Lifestyle

Ticket bought in Illinois wins $1.337B Mega Millions jackpot

Published

2 years ago

August 1, 2022

Ticket bought in Illinois wins .337B Mega Millions jackpot

CHICAGO (AP) — A single ticket purchased in a Chicago suburb beat the percentages and received a $1.337 billion Mega Hundreds of thousands jackpot.

Based on megamillions.com, there was one jackpot-winning ticket within the draw Friday evening, and it was purchased at a Speedway fuel station and comfort retailer in Des Plaines.

The profitable numbers had been: 13-36-45-57-67, Mega Ball: 14.

“We’re thrilled to have witnessed one of many largest jackpot wins in Mega Hundreds of thousands historical past,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, the present Lead Director for the Mega Hundreds of thousands Consortium, mentioned in an announcement on the lottery’s web site. “We’re keen to search out out who received and sit up for congratulating the winner quickly!”

The jackpot was the nation’s third-largest lottery prize. It grew so massive as a result of nobody had matched the sport’s six chosen numbers since April 15. That’s 29 consecutive attracts with out a jackpot winner.

Lottery officers had estimated the profitable take at $1.28 billion, however revised the quantity as much as $1.337 billion on Saturday.

The whole prize is for winners who select the annuity choice, paid yearly over 29 years. Most winners go for the money choice, which for Friday evening’s drawing was an estimated $780.5 million.

The percentages of profitable the jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million.

Based on the Illinois Lottery, the shop that bought the ticket is a reasonably large winner, too; it is going to obtain half one million {dollars} only for promoting the ticket. A clerk on the Speedway retailer who answered the telephone however declined to offer his title mentioned the shop had not been formally notified that it bought the profitable ticket and that he realized about it from reporters calling for remark.

Mega Hundreds of thousands is performed in 45 states in addition to Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The sport is coordinated by state lotteries.

Illinois is among the many states the place winners of greater than $250,000 can select to not reveal their names and Illinois Lottery spokeswoman Emilia Mazur mentioned the overwhelming majority of these winners just do that.

Even lottery officers could not know for some time who received as a result of winners don’t have to return ahead right away. And the profitable ticket could have been purchased by a bunch of individuals.

“We received’t know whether or not it’s a person or it’s a lottery pool till the winner comes ahead to say their prize,” Nationwide Mega Hundreds of thousands spokeswoman Danielle Frizzi-Babb mentioned.

As of Saturday afternoon, no winner had come ahead, in accordance with Mazur.

Emily Irwin, managing director, Recommendation & Planning, at Wells Fargo’s Wealth & Funding Administration, mentioned Friday that the winner ought to take into account conserving a low profile and resist occurring an eyebrow-raising spending spree that everybody is aware of the winner can’t afford.

“This isn’t the time to start out calling all people you realize, saying, ‘Hey, I’ve an enormous secret. Can you retain it?’” Irwin mentioned.

That is essential to keep away from being inundated with requests for cash.

“There are scammers and others who comply with large winners,” she mentioned, admitting that sudden wealth can put a lottery winner in bodily hazard.

“Privateness equals security,” she mentioned.

One factor the winner should do instantly is signal the ticket. That’s as a result of if the ticket hasn’t been signed then it actually isn’t yours. If the winner loses an unsigned ticket and one other particular person finds it and indicators it, the ticket now belongs to them.

Irwin suggests a step additional to outlive a authorized battle over possession.

“Take a Polaroid of you holding it and (put) it in a secure deposit field or some place else secure,” she mentioned.

Pratik Patel, the top of Household Wealth Methods at BMO Household Workplace in Chicago, mentioned the winner ought to work with a monetary planner to map out their future.

“I might run a Monte Carlo market simulation,” Patel mentioned, explaining that that is an evaluation of what a winner’s annual earnings is likely to be and what the proceeds from numerous investments is likely to be. “What you’re doing is utilizing analytics to tell your spending.”

