Shanzhai Biennial: Dark Optimism

This song, like the dress and the woman wearing it, is the sincerest form of flattery. In that they're all shameless knockoffs.

Everything about this music video from Shanzhai Biennial, a trio of artists?Cyril Duval, Babak Radboy and Avena Gallagher?posing as a ?multinational brand posing as an art-project posing as an multinational brand posing as a biennial? is fake.

Living up to their Shanzhai namesake (the Chinese convention of knockoff goods) for this project, the group got Chinese model Wu Ting Ting to fein lip syncing to a Nova Heart rendition of Sinead O'Connors "Nothing Compares 2 U" while wearing a dress that looks suspiciously like a bottle of Head and Shoulders.

?The relevance of the song is right there in the title,? Radboy told Nowness. ?We were searching desperately for a version in Mandarin and finally found a recording on an obscure and outdated Chinese social networking site by a pretty busted looking queen in his 40s?so there are four levels of separation there.? Two more and you win a free Kevin Bacon.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/shanzhai-biennial-dark-optimism-508958890

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Policy, discretion guide media sources probes

The screen on the phone console at the reception desk at The Associated Press Washington bureau, Monday, My 13, 2013. The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

The screen on the phone console at the reception desk at The Associated Press Washington bureau, Monday, My 13, 2013. The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It was a rare moment in relations between the media and the government: In 2008, FBI Director Robert Mueller called the top editors at The New York Times and The Washington Post to apologize because the bureau had improperly obtained reporters' telephone records four years earlier.

The extraordinary call was an admission that the FBI's actions violated Justice Department policy about seeking journalists' phone records. But nothing about what the FBI did in 2004 appeared to run afoul of any law.

The Justice Department's latest effort to examine whom journalists are talking to ? the secret subpoena of Associated Press phone records from April and May of last year ? demonstrates how government investigators are guided more by policy and the judgments of high-ranking officials than by specific laws or, in this case, the need to satisfy an independent federal judge.

The AP case involves a criminal investigation into who gave information to the news cooperative's reporters about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen. The AP's May 7, 2012, story attributed details of the operation to unnamed government officials.

The government informed the AP 10 days ago that it had secretly obtained records for 21 phone numbers, including those of the reporters on the bomb plot story. The department's guidelines, first drafted in the wake of Watergate-era government abuses, call for news organizations to be informed before investigators ask phone companies for records unless doing so would compromise the investigation.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the story was the result of "a very serious leak, a very grave leak." AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt called the gathering of phone records a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

New developments emerged Monday in another case that has led to the indictment of an official for revealing classified information. Federal prosecutors got a search warrant for the private emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen and used building security records at the State Department to track his movements as they sought to identify whom he had relied on for classified information in a story about North Korea.

The tension over balancing the government's duty to protect national security and the media's role as public watchdog is long-standing. Take away protections for reporters' confidential sources and "the people who know what's happening become fearful, and they will not come forward with information the public may find very valuable," said Lucy Dalglish, dean of the University of Maryland's journalism school. "It's a classic chilling effect."

But neither, said George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr, does the public want a world of free disclosure by government workers with no opportunity for the government to investigate. "It requires a very delicate balance. We wouldn't want either extreme," Kerr said.

One possibility for compromise is a long-discussed federal media shield law to go along with similar laws in most states. Even as President Barack Obama defended his administration's aggressive pursuit of leakers of government secrets, he also said Congress should consider a law that generally would protect journalists from government subpoenas and allow judges, in rare instances, to decide whether national security concerns trump press freedoms.

Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said they would introduce a new version of a media shield bill that Congress last considered four years ago.

The congressional proposals ? and there have been many over the years ? are partly a response to a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that nothing in the First Amendment protects reporters from being called to testify before grand juries. Justice Byron White's majority opinion scoffed at the idea that it would dry up confidential sources. He said Congress was free to give journalists, or "newsmen" in that era's parlance, additional protection under federal law. That case arose in the context of the government's pursuit of Black Panthers and also drug users in Kentucky.

But the 5-4 ruling in Branzburg v. Hayes also has bedeviled generations of prosecutors, media lawyers and judges because one of the five justices in the majority, Lewis Powell, wrote a concurring opinion that suggested that maybe the court's holding was not as absolute as it sounded. Powell said courts would consider the competing claims of prosecutors and journalists case by case, and called judges to strike "a proper balance between freedom of the press and the obligation of all citizens to give relevant testimony with respect to criminal conduct."

At the time, Justice Potter Stewart charitably referred to Powell's opinion as "enigmatic" and hoped that it would lead to "a more flexible view in the future."

