year-old Biles seemed in her element in front of a sold-out NOW Arena crowd that was littered with signs of support. Her all-around score of 59.100 was easily the best of the night, remarkable considering she’d only really started training seriously in late April after her marriage to NFL defensive back Jonathan Owens.
Simone Biles competes in the floor exercise during the U.S. Classic at Now Arena on Aug. 5, 2023, in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.
Getty Images
She’s taken a muted approach to her return to the sport she’s spent the last decade redefining. Biles admitted as recently as last week that it took her a bit to recover from “the twisties,” slang for a mental block that caused her to lose her air awareness but stressed that she was “good.”
Certainly looked like it.
Wearing No. 231 and sporting — at least before she began competing — a necklace bearing “Owens” in tribute to her husband, she seemed equal parts and relaxed and energized.
She began on uneven bars, not far from a sign featuring a goat (a symbol for “Greatest of All Time”) that read “Simone Freaking Biles.” She wasn’t perfect, nearly stalling near the end of her routine. She muscled up and stayed on and when she hit her dismount, she cut her eyes off to the side as if to say “sheesh.”
Her score of 14.000 was the third best of the competition and a signal of things to come. She was as solid and steady as ever on balance beam, where she won a bronze in Tokyo after a week of uncertainty, a medal she’s described as one of the sweetest of her career.
She never officially closed the door on Paris, even after a tumultuous stay in Japan. She’s spent most of the last two years preparing for her wedding and planning the rest of her life.
Still, the lure of the gym tugged at her, though she took a more muted approach to her comeback than in 2018 or in the run-up to Tokyo in 2021.
At the moment, she’s letting her gymnastics do the talking. And they spoke loud and clear.
She was dynamic on floor exercise, where her tumbling passes have long been showstoppers. While she and coaches Laurent and Cecile Landi have tweaked her routines a bit to better take advantage of the sport’s updated Code of Points, she still does some of the most challenging gymnastics in the sport typically with seemingly effortless ease.
Biles kept all three of her tumbling passes on the floor inbounds, something that was a problem at times in 2021. Her score of 14.900 included a start value of 6.8, a massive amount of difficulty considering no other athlete had a start value over 5.9.
She finished with a Yurchenko double-pike vault, a roundoff onto the table followed by two back flips with her hands clasped behind her knees. It’s a vault she toyed with in 2021 hoping to pull off in Tokyo.
It never happened. It still might in Paris. She hopped a little bit after landing as the arena exploded, her 15.400 more than a full point better than any of the other 30+ athletes managed.
The Classic is considered a warm-up of sorts in the calendar. The U.S. Championships are later this month, with the world championships coming in October and the Olympics less than a year out.
There is plenty of time to refine things. To expand. To build. Biles’ all-around score Saturday was higher than what she posted at the same meet in 2018. What followed was two years of dominance.
The suspense, and tearing of tickets, continues: No one won Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot, sending the estimated prize to a historic $1.55 billion, according to its website.
If the estimate is correct, the top prize will beat the previous record of $1.537 billion that was won by someone who bought a ticket in South Carolina in 2018.
The winning numbers in Friday night’s drawing were 11-30-45-52-56 with a Mega Ball of 20.
The last time the jackpot was won was in a drawing on April 18. In Mega Millions, the jackpot rolls over each time there is a drawing and the jackpot is not won.
Mega Millions crossed the $1 billion mark last weekend. It’s the fifth time that the top prize has passed $1 billion.
Going into Friday’s drawing, this current jackpot was $1.35 billion and in second place among the game’s top jackpots ever, game officials said.
The next drawing is Tuesday.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. (There are other prizes, so don’t tear those tickets just yet.)
The game is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Nashville Democrat Justin Jones, a member of the so-called “Tennessee Three,” won back his state House seat Thursday after Republican lawmakers expelled him for his participation in a pro-gun control protest in the Capitol.
Jones, 27, defeated Republican candidate Laura Nelson.
Along with Jones, fellow Democrat Justin Pearson, 28, was also vying to reclaim his House seat in Memphis against independent candidate Jeff Johnston after also being expelled in April.
The young Black lawmakers were reinstated by local officials after being booted from the GOP-dominated Statehouse, but only on an interim basis. They needed to clear a special election in order to fully take back their legislative positions.
Democratic representative Justin Jones of Nashville walks with a casket in hand, representing the lives lost in a mass shooting, during a rally for gun reform in Nashville, Tennessee on April 17, 2023.
SETH HERALD/AFP via Getty Images
Thursday’s election comes as lawmakers are preparing to return to Nashville later this month for a special session to address possibly changing the state’s gun control laws. While Jones and Pearson’s reelection to their old posts won’t make a significant dent to the Republican supermajority inside the Legislature, they are expected to push back heavily against some of their GOP colleagues’ policies.
Jones and Pearson were elected to the Statehouse last year. Both lawmakers flew relatively under the radar, even as they criticized their Republican colleagues’ policies. It wasn’t until this spring that their political careers received a boost when they and fellow Democrat Rep. Gloria Johnson participated in a protest for more gun control on the House floor.
The demonstration took place just days after a fatal mass shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville where a shooter killed three children and three adults. As thousands of protesters flooded the Capitol building to demand that the Republican supermajority enact some sort of restrictions on firearms, the three lawmakers approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn, and joined the protesters’ chants and cries for action.
Republican lawmakers quickly declared that their actions violated House rules and moved to expel their three colleagues —an extraordinary move that’s been taken only a handful of times since the Civil War.
Democratic state Reps. Justin Pearson (C) of Memphis and Justin Jones (R) of Nashville attend the vote in which they were expelled from the state Legislature on April 6, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Seth Herald / Getty Images
Ultimately, Johnson, who is white, narrowly avoided expulsion while Pearson and Jones were kicked out by the predominantly White GOP caucus.
The Legislature then refused to take up Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to place some limits on people considered a threat to themselves on others from accessing firearms. In return, the Republican governor quickly announced that he would hold a special session starting Aug. 21 to once again attempt to woo hesitant GOP members to vote for his proposal.
