By SCOTT McFETRIDGE, Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Lottery players are going to have a shot at more billion-dollar jackpots and slightly better odds under new Mega Millions rules that go into effect with Tuesday’s drawing.

But the improvements come at a cost — literally: Players will have to shell out $5 per ticket, more than double the previous price. On the other hand, the jackpots are expected to grow much bigger — and at a faster rate — and officials believe sales will rise as people are stopped in their tracks by massive prizes.

“People really want big jackpots,” said Joshua Johnston, the Washington state lottery director who heads the Mega Millions game. “We expect to see a sales lift on this.”

Pete Gruber points a Mega Millions lottery ticket after he purchased at Mares Mart in Chicago, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

HOW IS MEGA MILLIONS CHANGING?

The biggest change is the ticket price hike from $2 to $5. Lottery officials expect that jump to increase revenue from the twice-weekly game, enabling them to lower the odds of winning the jackpot from 1 in 303 million to 1 in 290 million.

The higher ticket price also means the jackpot can start at $50 million, rather than the previous $20 million, and the grand prize is expected to grow more quickly. Each time there isn’t a big winner, the jackpot will jump to a larger mark. Officials expect it will more frequently top the $1 billion threshold that draws extra attention — and bigger sales.

Under the new rules, prizes for tickets not matching all six numbers also will increase, with smaller winners now guaranteed at least $10. Each ticket also will include a randomly assigned multiplier that can increase the prize by up to 10 times, a previous add-on feature that cost an extra $1. The multiplier doesn’t apply to a jackpot.

WILL THIS MAKE WINNING A JACKPOT EASIER?

Yes, but it’s still incredibly unlikely: Odds of 1 in 290 million are still mind-bogglingly hard to beat. And that’s true if you buy one ticket or 100.

“When we hear 1 in 290 million, we don’t have a sense of what that means. We have a greater sense of the fact that there will be a winning number,” said Tim Chartier, a mathematics and computer science professor at Davidson College. “And it’s true that it’s possible, but the issue is the extreme improbability of it.”

How improbable? The chance of hitting a jackpot, even under the new rules, is akin to choosing one single second over a nine-year span, according to Chartier. He said he’s never been willing to risk even a couple bucks on those odds.

WHY IS THE GAME CHANGING?

The new rules have two main goals: to address what the industry calls “jackpot fatigue” and to differentiate Mega Millions from Powerball, the other lottery draw game played across the country.

Jackpot fatigue is the phenomenon under which prizes must grow to enormous amounts before most players will take note and buy a few tickets. These days, a $300 million prize that once drew lines at mini-marts barely registers.

With the new rules, officials expect those average winning jackpots to climb from about $450 million to $800 million, Johnston said. And they believe that even lottery fatigue is no match for the more frequent billion-dollar prize.

“When you get to a billion people are like, ‘Whoa, that’s a whole lot of money,’” Johnston said.

Lottery officials said there is a clear correlation between bigger jackpots and higher sales but Sandie Yeaman, of Omaha, Nebraska, expressed puzzlement at the connection.

“I’d be satisfied with $1 million, and so would others,” she said. “One person winning $50 million is ridiculous.”

HOW RARE IS A $5 TICKET PRICE?

Mega Millions will be the country’s most expensive lottery draw game, where random numbers are selected to determine a winner.

Still, that price is far less than scratch tickets offered by some states. In Texas, for example, some scratch tickets cost $100 each.

Outside the U.S., the El Gordo Christmas lottery in Spain limits the number of tickets sold and charges 20 euros for a partial ticket and 200 euros for a full ticket.

The higher Mega Millions price left Saeedith Williams of East Point, Georgia, unsure if he’ll keep buying several tickets a week. “Maybe I’ll buy one ticket a week now that it’s $5 a ticket,” he said.

WHAT ABOUT POWERBALL?

After the new rules are implemented, the two lottery games that once were remarkably similar now will have some key differences.

The biggest contrast will be the cost, as Powerball will stick with its $2 tickets — $3 in Idaho and Montana where they require a special prize bundle.

With that smaller ticket price will come smaller minimal prizes, starting at $4, or less than half the lowest Mega Millions prize. But Powerball players will still be able to pay an extra dollar for “Power Play,” a random multiplier that, as in Mega Millions, can increase all but the grand prize.

Powerball drawings will continue to be three times a week — Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights — while Mega Millions will hold drawings on Tuesday and Friday.

The changes will bring the two games’ jackpot odds a little closer, with Powerball jackpot odds of 1 in 292.2 million just a bit worse than the new Mega Millions odds.

Remind me, what’s the point of all this?

For players, it’s a chance to spend a little money on a dream of incredible riches while acknowledging the reality that it almost certainly won’t happen.

For the 45 states plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands where Mega Millions is played, the game raises money for a variety of services, such as education scholarships. Local lottery agencies run the game in each jurisdiction and decisions about how the profits are divvied up are written into state law.

