Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Police in the East Bay city of Brentwood shot and killed a man whom they pulled over under suspicion of driving under the influence on Christmas Eve. Police say the man resisted arrest and reached for a high-powered rifle before they shot him. [KTVU]

• Local health officials warn that infections from a new variant of the flu are steadily rising in Bay Area children. The variant, known as “H3N2 Flu A subclade K,” jumped from 4.9% on December 6 to 9% a week later. [Mountain View Voice]
• The university of Santa Cruz’s historic Lick Observatory is temporarily closed after winds of up to 114 miles per hour damaged part of the Great Refractor dome. [NBC Bay Area]

National:

• Ashlee Buzzard, the mother of 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, whose body was found December 6 in rural Utah two months after she was reported missing in Southern California, was arraigned Friday on first-degree murder with special allegation. [NBC News]
• Around 1,800 US flights have been canceled and over 22,000 delayed due to severe weather, with more than half taking place at New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport. [Reuters]
• One lucky winner scored the entire $1.817 billion Powerball jackpot on Christmas Eve at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, but they haven't come forward to claim it yet. [Associated Press]

Video of the Day:

• Following his big Thanksgiving feast, Bay Area TV Man delighted a new batch of unsuspecting BART passengers on Christmas Day when he transformed a train into the "Polar Express," placing a festive tree by the car’s doors and hanging up lights and garland throughout the train. He then handed out gifts to passengers on the train and at Civic Center, Daly City, and Lake Merritt stations.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Spotify is rushing to remove dozens of fake podcasts promoting illegal online sales of prescription drugs like Adderall, Xanax, and Oxycodone. Despite taking down many after being alerted, new ones keep appearing, exposing ongoing challenges in moderating user-generated content on the platform. [ABC7]
• Dozens of kayakers in the East Bay city of Richmond disrupted an incoming oil tanker on Friday morning, flying Palestinian flags and displaying banners that read “Big Oil = Death” and “Water Is Life.” [@MovementPhotographer]

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• Cuong Lam, 56, a San Francisco man with multiple warrants, was arrested in Colma after stealing alcohol from BevMo, giving police a fake name, and being caught with drug paraphernalia and burglary tools—while wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg shirt. [KRON4]

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• Three Northern California lottery players recently won a combined $25 million in Scratchers prizes, including two $10 million jackpots—one purchased in Concord—and a $5 million prize in Sacramento. [NBC Bay Area]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The hardly upscale corner store Buddies Market at Chenery and Diamond streets in Glen Park just produced a Powerball jackpot of nearly $1 million for a lucky customer, so it may be your corner store of choice for Saturday’s $171 million drawing.

Glen Park’s Buddies Market is a fairly run-down looking corner store at Chenery and Diamond streets, with badly faded signage, a deteriorating paint job, and basically the same guy behind the counter during all operating hours. But it might be the most popular corner store in San Francisco this weekend.

KRON4 reports that someone won a nearly $1 million prize on a Powerball ticket sold at Buddies Market in Wednesday's drawing. The winner has not been publicly identified, but state lottery officials confirm that the winning ticket sold at Buddies will pay out a $987,439 prize.

So yes, this person lucked out, but they could have won far more. They matched all five winning numbers (23, 34, 37, 50, and 58), but they did not correctly pick the Powerball number, which was 7.

Still, the Bay Area is on a recent roll when it comes to the California Lottery. KRON4 reports that a woman won a $10 million 200X Scratchers prize on a ticket bought at A&A Gas and Food Mart in Dublin just last week. And in early June, somebody won a $621,419 Powerball prize with a ticket bought at 7-Eleven on North Milpitas Boulevard in Milpitas.  

Since the Buddies Market winner did not win the full Powerball prize, that means this Saturday’s drawing will have an estimated jackpot of $171 million. You may want to ride that lucky momentum and grab your Powerball ticket at Buddies Market.

Related: Formerly Homeless Pittsburg Woman Wins $5 Million On Lottery Scratcher Ticket [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

Homeless in 2017, Lucia Forseth hit a $5 million jackpot Wednesday when she bought one lottery scratcher ticket at the Walmart Supercenter in Pittsburg.

Expect long lines at the lottery ticket booth if you happen to shop at the Walmart Supercenter in Pittsburg in the days to come. That’s because East Bay resident Lucia Forseth just won $5 million on a California Lottery scratcher she bought there Wednesday morning, and as NBC Bay Area reports, Forseth was homeless as recently as 2017.

"I only bought one ticket," Forseth said in a California Lottery lottery announcement. "I closed my eyes and picked that one, and it won! I first thought I'd won a free ticket, but I checked, and it said I won $5 million!"

