Winning $494m lottery ticket sold in city battered by Hurricane Ian


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A winning lottery ticket worth a half-share of a $494 million Mega Millions jackpot was bought in a south-west Florida city battered by Hurricane Ian late last month.

Florida lottery officials on Monday said one of the two winning tickets was bought at a 7-Eleven convenience shop in Fort Myers. The other winning ticket was bought in California.

Hurricane Ian made landfall in south-west Florida as a Category 4 storm on September 28 and has been blamed for more than 100 deaths in the state.

It was the third-deadliest storm to hit the US mainland this century. More than half of the storm-related deaths in Florida were reported in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers.

Lottery winners in Florida have 180 days to claim their prize. Under a new state law, they can stay anonymous for 90 days from the day they claim the winnings, if their prize is worth $250,000 or more.

Past winners have also set up legal trusts as a way to keep their identities anonymous.

Rescuing the people and pets of Pine Island, Florida - in pictures

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

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Anti-semitic attacks
The annual report by the Community Security Trust, which advises the Jewish community on security , warned on Thursday that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had reached a record high.

It found there had been 2,255 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2021, a rise of 34 per cent from the previous year.

The report detailed the convictions of a number of people for anti-Semitic crimes, including one man who was jailed for setting up a neo-Nazi group which had encouraged “the eradication of Jewish people” and another who had posted anti-Semitic homemade videos on social media. 

Updated: October 18, 2022, 10:54 PM`