AP writer Margery A. Beck contributed to this story from Omaha, Nebraska.

By EDDIE PELLS, Associated Press National Writer

Hours before college basketball crowns its next champion, the future of college sports will be hanging in the balance in a California courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s scheduled hearing Monday in a courtroom in Oakland is expected to be the last one before the changes will truly begin under an industry-changing, $2.8 billion settlement of a five-year-old lawsuit against the NCAA and the nation’s largest conferences. Among other things, it will clear the way for schools to pay up to $20.5 million each with their athletes.

Wilken has already granted preliminary approval for the settlement. It was unknown whether she will give final approval at Monday’s hearing, which is expected to include testimony from some of those objecting to details of the sprawling plan. LSU gymnast and influencer Olivia Dunne is among the 18 people scheduled to testify, though she is expected to appear via Zoom.

The new structure outlined by the settlement, which represents a shift in billions of dollars from the schools into the pockets of athletes, is supposed to go into effect on July 1.

Universities across the country have been busy making plans, under the assumption Wilken will put the terms into effect.

“We’re going to have a plan going into July 1, then we’re probably going to spend the next year figuring out how good that plan is and how we need to modify it going forward,” said Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, whose department is among the biggest in the country and includes a Gators men’s basketball team playing for the national title late Monday against Houston.

The so-called House settlement, named after Arizona State swimmer Grant House, actually decides three similar lawsuits that were bundled into one. The defendants are the NCAA and the Southeastern, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences, all of whom have been touting the settlement as the best path forward for their industry.

“It’s a huge step forward for college sports, especially at the highest level,” said NCAA President Charlie Baker, whose organization continues to seek antitrust protections from Congress. “My biggest problem with the way the whole thing works right now is the schools have been removed from the primary relationship with the student-athletes.”

The most ground-shifting part of the settlement calls on schools from the biggest conferences to pay some 22% of their revenue from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships — which equals about $20.5 million in the first year — directly to athletes for use of their name, images and likeness (NIL).

Still allowed would be NIL payments to athletes from outside sources, which is what triggered the seismic shift college sports has endured over the last four years. For instance, Cooper Flagg of Duke reportedly makes $4.8 million in NIL deals from groups affiliated with the school and others.

The settlement calls for a “clearinghouse” to make sure any NIL deal worth more than $600 is pegged at “fair market value.” It’s an attempt to prevent straight “pay for play” deals, though many critics believe the entire new structure is simply NIL masquerading as that.

Another key element is the $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes who played sports between 2016 and 2024 and were not entitled to the full benefits of NIL at the time they attended schools. Those payments are being calculated by a formula that will favor football and basketball players and will be doled out by the NCAA and the conferences.

The settlement also calls for replacing scholarship limits with roster limits. The effect would be to allow every athlete to be eligible for a scholarship while cutting the number of spots available.

There will be winners and losers under such a formula, though some fear it could signal the end of the “walk-on” athlete in college sports and also imperil smaller sports programs that train and populate the U.S. Olympic team.

“It’s time for the Adams Administration to acknowledge that recognizing the problem is just the beginning; meaningful reforms must follow—ones that not only uphold the law but also protect religious freedom and honor the dignity of every New Yorker.”

Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office.

This past February, Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) took to their social media accounts to “celebrate” World Hijab Day—a day dedicated to honoring, promoting understanding, and showing solidarity with Muslim women who wear the hijab.

This show of support rings hollow when contrasted with the NYPD’s increasing use of a disturbing tactic at protests: forcibly removing women’s hijabs as a brutal form of crowd control and intimidation.

Last month, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP (ECBAWM) filed a lawsuit on behalf of two hijabi protestors, Zarmeen Azam and Shajnin Howlader, who were assaulted, including being strangled, and had their hijabs forcefully removed by NYPD officers while peacefully protesting.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations New York joined the lawsuit as an organizational plaintiff because the NYPD’s practice of forcibly removing protestors’ hijabs directly undermines our mission to protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower Muslims.

This alarming behavior not only interferes with our efforts to support hate crime victims—who are deterred from seeking justice when they fear the police—but also hinders our work to empower Muslims to exercise their First Amendment rights and defend religious liberty. When the NYPD suppresses these fundamental rights, it weakens our ability to advocate for New York’s Muslim community.

Forcing someone to remove a hijab—a headscarf that covers the hair, ears, neck, and parts of the chest—in public, particularly in the presence of men who are not immediate family, is a profound violation of their deeply held religious beliefs. This act not only assaults the wearer’s faith and dignity but also infringes upon their constitutional rights, including free speech, religious freedom, and bodily integrity.

Both Ms. Howlader and Ms. Azam, who wear the hijab as a central part of their faith, were subjected to this violation in a manner no New Yorker should ever endure.