It’s amazing that she bought just the one ticket, and still hit the $5 million jackpot. More surprisingly, she was simply there to get an oil change.

"Six years ago, I was homeless," Forseth added in the release. "This year I am getting married, getting my associate degree, and won $5 million. You never think you have a chance to win it. It is just random. Being homeless just six years ago, I never thought it would happen to someone like me."  

According to KPIX, “Forseth says she plans on buying a house and investing the rest of her newfound fortune.”

Related: SF Woman Wins $2 Million On Scratcher Bought In Tenderloin [SFist]

Image: Emiliano Vittoriosi via Unsplash

This is sure to piss off the people in the 44 other states who bought up Powerball tickets and who think that everyone in California is already rich. But the winning $2 billion ticket was sold in the Los Angeles area, we are now learning, and there is one $1 million winner in San Francisco.

The largest Powerball jackpot in history, $2.04 billion (if you take the annuity), has been won. I am sorry to everyone else who spent hard-earned money on tickets the last two weeks as the jackpot amount climbed. As KRON4 reports, the winning ticket was sold at Joe's Service Center in Altadena, in Los Angeles County.

One winning ticket that matched five out of six numbers was sold in San Francisco, and that will give its owner a big payday (or $1 million annuity).

There was an oddity with this drawing, in that it took about 10 hours longer than usual to occur — something about security protocols in all 48 lottery jurisdictions needing to be met, which they apparently were not at the scheduled drawing time of 7:59 p.m. PT on Monday.

The drawing happened around 6 a.m., and rather than airing live on TV screens, a recording of the drawing was posted to the Powerball website.

As the Chronicle reports, this of course had people crowing all over Twitter about "the fix" being in.

The winning numbers were 10, 33, 41, 47 and 56 with the Powerball 10.

After the jackpot rose to over $2 billion on Monday night, this meant that the lump-sum cash payment to the winner was in the neighborhood of $1 billion.

Top image: George Hollins buys a Powerball ticket at the Shell Gateway store on March 26, 2019 in Boynton Beach, Florida.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

How will you know if you've won $50,000 or one of the $1.5 million grand prizes in California's vaccine lottery drawings? State health officials are going to try to call you on the phone, so you may want to answer unknown calls on your cell for the next couple of weeks.

Friday morning marked the first of three lottery drawings in California's vaccine-incentive program, Vax For the Win, and Governor Gavin Newsom made like a game show host for the televised affair. In today's drawing, no names were given — Newsom drew numbers from a lottery ball machine and people were selected based numeric indicators attached to their names in the state's vaccination registry. Everyone was automatically entered to win prizes when they received their vaccines.

Today's 15 winners were identified publicly only by their county of residence, and there were six from the Bay Area, including two in San Francisco. The winners hailed from Mendocino, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Diego, San Francisco, Orange, and San Luis Obispo counties — so the Central Valley, where perhaps more incentive is needed to get vaccines, was left out so far.

You can watch the drawing, and Gavin's full explanation, in the video below if you have some time to spare.

Each winner today will receive $50,000, before taxes, once they've completed their second shot — and if a winner isn't eligible or can't be reached, their prize moves on to one of 35 backups who were also drawn. Winners are now being informed via phone — so WATCH YOUR PHONES!

As the Sacramento Bee explained this week, officials will do their best to contact winners by phone, text, or email, depending on what information they provided when they received their vaccines. If they can't reach the person within 96 hours, another name will likely be selected, and that cash money will end up going to someone else.

The next drawing of $50,000 prizes will be next Friday, June 11. Then, on the big California Reopening Day of June 15, Newsom will draw 10 more numbers/names, and each of those big winners will receive $1.5 million apiece.

Anyone who hasn't yet gotten a vaccine shot has until then to get one and become eligible to win.

In total, the state is giving out $116.5 million in cash and prizes — including pre-paid debit cards and grocery cards to people getting newly vaccinated — in an effort to boost immunity to COVID around the state. Currently, 70% of Californians have received at least one vaccine shot.

Previously: Forget Free Pizza — California Now Offering $116.5 Million In Cash and Prizes for People to Get Vaccines

California is now offering the largest sum total in vaccine incentives of anywhere in the nation, in a bid to raise the percentage of state residents who are vaccinated against COVID-19.

The state just announced a $116.5 million program that combines an automatic lottery for the already vaccinated with gift cards for the newly vaccinated as well as a lottery for those still getting their shots, with prizes up to $1.5 million for individuals — including kids 12 and up.

