Ind. town wonders who won jackpot?

Ind. town wonders who won jackpot?

INDIANAPOLIS

Residents of a small Indiana town were abuzz with excitement Saturday after learning that the only winning ticket for a Mega Millions jackpot worth an estimated $540 million was sold at a local gas station.

Dennis Rosebrough, a Hoosier Lottery spokesman, said the winning ticket for Friday’s drawing was sold at a Speedway station along Interstate 70 in Cambridge City, a community of about 2,000 residents 50 miles east of Indianapolis.

A person who answered the phone at that store directed calls to Marathon Petroleum’s corporate headquarters.

A spokesman, Brandon Daniels, said the company had no comment.

Air Force seeks missing airman

MIDDLETOWN, IND.

The U.S. Air Force is searching for an Indiana airman who vanished last week in Italy after attending a cookout near the base where he’s served for more than a year.

The Air Force issued an all-points bulletin Friday for Staff Sgt. Halex Hale. The 24-year-old from Middletown, Ind., is assigned to the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base, about 50 miles northeast of Venice.

Hale was last seen on the evening of July 2 at a cookout at a friend’s house in Sacile, Italy, about nine miles from the base.

City enacts ban on foam products

SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco, say goodbye to those squeaky, Styrofoam-like coffee cups that have long been a staple of picnic outings.

In fact, people in San Francisco won’t be able to buy polystyrene foam coolers, kiddie pool toys or packing peanuts after supervisors approved a measure in June that goes far beyond the prohibition on foam food carryout containers in effect in dozens of cities and counties.

Environmentalist are cheering San Francisco’s ban as the most comprehensive by a large U.S. jurisdiction on the cheap insulating foam that cushions goods and keeps drinks hot or cold. They say the lightweight plastic is extremely slow to decompose, and it pollutes waterways, harming marine life and birds.

Syria’s military extends cease-fire

BEIRUT

Fierce clashes erupted between rebels and pro-government forces around Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, on Saturday despite a proclamation from the Syrian military that it would extend its own cease-fire through Monday.

The military had declared a nationwide cease-fire for the Eid al-Fitr holiday July 6, expiring July 8 at midnight, but it had little impact on the ground, as pro-government forces choked off the last supply route to opposition areas in the contested city of Aleppo on July 7.

On Saturday evening, rebels launched a counteroffensive, leading with two car bombs to open the vital Castello road to eastern Aleppo, according to activists.

Doctors: More than 100 bodies taken in

NAIROBI, KENYA

Soldiers have brought scores of bodies to a hospital in South Sudan’s capital after gunfire erupted throughout Juba on Friday evening, a doctor at the hospital said Saturday, as panicked residents worried of a return to civil war.

The doctor said a total count of the dead was not available because soldiers were not allowing doctors to examine the bodies, but he said the morgue was full at Juba Teaching Hospital. Another doctor there estimated 110 bodies, both soldiers and civilians. It was the first word of deaths from Friday’s violence.

Associated Press