Last year, Judge Albert Diaz, a member of a federal appeals court panel that is weighing an effort to compel a reporter's testimony in an investigation of unauthorized disclosure, called the 1972 ruling "clear as mud." The panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., has yet to rule on the attempt by New York Times journalist James Risen to avoid testifying at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Sterling is accused of leaking classified information about a botched covert operation in Iran.

Earlier, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, the trial judge handling Sterling's case, sided with Risen, saying, "A criminal trial subpoena is not a free pass for the government to rifle through a reporter's notebook."

Other courts, though, recently have rejected journalists' attempts to quash subpoenas for their testimony.

The rules governing how the government seeks other information such as emails haven't kept up with the pace of technology. When it comes to electronic records held by Internet service providers, technology companies and credit card companies, the rules "are not as strict as they are for news media telephone toll records," said Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The wide sweep of the subpoena ? across AP bureaus in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn. ? and the lack of advance warning make the government's approach look "more like a dragnet" than the narrowly drafted request the Justice Department guidelines say is required, Dalglish said.

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone said Justice Department officials are aware that the broader they cast the net, the more questions they will face. "They reached as far as they did because it was the only way to get the information they needed," Stone said.

As for the lack of notice, he said, it was at least plausible to believe that the authorities "really want to catch this guy who leaked really bad information, from their perspective. They didn't want to do anything to scare him off."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-21-US-AP-Phone-Records-Legal-Landscape/id-54a3adafa64545fd8292ef8e00c60a2b

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More Obama aides knew of IRS audit; Obama not told

FILE - In this May 15, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. It might have seemed a no-win situation to the White House: either keep President Barack Obama in the dark about a looming investigation into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service or blur legal lines by telling him about an independent audit. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - In this May 15, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. It might have seemed a no-win situation to the White House: either keep President Barack Obama in the dark about a looming investigation into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service or blur legal lines by telling him about an independent audit. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - In this May 10, 2006 file photo, then-federal prosecutor, now White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler is seen in Houston. It might have seemed a no-win situation to the White House: either keep President Barack Obama in the dark about a looming investigation into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service or blur legal lines by telling him about an independent audit. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney gestures as he speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, May, 20, 2013. Carney spoke on various subjects including the recent scandals involving the IRS and Justice Department. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

FILE - In this May 9, 2013 file photo, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. It might have seemed a no-win situation to the White House: either keep President Barack Obama in the dark about a looming investigation into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service or blur legal lines by telling him about an independent audit. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2010 file photo White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. It might have seemed a no-win situation to the White House: either keep President Barack Obama in the dark about a looming investigation into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service or blur legal lines by telling him about an independent audit. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior advisers knew in late April that an impending report was likely to say the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups, President Barack Obama's spokesman disclosed Monday, expanding the circle of top officials who knew of the audit beyond those named earlier.

But McDonough and the other advisers did not tell Obama, leaving him to learn about the politically perilous results of the internal investigation from news reports more than two weeks later, officials said.

The apparent decision to keep the president in the dark underscores the White House's cautious legal approach to controversies and reflects a desire by top advisers to distance Obama from troubles threatening his administration.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney defended keeping the president out of the loop on the Internal Revenue Service audit, saying Obama was comfortable with the fact that "some matters are not appropriate to convey to him, and this is one of them."

"It is absolutely a cardinal rule as we see it that we do not intervene in ongoing investigations," Carney said.

Republicans, however, are accusing the president of being unaware of important happenings in the government he oversees.

"It seems to be the answer of the administration whenever they're caught doing something they shouldn't be doing is, 'I didn't know about it'," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told CBS News. "And it causes me to wonder whether they believe willful ignorance is a defense when it's your job to know."

Obama advisers argue that the outcry from Republicans would be far worse had McDonough or White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler told the president about the IRS audit before it became public, thereby raising questions about White House interference.

Still, the White House's own shifting information about who knew what and when is keeping the focus of the IRS controversy on the West Wing.

When Carney first addressed the matter last week, he said only that Ruemmler had been told around April 22 that an inspector general audit was being concluded at a Cincinnati IRS office that screens applications for organizations' tax-exempt status. He said the audit was described to the counsel's office "very broadly."

But on Monday, Carney said lower-ranking staffers in the White House counsel's office first learned of the report one week earlier, on April 16. When Ruemmler was later alerted, she was told specifically that the audit was likely to conclude that IRS employees improperly scrutinized organizations by looking for words like "tea party" and "patriot." Ruemmler then told McDonough, deputy chief of staff Mark Childress, and other senior advisers, but not Obama.

A new Pew Research Center poll shows 42 percent of Americans think the Obama administration was "involved" in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, while 31 percent say it was a decision made solely by employees at the IRS.

The IRS matter is one of three controversies that have consumed the White House over the past week. In each instance, officials have tried to put distance between the president and questionable actions by people within his administration.