Anyone who's received at least one shot of a vaccine already has been automatically entered via the state's immunology registry — and, yes, that exists, and the state already knows if you've been vaccinated. As the Chronicle explains, there will be two drawings on June 4 and June 11, and in each, 15 individual, vaccinated Californians will be randomly chosen to receive $50,000 apiece. Then, on June 15, the day the state is scheduled to fully reopen, there will be a third drawing in which 10 people will be selected to each receive $1.5 million.

If the individual selected is under the age of 18, the money will be deposited into a savings account in their name that will be locked up until they turn 18.

"You don't have to register to do this as is the case in other states," Newsom said in comments today. "You're automatically registered."

Also, he warned, "Don’t go back and get vaccinated again. It won’t work."

For those not yet vaccinated, $50 pre-paid debit cards or $50 grocery cards will be given out to the next 2 million Californians to get their first shots.

Those incentives come as there's been a sharp decline in the number of first shots being administered statewide. California was vaccinated 3 million people at the peak last month, but that has declined to 1.9 million per week, with a lot of those being second doses.

All this adds up to an incentive program that's a far cry from the single $1 million prize that was offered in Ohio, which ended up going to this 22-year-old woman living in a Cincinnati suburb. But will it work?

For the not-yet-vaccinated, that leaves just over two weeks to be entered to win a $1.5 million prize — they'll be entered as long as they get their first dose before the June 15 drawing.

Newsom praised California residents who went out of their way to get their shots early. "What about everybody else that did the right thing?" he said Thursday. "What about you? Two weeks ago, two months ago, took the time away from work, waited in a long line, maybe drove 50 miles into another county and got vaccinated, and gave us the momentum that put us in the position that we are today."

Now you could be rich! Maybe. Hey, the odds are better with this lottery than in the MegaMillions or SuperLotto.

Photo: Giorgio Trovato

A San Francisco woman who got a $20 scratcher for her birthday ended up with a way bigger gift, as the card ended up being worth $2 million.

According to a press release from the California Lottery, 29-year-old SF woman Bich Ha received the game identified as a "California Lottery Crossword Deluxe Scratchers®!", as a birthday gift from her dad, who bought the $20 card at Tenderloin standby Woerner’s Liquors.

As she scratched off the card with her dad, it was her father who realized fortune had struck. According to Ha, “He said, ‘[You] won a lot of money!’” She called her husband and told him to come home from work. He assumed the worst.

“I thought something bad happened,” Ha's husband Calvin Yee said, according to the press release. “I rushed over there.”

Ha already has a plan for the winnings, saying “I really want to get a place for my parents. I definitely want to get them a house, preferably in the City.” It's only after her parents are taken care of that Ha says her husband and she will try to buy a place of their own.

Though I don't want to rain on Ha's good times — and good times they definitely are, as some money is better than none at all — it's worth nothing that $2 million in lottery winnings will have to be spread pretty thin to afford two places in San Francisco.

According to the California Lottery Winner's Handbook, winnings by CA residents are exempt from state and local income taxes. However, there's still the federal to deal with! If provided with a winner's Social Security Number, the CA Lottery will deduct 25 percent of the winnings before the funds are disbursed, sending that straight to the feds. (No Social and that goes up to 28 percent, and those who don't disclose citizenship status hand over 30.)

But that percent isn't the only time you'll pay taxes on your winnings, as "Federal tax rates are subject to change and there may be an additional tax liability depending on a winner’s total financial situation." So, depending on the tax bracket a win moves you into, you might end up having to pay even more next April.

And then there's the CA Lottery's own payment system to deal with: According to the CA Lottery, Scratchers games that exceed a certain award (like Ha's) are only paid out in "graduated installments." If a winner chooses to cash out all at once, they'll only receive "a designated percentage of the annuity prize." The number of installments and cash payout percentage for a particular game is detailed on the back of that game's ticket.

So, in an absolute best-case scenario, Ha will get $1.5 million, paid out in as many as 30 installments. Will that be enough to buy two homes in San Francisco's current housing bubble? Maybe not, but it's probably still not a bad start.

Related: SF Man Who Won Lottery Twice Should Probably Give Somebody Else A Chance

Last night's historically huge Powerball jackpot is going to dramatically change the life of somebody in Chicopee, Massachusetts. But two Bay Area ticket-holders aren't doing too bad themselves after getting five of the numbers correct, just not the Powerball. As the Chronicle reports, three such tickets were sold in California this past week, two of them locally — one at a Chevron gas station in Milpitas and the other at the Lucky supermarket in Daly City.

Both winners had the five numbers drawn — 6, 7, 16, 23, and 26 — just not the Powerball number, 4.

