Daily News Roundup

Friday, January 18

A Sydney mother won last night’s Powerball taking home a record $107 million.

She was the only winner  of the Powerball jackpot — but she has no plans to give up her healthcare job.

The win was the biggest individual prize ever won in Australia.

A surge in entries purchased for the draw boosted her winnings to $107,575,649.08.

The woman, a mother in her 40s, originally thought she had won $107,000, according to a statement from Australian lottery provider The Lott, which runs the Powerball jackpot.

“I don’t understand — is this actually real?” she said upon learning of her win.

“Is this a trick?”

The woman who works in healthcare said she “won’t be retiring”.

“I’m so passionate about my job,” she said.

“It will drive me to do more health work for causes important to me.”

She told The Lott she planned to give her family a “whole slab of money”, as well as travel and donate some of her winnings to charity.

“I’m not sure how I will be able to sleep tonight, but for now I’m going to go have a cheap glass of chardonnay,” she said.

The woman had the only entry matching all seven winning numbers and the Powerball — the incredibly rare combination required to take out the division one jackpot.

The odds of winning the division one prize with a 12-game entry are 11.2 million to one.

Those odds shrink to 134.5 million to one with a single-entry ticket.

The previous record for the largest sum of money won by a single entry in an Australian lottery draw was $70 million, with the ticket purchased by a couple on Queensland’s Fraser Coast in December.

That same figure was won in 2013 by a group of Gold Coast women, who bought their ticket after one of their regular lunches.

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The family of an Arab-Israeli student found dead in Melbourne have urged Australian authorities to bring her killer to justice.

ABC radio this morning quoted relatives in Israel as describing 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe as a gifted student who was enjoying her time in Australia.

“She’s beautiful, she’s clever — that’s why I don’t believe what’s happened to her,” her uncle Ahmad Maasarwe told the ABC.

Crying, he asked people in Melbourne to help police find his niece’s killer.

“We suffer as a family if we don’t know who did this thing, and if he will not be punished, this will be too much suffering for us,” he said.

Another uncle, Abed Kittani, said the family was struggling to deal with the news.

“The feeling of the family is very, very bad,” he said. “The mental state of the mother and the sister is the worst it can be.”

“The tragedy and the horror isn’t easy to bear.

“This happened very far away. How did this family end up facing this tragedy?”

Mr Kittani said Ms Maasarwe’s younger sister was speaking to her on the phone at the moment she was attacked, and watched news of her death spread via the internet.

“Her sister was attacked and killed in Australia, live,” he said.

“She heard everything over the phone, she heard the cars passing by and she was helpless, she couldn’t do anything. She started sending her messages and there was no response.”

The family said Ms Maasarwe was an exceptional student who had won prizes for her proficiency in Chinese.

She was on an exchange in Melbourne from her university in Shanghai.

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The Duke of Edinburgh, 97, has walked away unhurt after a car crash left his vehicle on its side.

He was, however reported to be “very shocked” and shaken following the  crash.

Philip, was driving a Land Rover when the accident involving a Kia happened near the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. Prince Phlip and the other driver were breath tested.

According to witnesses who contacted the BBC, Philip’s Land Rover rolled over during the collision on Thursday afternoon.

The witnesses helped the duke from his vehicle the BBC reported, and its website quoted them as saying the Queen’s consort was conscious but “very, very shocked” and shaken.

Norfolk Police said officers were called to the accident at Sandringham just before 3pm after a Land Rover and a Kia were involved in a collision.

“The male driver of the Land Rover was uninjured. The female driver of the Kia suffered cuts while the female passenger sustained an arm injury, both requiring hospital treatment,” the force said.

“We can confirm both casualties from the Kia have been treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn and have since been discharged.

“The road remained open and both vehicles were recovered a short time later.

“It is force policy to breath test drivers involved in collisions. We can confirm both drivers were breath tested and provided negative readings. “

The crash happened on a single carriageway road with a 60mph speed limit.

A wing mirror surrounded by shattered glass and broken plastic was left on the side of the road after the two vehicles were recovered, with tyre tracks across the verge.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman confirmed the duke was driving when the accident happened.

She added: “He saw a doctor as a precaution and the doctor confirmed he was not injured.”

The spokeswoman would not comment on suggestions Philip may have been travelling with a passenger, who is likely to have been his close protection officer.

Berneen Caney, 25, who witnessed the scene of the accident, said: “It appeared to be quite serious, there was a lot of glass over the road as well as debris, I saw one of the cars was quite badly damaged, as for the Range Rover, its windows were smashed.”

 

But with the Queen’s consort in his 98th year there may be calls from some for the duke to give up driving.