Frizzi-Babb agrees that speaking to a monetary planner is a good suggestion.

“I might recommend that you just try this earlier than you even set foot in a lottery workplace,” she mentioned.

One professional who has labored with previous lottery winners says the winners ought to keep away from going to the lottery workplace altogether, as an alternative sending an lawyer or monetary adviser to protect their anonymity — if lottery officers permit.

“There are going to be folks doing every part they’ll to determine who the winner is,” mentioned Kim Kamin, who was a trusts and estates lawyer for 17 years and now teaches property planning at Northwestern College’s regulation faculty. “There are going to be many eyes watching.”

There may be additionally a query no one needs to reply at that specific time: What occurs to the cash if you die?

Irwin mentioned don’t go away this unanswered; you will need to take motion to make sure the majority of your property goes to your beneficiaries quite than the federal government.

“You want a supervisor who specializes on this and understands this world,” mentioned Patel. “Somebody making $60,000 a yr may want a sure kind {of professional} supervisor and so they could wish to change to somebody who does extremely wealth.”

Regardless of the winner does, it is very important do it slowly.

“You possibly can completely indulge however let’s be good about it,” Patel mentioned. “It’s some huge cash however till you determine what you may afford, there are nonetheless limitations.”

For instance, he mentioned, take into account chartering a non-public jet earlier than diving in and shopping for one.

“Chances are you’ll be desirous about proudly owning your favourite basketball staff,” he warned, “however possibly that isn’t a good suggestion if it makes use of up all of your cash.”

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Lifestyle

Don’t Eat the Burger. It’s a Stool.

Published

2 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

Jonny Carmack was perusing the aisles of a store in his hometown, Danbury, Conn., when he first saw it: a giant strawberry sitting on a shelf.

Mr. Carmack, 32, a content creator, was awe-struck. “I was just like, oh my gosh, it’s so cute,” he said. “It’s so whimsical.”

But this strawberry didn’t come from the vine. In fact, it was a ceramic table with the cartoonish likeness of a strawberry. He purchased the table for $59.99 for his office and redecorated the room with the faux fruit in mind, adding panels of moss to a door and turf to the floor to resemble a garden.

Mr. Carmack is one of many passionate people across the United States who scour the aisles of discount retailers like HomeGoods, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls in search of culinary-inspired stools. Food as furniture has gone viral on social media, with collectors sharing photos of their finds and trading buying tips.

“It’s a huge community,” said Mr. Carmack, who owns about 30 food stools, including a stack of doughnuts, a peppermint and a pink gummy bear. “I was feral for that,” he said of his ceramic ursine figure.

Birdie Wood, too, developed a love of food stools by accident. She was shopping online one day in early 2021 when a stool with the likeness of a hamburger caught her eye. “I started decorating with weird and food-shaped things in 2009, so when I saw that this existed, I was like, this is huge,” she said. The burger was out of stock, but she snagged one on eBay a few weeks later.

She eventually furnished her three-bedroom, one-bathroom home on the South Shore of Long Island, N.Y., where she had recently moved, with the burger as inspiration. Throughout her home are other colorful, oversize objects, including a table shaped like a giant spool of thread, a large multicolored wristwatch and 10 other food stools, including a wedge of cheese. “I sort of based my entire life and personality around this silly burger stool,” she said.

Ms. Wood, 33, a woodworker, recently began building her own food-inspired furniture, with the goal of making objects she can’t find in stores. Her creations include a table with the likeness of a wrapped stick of butter and another resembling a can of Spam.

Ms. Wood said that for collectors like her, much of the appeal of quirky food stools is generational. “I think a lot of millennials specifically or older Gen Zs grew up with the ‘beige’ décor,” she said. “Once we hit the scene, we made it OK to decorate fun and silly.”

“I think that design just became so neutral, so minimalist, so boring for so long,” said Megan Hopp, 37, an interior designer and founder of Megan Hopp Design. She said these stools are millennials’ way of rejecting minimalist aesthetics — including the “billions of cans of gray paint everyone was using forever” — and embracing kitsch.