Weirdly, the same Chevron in Milpitas sold a winning jackpot ticket in 2014 that was worth $425 million, so you know where to go the next time there's a big jackpot at stake.

The odds of winning Wednesday night's jackpot, the second largest in US history, were one in 292,201,338.

As the Washington Post reported this week, tweaks to the Powerball game made in October 2015 — namely increasing the number of available numbers from 59 to 69 — made the odds of winning way slimmer than they used to be. Back in those days, the chances of taking the jackpot were about one in 175 million. This is why we're seeing bigger and bigger jackpots these days, like the largest ever in US history in January 2016, which was $1.6 billion. That jackpot was split between three winners.

Frank Derfield, 53, has hit the jackpot... and before that, he'd hit a pot that wasn't quite the jackpot but wasn't too bad either.

Crediting "stupid luck" in speaking to CBS 5, the San Francisco resident says he scored a winning lotto ticket, one that netted him $5 million, in September at WC Liquor and Groceries (1836 Divisadero). Previously, Derfield won about $100,000 — a serious windfall — just a little more than a year ago.

As he tells the CA Lottery, “It was shock. Disbelief. I definitely defied the odds a lot more this time!” Those odds were 1 in 3,000,000.

Of course, Derfield has been playing the lotto since 1984, so perhaps it was just his time. Regardless, this guy's lotto-playing time should be over — but Derfield doesn't even say for sure if he's going to stop buying lotto tickets.

Finally, for the San Francisco housing angle: Derfield tells CBS 5 how he'll spend the money, and it may not be on a house. “We’re too old to go out and party too much," Derfield says of himself and his wife, "So we’re going to bank it, go on a trip — maybe get rid of my ’85 Toyota Camry, or maybe a house, but I don’t know. San Francisco, the housing market is crazy here.”

Ah, San Francisco: The city so expensive you need to win the lottery three times before you can truly contemplate home ownership.

In these Troubled San Francisco Times, there is a lot of talk about who was here when, and what that does (or doesn't) mean. In an effort to both assist newcomers and take long-time residents down memory lane, we present to you Ask a San Francisco Native, a column penned by SF native and longtime SFist contributor Rain Jokinen, which is inspired by a similar one on our sister site Gothamist, and is intended to put to rest all those questions only a native of this city can answer. Send yours here!

Dear Rain,

If you won the lottery and could suddenly buy a house in any San Francisco neighborhood, where would that be? Why?

Signed,

Money Dreams

Dear MD,

I've been living in rentals my entire life, and owning a house here has long fallen out of the realm of possibility for me, so of course I have fantasized about winning the lottery, and buying all kinds of places (and not just that condo complex I want to replace with a dive bar).

I've dreamed about buying an apartment building and then renting it out to all the family I have who have are also lifelong renters (some of whom have had to leave the city for cheaper dwellings outside of the state). In those dreams I could get away with charging next to nothing. (This is a fantasy, I don't have to worry about taxes and upkeep, remember?)

Then I'd buy my parents a house, something with a view, and a garden, wherever they'd like. It would most likely be somewhere on Potrero Hill, where they currently live, since they appreciate the somewhat isolated feel of the area. Or maybe they'd want to change it up, and live somewhere where you can more easily walk to restaurants and movie theaters...

And then I'd get to choose MY house. And you know what? It wouldn't be a house!

I've lived in apartments my entire life, and I've realized it's what I feel most comfortable in. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of having a huge space, and multiple floors, and not sharing walls with neighbors.

But I also kind of dig being surrounded by other people; there's something about it that makes me feel more secure. Plus there's free entertainment when your neighbors fight! (I'm talking to you, downstairs neighbors who were fighting again last night. Next time, do it louder, so I don't have to lay on floor to hear it clearly!)

I'd want to be somewhere with history, so nothing built in the last 40 years. I'd like a place with a panoramic view, so it would probably have to be a neighborhood on a hill. While I'm not too keen on maintaining a garden, it would still be nice to have access to some outside space, so maybe something with a nice deck. Stairs suck, so toss in an elevator. I'd have a parking space, but I still prefer being able to walk to my favorite places easily, so nothing in the outerlands.

All those things considered, and I'm probably looking at a building on a hill. Factor in my love of movies, and it all adds up to an apartment in the famous Dark Passage building on Montgomery Street on Telegraph Hill, one of which — alas! — was sold earlier this year.

But if I've won't the lottery, I can probably convince someone to leave with a little cash incentive, right?

