HFAMILY CLAIMS JACKPOT WORTH $340 MILLION

hFamily claims jackpotworth $340 million
SALEM, Ore. -- A family that parlayed $40 worth of tickets into the second-biggest jackpot in U.S. lottery history came forward Tuesday to claim the $340 million prize. "I'm still in disbelief that we won the big one," said Frances Chaney, 68, who went in on the Powerball ticket with her 72-year-old husband Bob, their daughter and daughter's husband. The Powerball numbers were drawn Oct. 19, but the four waited to claim their winnings at Oregon Lottery headquarters until they consulted with tax and financial advisers, said the Chaneys' son-in-law, Steve West, 48. Frances Chaney said she checked lottery numbers on the Internet on the night of the drawing, and was shocked to see they had the winning numbers. "My husband is a big joker, and my son-in-law thought he had somehow dummied up a ticket," Frances Chaney said.
Social Security overhaul
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's chief domestic priority for his second term, overhauling Social Security, probably won't come up again in Congress until 2009 -- after Bush has left office -- the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday. Iowa Republican Charles Grassley told an audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that he's "very pessimistic" that lawmakers can act any sooner. "When you get into an election year, then you're in the presidential election cycle, I'm pessimistic that it could come up before 2009," he said. "Doesn't mean that I won't try to bring it up before 2009." The White House said the president doesn't see upcoming elections as an obstacle and intends to keep pushing for plans that he outlined in his State of the Union speech. Bush wanted lawmakers to establish personal accounts and shore up the program's financial health.
General counsel sendsreport on secret prisons
WASHINGTON -- The CIA took the first step toward a criminal investigation of a leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post, a U.S. official said Tuesday. The agency's general counsel sent a report to the Justice Department about the Post story, which reported the existence of secret U.S. detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern Europe. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the referral was made shortly after the Nov. 2 story. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity came about through the same referral procedure.
Nominee has respect forRoe vs. Wade, senators say
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito expressed "great respect" for the precedent established by the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion decision but didn't commit to upholding it, senators said Tuesday as Alito began a second week courting their support. Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, both used the word "respect" when describing the 55-year-old federal appellate judge's discussions with them on the 1973 ruling that established abortion rights. Alito said "Roe was precedent on which people, a lot of people, relied and had been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect," Lieberman told reporters after his private meeting with the judge.
Evolution takes a stepback in Kansas schools
TOPEKA, Kan. -- Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools in violation of the separation of church and state.
Man gets life in prisonfor killing deer hunters
HAYWARD, Wis. -- A Hmong immigrant convicted of murdering six deer hunters and attempting to kill two others after a trespassing dispute was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday with no chance for parole. Judge Norman Yackel ordered Chai Soua Vang, 37, to serve six life prison terms, one after the other, guaranteeing he would never be freed from prison. Wisconsin does not have a death penalty.
Associated Press