PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The winner of the eighth-biggest lottery prize in U.S. history won't be announced for at least a couple more weeks until their ticket is verified and arrangements for the massive payment are made, Oregon lottery officials said Tuesday.
A person with a ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday’s $1.3 billion jackpot came forward Monday to claim the prize from last weekend's drawing. They bought the ticket at a convenience store in northeastern Portland.
Click to Gallery
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The winner of the eighth-biggest lottery prize in U.S. history won't be announced for at least a couple more weeks until their ticket is verified and arrangements for the massive payment are made, Oregon lottery officials said Tuesday.
The Plaid Pantry convenience store that sold a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot, the eighth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, is seen in Portland, Ore., on Monday, April 8, 2024. The odds of winning a Powerball drawing are 1 in 292 million. (AP Photo/Claire Rush)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky speaks outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A customer enters a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Oregon Lottery External Communications Program Manager Melanie Mesaros speaks during a news conference outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky laughs during a news conference outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry cashier Darling Hinojosa looks out the window as members of the media begin to gather for a news conference outside the convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky leaves a Plaid Pantry convenience store after a news conference on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
For selling the winning ticket, managers of the Plaid Pantry location plan to share their $100,000 bonus. The store’s other employees typically get a cut of lottery prize bonus payments too, said Jonathan Polonsky, CEO and president of Plaid Pantry.
Lottery officials said they were taking precautions to verify the win and in order to send the winner the sum, they will need to coordinate with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries. That will take time.
“We’ve never had a jackpot this large in Oregon won here. There’s a lot of moving pieces," Oregon Lottery spokesperson Melanie Mesaros said.
Oregon has had five previous Powerball jackpot winners, including two families who shared a $340 million prize in 2005.
The jackpot has a cash value of $621 million if the winner chooses to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years, with an immediate payout followed by 29 annual installments.
In Oregon, the prize is subject to federal and state taxes that whittle down the haul by a couple hundred million.
The prize was the fourth largest Powerball jackpot in history and the eighth largest among U.S. jackpot games, according to the Oregon Lottery.
The largest U.S. lottery jackpot won was $2.04 billion in California in 2022.
Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The Plaid Pantry convenience store that sold a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot, the eighth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, is seen in Portland, Ore., on Monday, April 8, 2024. The odds of winning a Powerball drawing are 1 in 292 million. (AP Photo/Claire Rush)
The Plaid Pantry convenience store that sold a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot, the eighth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, is seen in Portland, Ore., on Monday, April 8, 2024. The odds of winning a Powerball drawing are 1 in 292 million. (AP Photo/Claire Rush)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky speaks outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A customer enters a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Oregon Lottery External Communications Program Manager Melanie Mesaros speaks during a news conference outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky laughs during a news conference outside a Plaid Pantry convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry cashier Darling Hinojosa looks out the window as members of the media begin to gather for a news conference outside the convenience store on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Plaid Pantry President and CEO Jonathan Polonsky leaves a Plaid Pantry convenience store after a news conference on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday's $1.3 billion jackpot was sold at the store. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s Republican-led Legislature completed a last-ditch effort Thursday to revive a bill to regulate transgender people’s use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories in public education buildings.
Lawmakers pushed the proposal through the House and Senate in the final days of their four-month session after negotiations between the chambers broke down Monday on an earlier proposal. Republicans said they received a flurry of messages urging them to bring the bill back to life.
“This probably, to a lot of our constituents and to a lot of people in this chamber, is probably the most important bill that we brought up,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, a Republican.
The legislation would require all public education institutions to equip their buildings with single-sex restrooms, changing areas and dormitories.
People would only be allowed to enter spaces that correspond to their sex assigned at birth, regardless of their appearance or any procedures they've had to affirm their gender identity. Those who violate the policy could be sued, but schools, colleges and universities would be protected from liability.
Democrats said the bill would put transgender people at risk. They also criticized Republicans for spending time on the issue as other legislative priorities remained unfinished.
"It just baffles me that we have things we can do to improve the state of Mississippi for all people, for all people, but we get so pumped on something that's national politics," said Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat. “It is not my job to criticize how people live their lives.”
Republicans said they were standing up for female family members on college campuses and pointed to several Republican women, wearing red, as they looked on from the Senate gallery.
One of those women was Anja Baker, a member of the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women from the Jackson suburb of Rankin County. Baker said she works with social service providers and was concerned women would be crowded out of spaces they rely on.
“They only have so many resources, and they need to have their locations and resources protected for the women that need them instead of getting caught in a game of identity politics,” Baker said.
Advocacy groups emailed her and other Republican women late Wednesday urging them to show up Thursday at the Capitol. That came after an initial measure mandating single-sex spaces stalled, causing an embittered back-and-forth between top legislators.
Just before a Monday night deadline, the House offered a plan that would let people file lawsuits seeking monetary damages if someone uses a bathroom not assigned to their gender, said Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican. Wiggins said that made it an unacceptable “trial lawyer bill."
House Judiciary A Committee Chairman Joey Hood, also a Republican, said the Senate forced the House into accepting a weaker proposal. The bill would let people sue, but they would be unable to claim compensatory damages from any lawsuit. As a result, Hood and other House members said the bill they ultimately approved would likely fail to deter people from entering spaces that don't align with their sex assigned at birth.
Hood said he hopes the Legislature would introduce legislation in 2025 with stronger penalties.
Another proposal failed this year that would have denied the legal recognition of transgender people by writing into law that “there are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.”
In 2021, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams. Last year, he signed a bill to ban gender-affirming hormones or surgery for anyone younger than 18.
The Mississippi proposals were among several bills being considered in state legislatures around the country as Republicans try to restrict transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care, bathrooms and sports, among other things.
—-
Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.
Mississippi State Rep. Fabian Nelson, D-Jackson, asks for a clarification on a bill to regulate transgender people's use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories in public education buildings, before the House at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, asks a question regarding a bill to regulate transgender people's use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories in public education buildings, before the House at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Rep. John Faulkner, D-Holly Springs, asks a question on a bill to regulate transgender people's use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories in public education buildings, before the House at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, explains a bill to regulate transgender people's use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories in public education buildings, before the House at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, holds a folder with files for the Senate Rules Committee, in the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Sen. Bradford Blackmon, D-Canton, asks a question in the Senate chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, addresses the legislators in the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, gestures while speaking at the well before the body in the Senate chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi State Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, gestures while speaking at the well before the body in the Senate chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
A group of Republican women from throughout the state watch procedures in the Senate chamber at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
