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Oregon winners of historic $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot revealed

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Oregon winners of historic .3 billion Powerball jackpot revealed

The winners of Oregon’s largest-ever lottery jackpot — and the eighth-largest lottery win in the history of the United States — are Laiza Liem Chao, 55, of Milwaukie, and Cheng Saephan, 46, and Duanpen Saephan, 37, of Portland.

The Oregon Lottery announced their names with great fanfare in Salem on Monday.

“First, I want to thank God for giving me this beautiful prize,” said Cheng Saephan, the only winner to attend the official announcement at Oregon Lottery headquarters in Salem.

Cheng Saephan, his wife and Chao already have been paid, the couple and their friend splitting the $422,309,193.97 that remained of the $1.326 billion prize after state and federal taxes, lottery spokesperson Melanie Mesaros said. They opted for the one-time payout rather than the 30-year annuity, which also brought the amount down.

Cheng Saephan, who was born in Laos and moved to the United States from Thailand in 1994, said he is especially grateful that he will be able to provide a comfortable life for his family, which includes two children he has with his wife. As for himself, he doesn’t believe he’ll have that much time to enjoy his winnings because he is in the midst of battling cancer. He was first diagnosed in 2016, he said. His most recent chemotherapy treatment was a week ago.

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“How am I going to have time to spend all of this money?” Cheng Saephan said.

Cheng Saephan said he, his wife and their friend Chao bought 20 lottery tickets for $200. For several months before the big win he said he felt like he was going to win something — but he expected no more than several million, he said, not a jackpot in excess of $1 billion. He plans to buy a house with the money, he said.

He used to be a machinist working on airplane parts, he said.

Cheng Saephan said he told his friend and co-winner Chao about the big win over the phone. He asked her what she was doing and she said she was driving to work.

“You don’t have to work now,” Cheng Saephan said he told her.

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A man at the Salem event who identified himself as Cheng Saephan’s pastor said Saephan agreed to send him on missionary trips to Thailand, Laos and possibly China.

The historic winning Powerball ticket was sold at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Northeast Portland. The store will get a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, the Oregon Lottery said.

“I want to offer my heartfelt congratulations to the Saephans and Ms. Chao on this historic win,” Oregon Lottery Director Mike Wells said in a statement. “Not only is the prize life-changing for the three of them and their families, it’s also a huge win for the state.”

— Fedor Zarkhin is a breaking news and enterprise reporter with a focus on crime. Reach him at 971-373-2905; fzarkhin@oregonian.

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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