But not all food stools are created equal. There are hundreds of different designs, and the resale market for stools that are no longer available in stores can be competitive. (One reseller on eBay listed a strawberry stool for $169, more than twice its price at HomeGoods.)

Finding coveted stools often requires careful strategizing, and some dedicated collectors have it down to a science.

Robbie Hornik, 28, who owns about 87 food stools, said HomeGoods stores debut new stools seasonally and usually on the West Coast first. By studying the shopping habits of other food stool collectors on social media, “I’ve kind of calculated how long it takes for them to get here,” said Mr. Hornik, who lives in Syosset, N.Y.

Of course, it also helps to know the right people. “I’ve actually made friends with a couple of the managers and they kind of tell me when they have shipments,” he said.

To cut out the middleman, Mr. Hornik has even tried to source stools directly from vendors and manufacturers, though he has been unsuccessful so far. “There were so many different stools that I wanted and I needed to try and find a faster way to find them,” he said. (In an email to The New York Times, a spokesperson for TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, said the company could not comment on any vendors or products in stores.)

But the thrill of the hunt is also part of the fun for many collectors, including Mr. Carmack, who has built a large following on social media by posting videos about his stool collection and secondhand furniture finds. He has become something of a celebrity to the staff at his local HomeGoods in Danbury — for better or worse.

“The employees, they come right up to me,” he said. “I’m like, oh my gosh, I cannot come here every day. They’re going to have me arrested.”

Lifestyle

The Philosophy Behind Lemaire’s $100 Million Ascent

Published

2 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

The Philosophy Behind Lemaire’s 0 Million Ascent

Demand for the Paris label’s androgynous, utilitarian wardrobe has grown ten-fold since 2019 as shoppers turn their back on logo-mania and embrace the brand’s subtle ethos. ‘Reality isn’t a dirty word,’ says co-creative director Christophe Lemaire.

Lifestyle

A Quest for the Best Coffee in New York Leads to Love

Published

10 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

A Quest for the Best Coffee in New York Leads to Love

On June 28, 2016, Ms. Ng and Mr. Leung found their relationship tested under extraordinary circumstances. They had traveled to Istanbul for a friend’s wedding and were awaiting a domestic flight at Atatürk Airport when news broke of a terrorist attack. The attack had occurred just an hour earlier, in the same terminal they had recently passed through. “It was terrifying,” Ms. Ng said. “Justin was calm and gave clear directions, making me feel safe in a way I’ll never forget.”

For Mr. Leung, the moment required immediate action. “We’re in this situation, and I had to communicate with her in a new way very quickly,’ he recalled. ‘I asked, ‘Andrea, do you trust me?’ and guided us to safety. ” The experience, though harrowing, became a critical point in their relationship, cementing their trust and ability to handle challenges together.

Last year, on March 22, Mr. Leung proposed at Devoción, where they had their first date. “I teared up and said, ‘I love you and want to spend my life with you,’” he said. As baristas played “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, Ms. Ng said yes, and the cafe customers applauded. They celebrated with dinner at Aska, a Scandinavian restaurant in Brooklyn, where he shared what he couldn’t say during the proposal: “These past 10 years have been the best of my life, and you are the best part of it.”

Three wedding celebrations marked their marriage. “We did everything backward, and it wasn’t our initial plan,” Ms. Ng said, “but each one served a different purpose.”

They legally wed on Jan. 3, at New York City Hall, officiated by Guohuan Zhang, a city clerk, with Mr. Leung’s parents as witnesses. The day included lunch at the Odeon and dinner at Bridges, both in Manhattan. The following day, they hosted an after-party for 69 guests at Sommwhere, an event space on the Lower East Side, featuring D.J. sets by close friends, heart-shaped pizzas, and their first dance to Lauryn Hill’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”