oddly enough

oddly enough

$20 found in San Francisco leads to $1 million lottery win

SAN FRANCISCO

A San Francisco Bay Area man won $1 million in the California Lottery after buying a winning ticket with money he found at the airport.

The California Lottery said Sunday that Hubert Tang had not bought a lottery ticket in 10 years.

When he found a $20 bill on the street outside San Francisco International Airport last week, he used it to buy two scratch-off tickets at a market in Millbrae.

One of them led to the $1 million top prize.

He told the California Lottery that he was in shock when he won.

“I scratched the ticket outside of the store. I told my friend who I was with that I didn’t know if it was real but, ‘I think I just won a million dollars,’” Tang said in a statement. He wasn’t immediately available to comment Monday.

Tang, who works as a bartender, plans to save the money for now. Lottery officials said the store will receive a $5,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket Wednesday.

He also has a second chance to win up to $25,000 for the other ticket he purchased that was not a winner.

Tang says he may begin leaving $20 bills on the street in random places to spread his good fortune.

Purported Facebook mention in prayer call sparks Egypt outcry

CAIRO

Egyptians in a Nile Delta province were outraged Sunday after a cleric purportedly changed a line in the traditional Islamic call to prayer to mention Facebook.

Instead of saying “prayer is better than sleep” twice during the dawn prayer, Sheikh Mahmoud Maghazi of Beheira province purportedly said: “Prayer is better than Facebook.” The issue drew nationwide attention when he defended himself against shouted accusations on one of Egypt’s most-watched television talk shows, called “10 PM.”

Talk-show hosts play a major role in leading public opinion in Egypt, where a quarter of the population is illiterate.

The Religious Endowments Ministry ordered an investigation after residents complained last week, senior ministry official Mohamed Abdelrazik said. That prompted Maghazi to go on a hunger strike and deny that he made the reference.

“I don’t know what Facebook, is and I don’t know how it is spelled,” he swore to the silver-haired host, Wael el-Ibrashy. Maghazi went on to charge his accusers with being members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group.

He said they were trying to remove him from the mosque because he would not allow them to have protests and organize unlicensed Islamic lessons there.

Mosques have been monitored closely as part of the security crackdown on the Brotherhood and its supporters after the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

Associated Press