At a protest last August calling attention to the genocide in Palestine, NYPD officers shoved, grabbed, pepper-sprayed, and violently choked Ms. Howlader with her hijab. Her desperate cries for help, including repeatedly shouting “I can’t breathe,” were callously ignored by the police. The physical and emotional toll of that traumatic experience continues to haunt her, manifesting in flashbacks, sleep loss, and a fear of crowds.

Ms. Azam was choked by an NYPD officer, who strangled her with one hand while striking at protestors with a baton in his other hand. She was then dragged through the crowd, had her shirt lifted up repeatedly while being arrested, and denied the opportunity to adjust her hijab when placed in a cell. The emotional trauma of having her dignity stripped away in front of strangers was compounded by the fact that other officers stood by without intervening.

Ms. Howlader and Ms. Azam demand justice—not just for themselves, but for all hijabi women who have endured similar acts of violence and humiliation.

Since last summer, CAIR-NY has received numerous complaints from women who reported that NYPD officers aggressively ripped off their hijabs during protests. At least five other women have shared experiences with CAIR-NY from incidents in June, July, August, and September, where officers at protests violently and publicly removed their hijabs.

This is not the first time the NYPD has faced criticism over its handling of religious head coverings.

In 2018, ECBAWM filed a class action lawsuit against the city challenging the NYPD’s practice of forcing individuals to remove their religious head coverings, including hijabs, for post-arrest photos. The lawsuit argued that this practice violated the constitutional rights of individuals to freely practice their religion.

The lawsuit settled last year, and as part of the settlement, which included $17.5 million in damages for class members, the NYPD revised its policies regarding the removal of religious head coverings. The revised policy ensures that such coverings will only be removed for booking photos under specific, narrowly defined circumstances, safeguarding individuals’ right to religious expression.

But there is still much work to be done.

NYPD personnel must never be permitted to forcibly or publicly remove women’s hijabs. While City Hall and the NYPD may continue to post their support for Muslim women and the hijab on social media, actions speak far louder than tweets.

It’s time for the Adams Administration to acknowledge that recognizing the problem is just the beginning; meaningful reforms must follow—ones that not only uphold the law but also protect religious freedom and honor the dignity of every New Yorker.

Christina John is a staff attorney with the legal team at the Council on American-Islamic Relations New York

The post Opinion: The NYPD’s Troubling Practice of Removing Women’s Hijabs at Protests appeared first on City Limits.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump remained defiant on Monday as global markets continued plunging and fears of a recession grew after his tariff announcement last week.

He said other countries had been “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA!” in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform.

“Our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country,” Trump wrote. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

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Trump has insisted his tariffs are necessary to rebalance global trade and rebuild domestic manufacturing. He has singled out China as “the biggest abuser of them all” and criticized Beijing for increasing its own tariffs in retaliation.

The Republican president also called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the tariffs could increase inflation, and he said “there’s a lot of waiting and seeing going on, including by us,” before any decisions would be made.

Trump spent the weekend in Florida, arriving on Thursday night to attend a Saudi-funded tournament at his Miami golf course. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, and golfed at two of his properties nearby.

On Sunday, he posted a video of himself hitting a drive, and he told reporters aboard Air Force One that evening that he won a club championship.

“It’s good to win,” Trump said. “You heard I won, right?”

He also said that he wouldn’t back down from his tariffs despite the turmoil in the global markets.

“Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump said.

Goldman Sachs issued a new forecast saying a recession has become more likely even if Trump backtracks from his tariffs. The financial firm said economic growth would slow dramatically “following a sharp tightening in financial conditions, foreign consumer boycotts, and a continued spike in policy uncertainty that is likely to depress capital spending by more than we had previously assumed.”

On Monday, the president is scheduled to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House to celebrate their World Series victory. He’s also meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they’re expected to hold a joint press conference in the afternoon.

Trump has strived for a united front after the chaotic infighting of his first term. However, the economic turbulence has exposed some fractures within his disparate coalition of supporters.

Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager, lashed out at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Sunday as “indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing.” He said Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm led by Lutnick before he joined the Trump administration, stood to profit because of bond investments.

On Monday, Ackman apologized for his criticism but reiterated his concerns about Trump’s tariffs.

“I am just frustrated watching what I believe to be a major policy error occur after our country and the president have been making huge economic progress that is now at risk due to the tariffs,” he wrote on X.

Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News Channel that Ackman should “ease off the rhetoric a little bit.”

He insisted that other countries, not the United States, are “going to bear the brunt of the tariffs.”

Billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Trump on overhauling the federal government, expressed skepticism about tariffs over the weekend. Musk has said that tariffs would drive up costs for Tesla, his electric automaker.

“I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk said in a video conference with Italian politicians.

He added, “That certainly has been my advice to the president.”

Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser and tariff proponent, later told Fox News that Musk “doesn’t understand” the situation.

“He sells cars,” Navarro said. “That’s what he does.” He added that, “He’s simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do.”