In this photo illustration, Mega Millions lottery tickets are displayed on August 01, 2023 in San Anselmo, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The Mega Million jackpot is now up to $680 million after no winners were selected in Tuesday night’s drawing.
The next drawing is Friday night at 11 p.m.
While no one won the big prize, one person in Illinois did win $3 million for matching all of the white balls. The numbers drawn Saturday night were: 2, 18, 27, 34 and 59, plus the gold Mega Ball 18.
There have been 33 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The last jackpot of $348 million was last won on June 27 in Virginia.
The current jackpot prize has a cash value of $318.2 million, which can be offered as a one-time lump sum payment or an immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $5 for one play.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot prize ever won was a $1.6 billion prize won on Aug. 8, 2023. The $680 million jackpot would the ninth-largest in Mega Millions history.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office released photos of Travis Decker in a wanted poster. (Chelan County Sheriff’s Office)
(CHELAN COUNTY, Wash.) — After a two-day search of the area where Travis Decker allegedly murdered his three young daughters, the FBI said they will be analyzing “several items” that were recovered near the crime scene.
The FBI concluded its two-day grid search operation on Tuesday, focusing within the vicinity of Rock Island Campground in Leavenworth, Washington, where the girls bodies’ were found back on June 2, W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI Seattle field office, said in a press release on Thursday.
The purpose of search was to “locate Travis Decker, discover signs of his whereabouts or find any other evidence of the murder of his three daughters,” Herrington said.
Over 100 personnel were deployed and 1,000,000 square meters were searched, but Decker has not been located, Herrington said.
“A search of this magnitude and detail has not previously taken place in this area,” Herrington said.
During the investigation, Herrington said search personnel recovered “several items that are being examined to determine if they are related to this investigation,” saying that final results “will take some time.”
“Finding this potential evidence emphasizes the value in having various teams search an area multiple times, especially in such challenging conditions,” Herrington said.
Herrington added that officials are “committed to bringing every available FBI resource that will advance this case for as long as it takes.”
During a press conference on Monday, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said officials “will not relent” and “not give up” on the search efforts, even if locating Decker takes years.
“The girls would not want us to give up,” Morrison said on Monday. “If it’s not me wearing this uniform, it’s another Chelan County sheriff. We will find him, in one fashion or another.”
Paityn Decker, 9; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead near the Rock Island Campground after they left home for a planned visit with their father on May 30, according to police.
The U.S. Marshals Service is still offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading directly to Decker’s arrest.
Anyone who sees Decker or knows of his whereabouts should call 911 immediately and not contact or approach him, officials said. He is currently wanted for three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of kidnapping, officials said.
Decker is considered armed and dangerous, officials said.
(NEW YORK) — Books bans in public schools have become a “new normal” in the U.S., escalating since 2021, according to one advocacy group. In a new report, PEN America said the federal government has emerged in 2025 as the newest force fueling campaigns to restrict materials related to race, racism and LGBTQ+ issues.
There were 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts in the 2024-2025 school year, the report said. PEN America works to promote freedom of expression in the literary space.
According to the report, which was released on Wednesday ahead of Banned Books Week (Oct. 5 to 11), Florida had the highest number of book bans with 2,304, followed by Texas with 1,781 bans and Tennessee with 1,622.
“A disturbing ‘everyday banning’ and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread over the last four years. The result is unprecedented,” said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program.
The bans, some of which are temporary while others are indefinite, have hit 2,308 authors, with “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, “Breathless” by Jennifer Niven, “Sold” by Patricia McCormick, “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo and “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas topping the list of most banned books in the 2024-2025 school year.
Other frequently banned titles include “Forever … ,” by Judy Blume, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “Damsel” by Elana K. Arnold.
The bans largely target books about race and racism in the U.S. or books featuring people of color and LGBTQ+ people and topics, according to the report, as well as some books for young adults that include sexual references or discuss sexual violence.
“Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country,” the report said.
It noted that the bans, which it said are driven by advocacy groups that champion conservative viewpoints, are reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1950s — a period of intense anticommunist fear in the U.S., which prompted censorship efforts.
“Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide,” the report said. “Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”
There were nearly 23,000 cases of book bans across 45 states in the U.S. and 451 public school districts since 2021, according to PEN America. They started documenting book bans in 2021 as special interest groups lobbied school boards across the country to remove books based on content.
Four years later, the practice has become “normalized,” the report found, with efforts to ban books expanding. It said some state legislatures passed laws restricting certain materials and state departments of education issued directives for schools to remove materials. It also highlighted “do not buy” lists issued by some school districts, banning educators from choosing certain books for libraries and school curriculums.
According to the report, under the Trump administration in 2025, the federal government has emerged as a new “vector” for book ban campaigns across the country, largely through President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
Although the executive orders do not specifically mention book bans or target certain books, they threaten to withhold federal funding from K-12 schools that “[imprint] anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children.”
PEN America highlighted “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which was signed by Trump on Jan. 29. In it, the administration cited themes of race, racism and transgender ideology as examples of “radical indoctrination,” and argued that introducing this content to children in public schools usurps parental rights.
“In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics,” the executive order said. “In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed.”
PEN America noted that the “parental rights” argument is central to the Trump administration’s federal policies limiting certain content in schools. This movement, which was sparked in 2021 and championed by conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, has been utilized by advocacy groups to fight for book banning in states like Florida and Texas.
In June 2023, then-President Joe Biden appointed a “book ban coordinator” in the Department of Education’s office for Civil Rights. On Jan. 24, 2025, after Trump returned to the White House, the Department of Education dismissed 11 complaints related to “book bans,” calling them a “hoax.”
“By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement at the time. “The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities.”
According to the PEN America report, the public pressure from federal and state officials to restrict certain content in schools prompted so-called “preemptive bans” and censorship. The group said school administrators and educators often opt not to fight and instead remove books from shelves or decide against potentially objectionable materials.
“No book shelf will be left untouched if local and state book bans continue wreaking havoc on the freedom to read in public schools,” Sabrina Baêta, senior manager of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said in a statement. “With the Trump White House now also driving a clear culture of censorship, our core principles of free speech, open inquiry, and access to diverse and inclusive books are severely at risk.”
