Powerball jackpot climbs to estimated $1.5 billion after no Wednesday winner
In this photo illustration, Powerball lottery tickets are displayed on a countertop at the Brew Market & Cafe on September 04, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot is estimated to climb to $1.5 billion for Saturday night’s drawing, marking the fifth-largest prize in the lottery’s history, after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn on Wednesday, the lottery said.
A $1.25 billion Powerball jackpot prize had been up for grabs Wednesday night, with a cash value of $572.1 million. The winning numbers drawn Wednesday were: 25, 33, 53, 62, 66 and red Powerball 17.
That was the game’s sixth largest prize ever, according to Powerball. The largest prize ever was $2.04 billion won on Nov. 7, 2022.
The Powerball jackpot was last hit on Sept. 6 by two tickets in Missouri and Texas that split a $1.787 billion prize. There have been 43 consecutive drawings with no jackpot wins.
If a player had won on Wednesday night, they would have had the choice between annual payments worth an estimated $1.25 billion or an immediate $572.1 million lump sum payment.
According to Powerball, the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
The drawing will be held just before 11 p.m. ET in the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee.
A man is arrested after throwing a hand-made smoke grenade at a protest near Gracie Mansion, on March 7, 2026, in New York. (Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two improvised explosive devices brought to a counterprotest outside Gracie Mansion in New York City Saturday are being investigated as “an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism,” and the two suspects arrested in connection with the incident are facing federal terrorism charges, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday.
According to a federal criminal complaint released Monday, both suspects openly pledged allegiance to ISIS while in the presence of police, and one suspect allegedly told officers they “wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing,” which the suspect noted “caused only ‘three deaths.’”
The explosive devices contained the volatile substance triacetone triperoxide, known as TATP, and were made to “injure, maim or worse,” Tisch said of Saturday’s incident.
“These were not hoax devices or smoke bombs. They were improvised explosive devices,” Tisch said during a news conference outside the Gracie Mansion mayor’s residence with New York City Mayor Zohran Mandami, the city’s first Muslim mayor.
One of the devices was ignited and deployed at protesters in a crosswalk on East End Avenue and East 87 Street, and the other device was detonated close by, Tisch said.
Tisch said a third suspected IED was found in the car of the two suspects, a black 2010 Honda with New Jersey license plates, parked on the Upper East Side of Manhattan near Gracie Mansion, prompting an immediate evacuation of homes in the area. She said the device did not test positive for explosives.
All of the devices are being sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for additional testing, Tisch said.
Two Pennsylvania men who are in custody are charged in a five-count federal complaint with attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS, use of a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials, interstate transportation and receipt of explosives, and unlawful possession of destructive devices.
The suspects were identified as Emir Balat of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and Ibrahim Kayumi of Newton, Pennsylvania, according to Tisch and the federal complaint.
The suspects were ordered to be held without bail after they made their initial appearances, both in shackles, in Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon. They did not enter a plea to the charges.
“They’re suspected of coming here to commit an act of terrorism,” Mamdani said Monday. “Let me say this plainly: Anyone who comes to New York City to bring violence to our streets will be held accountable in accordance with the law.”
The explosives were deployed at an anti-Muslim protest outside Gracie Mansion that was organized by far-right, anti-immigrant provocateur Jack Lang, officials said. The event was called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.”
The anti-Muslim protest drew counterprotesters who called their response “Run Nazis Out of New York City,” according to the criminal complaint.
“FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the matter with our partners at NYPD as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York,” the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
Balat and Kayumi are suspected of attending the event as part of the counterprotest to the anti-Muslim demonstration, authorities said Monday.
Neither Mamdani nor his wife, Rama Duwaji, were in Gracie Mansion when the incident occurred, the mayor said Monday.
Immediately following his arrest, Kayumi was asked by someone in the surrounding crowd why he allegedly attempted to bomb the protest, according to the complaint.
“Kayumi responded in part and as captured on NYPD body-worn camera footage, ‘ISIS,'” the complaint states.
Balat waived his Miranda rights to remain silent following his arrest, according to the complaint, and allegedly provided a written statement in which he “pledge[d] [] allegience [sic] to the Islamic State,” the complaint states.
Balat also allegedly told police that “they wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing, which Balat noted caused only ‘three deaths,'” according to the complaint.
