Mega Millions jackpot surges to $1.22 billion ahead of Friday night’s drawing
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(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot has surged to $1.22 billion — and a winner could take home the fifth-largest prize in Mega Millions history.
The next drawing will take place on Friday at 11 p.m. ET, with the cash value of the jackpot estimated to be $549.7 million.
No one has won the grand prize in the last 30 drawings, as the jackpot has ballooned. The last time the jackpot was won was at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10.
No ticket matched the numbers drawn on Christmas Eve; the numbers drawn were 11, 14, 38, 45, 46 and gold Mega Ball 3.
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.
(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.”
(ATLANTA) — President-elect Donald Trump, in a court filing Friday, urged the Georgia Supreme Court to keep Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis disqualified from the criminal election interference case against him.
The filing from Trump’s attorneys, just days before Trump’s inauguration, asked the court to uphold the appeals court ruling last month that disqualified Willis over her relationship with a prosecutor on the case.
Trump’s lawyers argued in Friday’s filing that the trial court fashioned an “inadequate legal remedy” by allowing Willis to remain on the case if the prosecutor Nathan Wade resigned, which he did following the ruling.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in 2023 to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, and four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Willis was disqualified from the case last month — although the indictment was allowed to stand — when the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld Trump’s appeal of the trial judge’s ruling that allowed Willis to stay on the case.
Friday’s filing also pushed back on Willis’ claim that the appeals court created a new standard when it disqualified her, claiming: “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Mandatory disqualification of an elected District Attorney for a significant appearance of impropriety, for specific conduct, is unlikely to recur because no Georgia District Attorney has engaged in such egregious disqualifying conduct before and it is highly unlikely that any DA will ever do so in the future,” the filing stated. “No Georgia court has ever considered impropriety of this extraordinary magnitude.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Amidst confusion around budget cuts affecting the Los Angeles Fire Department while thousands of firefighters are battling at least five wildfires, ABC News dug into the city budgets and other publicly available documents for the city.
In May 2024, the city of Los Angeles adopted a Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025 budget that cut the appropriations for the fire department by $17.6 million from the previous year.
At the time, the city of Los Angeles was negotiating the union contract with the firefighters’ union, the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City.
On Nov. 5, the City Council voted to approve a union contract for 2024 – 2028. A report that was sent to the city a day prior outlined the fiscal impact of the contract and stated that it would cost approximately $76 million in the 2024 – 2025 fiscal year. This was to increase salaries and benefits for union members.
On Dec. 17, 2024, the LA Fire Commission sent a report to Mayor Karen Bass by Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. In it, Crowley stated that the department is facing “unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction” in overtime hours.
With the new contract approved, the budget for the fire department in Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025 increased from $819.6 million to $895.6 million. When compared to the previous year’s budget (Fiscal Year 2023 – 2024), this current year’s fire department budget in total is larger by $58.4 million. According to a document from the city administrative officer, the increase in this year’s budget was approved specifically to meet salary and benefit increases included in the new union contract.
In an interview with a local FOX station on Friday, Crowley responded after being repeatedly asked if the city failed her and her department, she said “yes,” echoing her letter to the mayor from December.
“My number one priority has been and will continue to be, that our firefighters get what they need, so that they can serve the community. That is number one. I’m going to turn down the noise when it comes to any type of criticism, because every decision that I make is going to be based off of what my firefighters need,” Crowley said.
At least 11 people are believed to be dead — with the Los Angeles County sheriff saying he expects that number to rise — as devastating fires spread across Southern California amid dry and windy conditions. The largest blaze, the Palisades Fire, in Pacific Palisades, has scorched over 22,000 acres, destroyed thousands of structures and is 11% contained. The Eaton Fire, in Altadena, now stands at more than 14,000 acres and 15% contained. More than 150,000 people are under evacuation orders.
