NEWS

5 things you need to know Wednesday

Editors
USA TODAY
Balbir Atwal, the owner of a 7-Eleven store that sold a winning Powerball lottery ticket, holds up a Millionaire Made Here, sign at his store in Chino Hills, Calif.

Huge lottery prize set to spark jackpot fever

Let the dreaming begin. Again. With the multistate Powerball jackpot having reached $403 million – and probably more by the time the drawing is done – lottery fever will once again heat up as the numbers are picked on Wednesday at 11 p.m. ET. At its current level, the prize is the 10th largest in the history of the game, which is played in 44 states,?  the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,  and it has reached the level where many occasional players start buying tickets. What happens if no one wins Wednesday? Get ready to line up again on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

Fed to give clues on the future of interest rates

Thinking about a mortgage? A car loan? Then this bit of seemingly obscure financial news — the release on Wednesday of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting — may actually affect you. The reveal indicates whether the Fed will raise interest rates in March, a move that will almost inevitably lead to higher lending costs and would continue the increase in rates begun in December after a year’s break. Let the tea leaf reading begin!

 

 

 

 

 

Patient group goes after high drug prices

A new advocacy group launches Wednesday to target high drug prices and eschew money from the pharmaceutical industry as drugmakers spend millions on a campaign against regulation efforts. Patients for Affordable Drugs (PFAD) is designed to help address soaring rising drug prices, which along with the uninsured and those with high out-of-pocket costs, affects taxpayers and even those who aren't on drugs but pay health premiums. The group's formation comes on the heels of the latest huge drug price hikes, the 600% increase in the price of Kaleo's Evzio opioid antidote.

It's a wrap for the DAPL protesters camp 

Opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline have until Wednesday to vacate their encampment on federal land in North Dakota.  Despite attempts to extend the deadline, the Army Corps of Engineers insists the hundreds of protesters must leave by 2 p.m. local time. The camp, launched in August, once sheltered thousands who supported the concerns of Sioux nations that the nearly $3.8 billion pipeline that is designed to carry oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to Illinois threatens the environment and sacred sites.

NASA to discuss 'discovery beyond our Solar System'

What lies beyond our solar system? NASA may provide some more details at a news conference Wednesday, according to the agency website. Not much is known on what the space agency will share, though in announcing details of the event NASA said it will provide "findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets." The news conference is set for 1 p.m. ET. Fingers remain crossed that NASA will upgrade Pluto to its status as a planet once again.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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