Also, how much lottery are we talking here? Like, a billion dollars? Or just a couple of measly millions? Because ideally, I'd buy that apartment, and then buy an actual house somewhere else, like Palm Springs, which I could then rent out as a vacation spot when I wasn't there. (Especially during Coachella — I'd rake in the dough then!)

And why not toss in a nice little beachside shack somewhere in Hawaii, and a studio apartment in New Orleans? I'm assuming I have enough money to just venture from place to place all I want for the rest of my life, right?

So, in summation: A couple of measly millions: An apartment in the Malloch Building in the city. Billions: Homes for my family, that art deco apartment for myself in SF, and some vacation homes in my favorites spots.

Man. Being an imaginary billionaire is the best!

Now, if you'll excuse me...back in the real world, I'm off to warm up the final slices of the leftover pizza I've been eating for the last three days.

Rain Jokinen was born and raised in San Francisco and, miraculously, still calls the city home. Her future plans include becoming a millionaire, buying a condo complex, and then tearing it down to replace it with a dive bar. You can ask this native San Franciscan your questions here.

The $1.5 billion Powerball drawing is at 7:59 p.m. PT tonight, and you are unreasonably confident that you are going to win. (NOTE: You are not going to win.) But do you have your tickets yet? If not, we’ve curated this list of the statistically luckiest liquor stores in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, i.e. stores whose premises have sold million-dollar and above winning lottery tickets on multiple occasions since the enactment of the California State Lottery Act of 1984.

The Luckiest Lottery Liquor Store in the Bay Area

Check out the #Powerball line for tickets into Kavanagh Liquors in San Lorenzo! It goes all the way down the block. pic.twitter.com/YpDLL7pCMB

— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) January 10, 2016

The cash register at Kavanagh Liquors in San Lorenzo has sold five — count ‘em — five jackpot-winning lottery tickets since 1998, including a $28.5 million winning ticket in 2003. (That jackpot went unclaimed, but it still counts.) Look at line around that place! That line was for Saturday’s jackpot of a mere $900 million, today’s line may be even longer. If you want to buy your Powerball ticket there, you need to leave work and head over to this Alameda County liquor store right now.

Luckiest Lottery Liquor Stores in San Francisco

There are two liquor stores in San Francisco that have each issued two winning lottery tickets with substantial large jackpots. 19th Avenue Liquors in the Inner Sunset has sold two winning lottery tickets with combined jackpots of more than $20 million. Miraloma Market in West Portal sold a $22 million winning ticket in 1997 and a $15 million winning ticket in 1990, plus a $271,000 winning ticket in 1992.

Luckiest Lottery Liquor Stores in the Greater Bay Area

Image: Simon F. via Yelp

Eleven other liquor stores in the Bay Area have each on two separate occasions sold winning lottery tickets for jackpots of more than a million dollars. These lucky stores and their addresses are listed in bullet-point fashion below.

• Crystal Springs Wine & Spirits, 740 Polhemus Rd., San Mateo, CA


• Delta Pure Water, 41 Sand Creek Rd, Brentwood, CA


• Hana's Bottle Shop, 3149 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA


• JP Liquors, 996 Loraine Ave., Los Altos, CA


• Kwik Stop, 3157 Walnut Ave., Fremont, CA


• Liquor City, 1230 W Hillsdale Blvd., San Mateo, CA


• Lyons Liquor, 4100 Foothill Blvd., Oakland, CA


• Quick Mart, 2480 Skyline Blvd., Pacifica, CA


• 7-Eleven, 1540 Solano Ave. Albany, CA


• 7-Eleven, 2150 S. Fremont Ave., Alhambra, CA


• 7-Eleven, 4270 Senter Rd., San Jose, CA

The Safeway at 350 Bay Street has a pretty tarnished reputation, from incidents that got it named one of SF's "sketchiest" earlier this year to CW Nevius' report last month that shoplifters steal from there with gleeful abandon. Perhaps their image will improve somewhat this week, after news broke that a patron won a million bucks at the Fisherman's Wharf area store.

According to a press release sent by the California Lottery, area woman Janet Smith recently bought a Million $$ Match Scratcher ticket at the Safeway in question. When the ticket's information was revealed, she realized she was a winner — and not of that five or ten bucks most of us get (if we play at all) — she'd scored the million dollar prize.

Sure, after taxes that's probably not enough to buy a house in San Francisco, but I still wouldn't turn that down, would you? The Safeway will also get $5000 for selling Smith the ticket, which might enable them to hire store security that actually does something when people steal things that cost less than $1000, aka "anything you could possibly ever steal from a Safeway."

Previously: SF's Sketchiest Safeways, Ranked