The April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing also left more than 500 people injured.
Kayumi, whom the complaint said also waived his Miranda rights, allegedly “stated, in substance and in part, that he was affiliated with ISIS; watched ISIS propaganda on his phone; and was partly inspired to carry out his actions that day by ISIS,” according to the complaint.
“Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the one million or so Muslim New Yorkers who know this city as our home,” Mamdani said at Monday’s news conference.
“While I found this protest appalling. I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society, where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not only belong to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone,” Mandani added.
Many of the counterprotesters on Saturday confronted the “display of bigotry,” the mayor said. He also praised NYPD officers who swiftly responded to the incident and arrested the suspects, saying they were “faced with a chaotic situation that quickly could have become far more dangerous.”
The mayor specifically cited the “courageous and selfless” acts of two NYPD officers, Assistant Chief Aaron Edwards and Sgt. Luis Navarro, who attended Monday’s news conference. Mamdani said the officers “ran towards the danger so that others could run safely.”
Tisch said the last incident in New York City in which an IED was deployed occurred in December 2017, when Akayed Ullah detonated a homemade bomb he had strapped to his torso in a pedestrian underpass connecting the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Time Square subway station.
Ullah, a permanent resident of Bangladesh who was living in Brooklyn at the time, was the only person injured in the act, which federal prosecutors said was committed on behalf of ISIS of Iraq. Ullah was convicted in April 2021 by a federal jury on all six counts of the indictment and was sentenced to life in prison.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is allowing the release of deposition videos of two former DOGE staffers, ruling that the risk of “embarrassment and reputational harm” is not enough to overcome the public interest in the videos.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Monday lifted an earlier order requiring a group of nonprofits to remove the videos from the internet after lawyers with the Justice Department argued that the former Department of Government Efficiency staffers faced threats because of the depositions’ release.
While Judge McMahon acknowledged that the former staffers faced threats, she said the DOJ could not prove a “particularized harm” to the former staffers that would overcome the public interest in their official conduct as government employees.
“Here, the testimony in the videos concerns the conduct of public officials acting in their official capacities — a context in which the public interest in transparency and accountability is at its apex,” she wrote.
Judge McMahon concluded that ordering the videos removed would have little impact on the alleged threats because the videos had been already shared hundreds of thousands of times online.
The DOJ, she said, failed to prove that ordering the removal of the videos “would materially reduce the alleged risk of harm or embarrassment.”
“The videos have already been widely disseminated across multiple platforms, including YouTube, X, TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, where they have been shared, reposted, and viewed by at least hundreds of thousands of users, resulting in near-instantaneous and effectively permanent global distribution,” she said.
“This is a predictable consequence of dissemination in the modern digital environment, where content can be copied, redistributed, and indefinitely preserved beyond the control of any single actor,” wrote the judge.
“This decision validates our position that the publication of the videos, which document a process to destroy knowledge and access to vital public programs, was indeed in the public’s interest,” said Joy Connolly, president of the American Council of Learned Societies, one of the nonprofits that released the videos. “We look forward to continuing the pursuit of justice in reclaiming government support for important humanities research, education, and sustainability initiatives.”
The videos were initially released as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit related to the funding cuts carried out by DOGE as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to trim the size of the federal government. In the videos, two former DOGE staffer. — Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh — were questioned about their push to cut more than $100 million in humanities grants, and acknowledged they used DEI keywords and ChatGPT to identify grants to eliminate.
“You don’t regret that people might have lost important income … to support their lives?” an attorney asked one of the staffers about the grant cancellations.
“No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero,” the staffer said.
“Did you reduce the federal deficit?” the attorney asked.
Stefon Diggs attends the 2025 CFDA Awards at The American Museum of Natural History on November 03, 2025 in New York City. The Hapa Blonde/GC Images
(FOXBOROUGH, Mass.) — New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs is facing strangulation and assault charges, according to court records.
The charges stem from an alleged incident on Dec. 2, records show, one day after the Patriots beat the New York Giants 33-15.
Details of the alleged incident have not been released.
The Patriots are standing behind Diggs, saying in a statement, “Stefon has informed the organization that he categorically denies the allegations.”
“We support Stefon,” the team said. “We will continue to gather information and will cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities and the NFL as necessary.”
The NFL said in statement, “We are aware of the matter and have been in contact with the club.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
