Mega Millions jackpot hits $1 billion ahead of Christmas Eve drawing
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(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot has soared to an estimated $1 billion ahead of its Christmas Eve drawing.
The estimated jackpot would make it the seventh-largest in the game’s history and its seventh billion-dollar prize.
It would also be the largest ever won in December, if a ticket matches all six numbers drawn.
The cash value of the jackpot is estimated to be $448.8 million.
The last time the jackpot was won was at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10. No one has won the grand prize in the last 29 drawings, as the jackpot has ballooned.
The Mega Millions jackpot has only been won on Christmas Eve once before, according to the game. A $68 million jackpot was won in New York on Dec. 24, 2002, though it was never claimed.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 for one play. Tuesday’s drawing is at 11 p.m. ET.
(NEW ORLEANS , LA) — A suspect who was “hellbent” on killing as many people as possible drove a pickup truck around barricades and plowed his vehicle through a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans at a high rate of speed, leaving at least 10 dead and injuring dozens of others early Wednesday, city and federal officials said.
After mowing down numerous people over a three-block stretch on the famed thoroughfare while firing shots into the crowd, the suspect allegedly got out of the truck wielding an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement officials briefed on the incident told ABC News. Officers returned fire, killing the suspect who was not immediately identified, sources said. At least two police officers were shot and wounded, authorities said.
Explosive devices found in and around the scene on Bourbon Street were apparently found to be viable, multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the horrific incident a “terrorist attack” and the FBI said it was being investigated as an act of terror. The bloodshed comes on the heels of a deadly vehicle ramming attack in Germany. Fears of such attacks were a growing concern among law enforcement as well as attacks by lone actors at winter holiday events.
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the driver had attempted to kill as many people as possible. The truck used in the attack appeared to be a F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle. A black flag appeared to be attached to the vehicle, but its significance was not immediately known.
By the time the melee — which was described by city officials as a “mass casualty incident” — had ended, at least 35 people were injured, New Orleans police and city officials said. Most of the victims appeared to be local, officials said.
“He was hellbent on creating the carnage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said at a news conference early Wednesday.
The New Orleans Police Department said the attack occurred despite the force being “staffed 100%” for New Year’s Eve and the Sugar Bowl, a college football game played annually on New Year’s Day. An additional 300 officers were on duty from partner agencies, the police department said.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the attack and has been in touch with Cantrell to offer support, according to the White House.
“The FBI is already on the ground supporting local law enforcement in the investigation and the President will continue to be briefed throughout the day,” the White House said in a statement.
Local authorities asked the FBI for assistance early on Wednesday, a senior federal law enforcement source told ABC News. A command center was being set up, the source said. The FBI was set to lead the investigation.
“A horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning,” Gov. Jeff Landry said, adding that his family was praying for the victims and first responders.
A witness, who requested to be identified only as Paul S., told ABC News he was startled awake by the sound of what he initially thought was fireworks.
“Around 3:15 [a.m.], we heard a ‘pop, pop, pop, pop’ sound followed by a sound that sounded like fireworks going off, like big fireworks all at once,” Paul S. said. “Then it turned out that was the crash.”
He said he looked outside his hotel window, he saw a chaotic scene with bodies strewn on the street below.
“What I was was if you can imagine a street with brick and whatnot littered all around the sidewalk, and then there were bodies laid up next to garbage cans and people rushing to give aid,” Paul S. said.
He said he observed a man who had been thrown from his wheelchair lying on the ground next to the truck involved in in the attack writhing in pain.
“There was also a body underneath a scissor lift,” Paul S. said.
Leading up to the holidays, federal law enforcement and intelligence had warned police around the country that low-tech vehicle ramming was a key area of concern and that they needed to prepare — and that was before the German Christmas market attack on Dec. 20, in which five people were killed and hundreds were injured.
In a Dec. 9 assessment for the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration, federal and local agencies wrote: “We remain concerned about the use of vehicle ramming against high-profile outdoor events…Vehicle ramming has become a recurring tactic employed by threat actors in the West, marked by a continued interest by (terrorists, extremists) and lone offenders in targeting crowded pedestrian areas.”
“There are 30 injured patients that have been transported by NOEMS and 10 fatalities,” the city said, using an acronym for the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services.
The police later said at least 35 people were injured and taken to five local hospitals — University Medical Center, Touro Hospital, East Jefferson General Hospital, Ochsner Medical Center Jefferson Campus and Ochsner Baptist Campus.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — America’s fourth and eighth grade students’ sliding reading scores worsened in 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been dubbed the nation’s report card.
“The nation’s report card is out and the news is not good,” National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“Students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be,” she said. “Our students, for the most part, continue to perform below the pre-pandemic levels, and our children’s reading continues to slide in both grades and subjects.”
“And, most notably, our nation’s struggling readers continue to decline the most,” Carr added.
The report card, released every two years by the Department of Education, is the largest assessment of students’ performance in public and private schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It paints a grim picture of scores in critical subjects, underscoring urgent challenges for schools, policymakers and families seeking to improve performance.
Compared to 2022, this year’s average reading scores dropped by 2 points for both fourth and eighth grade assessments, according to the NCES data conducted between January and March 2024. That adds to the 3-point decrease for both grades in 2022. Forty percent of fourth graders read below NAEP basic levels, and about a third of eighth graders read below the basic level.
“The continued declines in reading scores are particularly troubling,” National Assessment Governing Board member Patrick Kelly said, adding: “Reading is foundational to all subjects, and failure to read well keeps students from accessing information and building knowledge across content areas.”
Despite the decline in reading, there was some recovery in math in 2024, but the increase has not returned students to pre-pandemic levels.
Mathematics scores climbed by 2 points for fourth graders and did not change for eighth graders from the 2022 findings. As ABC News reported two years ago, the 2022 declines in math were the largest drops in NAEP’s history.
But Peggy Carr stressed this is not solely a pandemic story. Reading scores have been declining since 2017. Among the lowest-level achievers, scores are now at the worst point since 1992.
The report card does not provide causes for the declines in scores. On the call with reporters, officials said data shows there has been a decline in students who say they’re reading “for enjoyment,” and teachers are not focusing as much on “essay responses” to questions.
The pandemic exacerbated the problems facing education in reading, math and history, according to NAEP’s 2022 assessments. Fourth grade and eighth grade students saw their largest declines ever in math, and eighth grade students received the lowest history scores since 1994, when the history assessment was first administered.
NCES data also found that while chronic absenteeism has decreased since the last assessment, student attendance is contributing to the dismal numbers. NCES defines chronic absenteeism as missing at least 10% of the school year.
“The data are clear: Students who don’t come to school are not improving,” Carr emphasized on the call.
The call also outlined a bleak outlook for the country’s lowest-performing students.
“There’s a widening achievement gap in this country and it has worsened since the pandemic, especially for grade eight,” Carr said.
It’s important to note NAEP is a challenging assessment, according to Carr. Students’ results are scored as basic, proficient or advanced. Below basic scores do not mean a child can’t read; however, Carr noted it is still worrying that scores continue to fall.
This comes as the K-12 education debate turned political during the pandemic when schools shuttered for in-person learning and parents were exposed to their child’s curriculum. Conservatives have made it a culture wars issue and denounced public schools for indoctrinating kids with inappropriate gender and critical race theory.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, the Chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told ABC News that these results hurt vulnerable children the most, as the previous administration kept schools shuttered longer than the public health guidance.
The chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, said the report exposes the nation’s failing education system.
“This is clearly a reflection of the education bureaucracy continuing to focus on woke policies rather than helping students learn and grow,” the Republican congressman wrote in a statement to ABC News.
NCES officials on the call also warned that if President Donald Trump delivers on his pledge to shutter the Department of Education, they’re unsure if it will impact future assessments.
“We don’t know what will happen to NCES or NAEP,” Carr said when asked by ABC News. “We are hopeful that people will see the value in these data and what we are doing for the country.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Donald Trump’s classified documents case, has ruled that the Justice Department can release Volume One of special counsel report Jack Smith’s report, covering his election interference case against Trump — but is reserving ruling on whether the DOJ can make Volume Two, on the classified documents case, available to congressional leadership for review.
Cannon has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 17 on that matter.
Cannon last week issued the injunction temporarily blocking the release of the entire report — both the first volume on the Jan. 6 case and the second volume on the classified documents case — as the Justice Department appeared poised to publicly release the report. Attorney General Merrick Garland had vowed to release the classified documents volume to top members of Congress and to publicly release the classified documents volume — which the DOJ attested in a filing this weekend has no bearing on the evidence or charges related Nauta and De Oliveira — but Trump’s former co-defendants continue to push for neither volume to see the light of day.
In a separate case, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who in April indicted 11 individuals, including Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in her state, told Garland in a letter Sunday that gaining access to the case file will “help ensure that those who should be held accountable are.”
“Today, my office has one of the only remaining cases that includes charges against national actors,” the letter said. “I have held steadfast to prosecuting the grand jury’s indictment because those who tried to subvert democracy in 2020 must be held accountable.”
The letter also asked the DOJ for any “exculpatory material” unearthed in the probe.
It also referenced a recent order from a state judge that granted a request from Meadows for discovery in the case to help aid in his defense. The letter, though, acknowledges that the state judge “cannot compel disclosure from a federal agency.”
“For the reasons discussed above, the Maricopa County Superior Court’s order should be fulfilled. In the alternative, consider this a request under the Freedom of Information Act,” the letter states. “Disclosure will ensure justice is done consistent with the rule of law.”
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago estate. The former president, along with Nauta and De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump also pleaded not guilty in 2023 to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Both cases were dismissed following Trump’s reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.