As with the IRS investigation, the White House says Obama learned only from news reporters that the Justice Department had subpoenaed phone records from journalists at The Associated Press as part of a leaks investigation. And faced with new questions about the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya, Obama's advisers have pinned responsibility on the CIA for crafting talking points that downplayed the potential of terrorism, despite the fact that the White House was a part of the process.

Former White House officials say a president has little choice but to distance himself from investigations and then endure accusations of being out of touch, or worse.

"It's a tough balance," said Sara Taylor Fagen, who was White House political director for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.

"With a scandal, there's no way to win," said Fagen, whom the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed and sharply questioned in a probe of dismissed U.S. attorneys. "There may never have been any wrongdoing by anyone in the White House, on any of these issues," she said, "but once the allegations are made, you can't win."

A White House peeking into an ongoing investigations can trigger a political uproar. A well-known case involved President Richard Nixon trying to hinder the FBI's probe of the Watergate break-in.

In a less far-reaching case in 2004, the Bush White House acknowledged that its counsel's office learned of a Justice Department investigation into whether Sandy Berger ? the national security adviser under President Bill Clinton ? had removed classified documents from the National Archives. Democrats said the White House hoped to use the information to help Bush's re-election campaign.

In the current IRS matter, two congressional committees are stepping up their investigations this week with hearings during which IRS and Treasury officials will be questioned closely about what they knew and when.

Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman heads to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, giving lawmakers their first opportunity to question the man who ran the agency when agents were improperly targeting tea party groups. The Senate Finance Committee wants to know why Shulman didn't tell Congress ? even after he was briefed in 2012 ? that agents had been singling out conservative political groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

Also testifying will be Steven Miller, who took over as acting commissioner in November, when Shulman's five-year term expired. Last week, Obama forced Miller to resign.

On Wednesday, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin will testify before the House oversight committee.

Treasury inspector general J. Russell George says he told Wolin about the subject of the IRS inquiry last summer.

In a related matter, the IRS acknowledged Monday that an official testified to Congress about tax-exempt matters long after her duties supposedly had shifted to health care law. Republicans point to Sarah Hall Ingram's history at IRS as they question the agency's ability to properly oversee aspects of Obama's health care overhaul.

The IRS said in a statement that Ingram "was in a unique position to testify" about tax-exempt policies in May 2012. It said Ingram "still formally held" the title of IRS commissioner of tax exempt and government entities, even though "she was assigned full-time to (health care law) activities since Dec. 2010."

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Jim Kuhnhenn and researcher Monika Mathur contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Charles Babington at http://twitter.com/cbabington

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-20-US-IRS-Political-Groups/id-51ea5e89543e4a5bb9c900e2100f4c83

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The Latest Turn of the Screw (talking-points-memo)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/306913157?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Not just blowing in the wind: Compressing air for renewable energy storage

May 20, 2013 ? Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice.

Compressed air energy storage plants could help save the region's abundant wind power -- which is often produced at night when winds are strong and energy demand is low -- for later, when demand is high and power supplies are more strained. These plants can also switch between energy storage and power generation within minutes, providing flexibility to balance the region's highly variable wind energy generation throughout the day.

"With Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring states to have as much as 20 or 30 percent of their electricity come from variable sources such as wind and the sun, compressed air energy storage plants can play a valuable role in helping manage and integrate renewable power onto the Northwest's electric grid," said Steve Knudsen, who managed the study for the BPA.

Geologic energy savings accounts

All compressed air energy storage plants work under the same basic premise. When power is abundant, it's drawn from the electric grid and used to power a large air compressor, which pushes pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure. Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines to generate electricity. Compressed air energy storage plants can re-generate as much as 80 percent of the electricity they take in.

The world's two existing compressed air energy storage plants -- one in Alabama, the other in Germany -- use human-made salt caverns to store excess electricity. The PNNL-BPA study examined a different approach: using natural, porous rock reservoirs that are deep underground to store renewable energy.

Interest in the technology has increased greatly in the past decade as utilities and others seek better ways to integrate renewable energy onto the power grid. About 13 percent, or nearly 8,600 megawatts, of the Northwest's power supply comes from of wind. This prompted BPA and PNNL to investigate whether the technology could be used in the Northwest.

To find potential sites, the research team reviewed the Columbia Plateau Province, a thick layer of volcanic basalt rock that covers much of the region. The team looked for underground basalt reservoirs that were at least 1,500 feet deep, 30 feet thick and close to high-voltage transmission lines, among other criteria.

They then examined public data from wells drilled for gas exploration or research at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. Well data was plugged into PNNL's STOMP computer model, which simulates the movement of fluids below ground, to determine how much air the various sites under consideration could reliably hold and return to the surface.

Two different, complementary designs

Analysis identified two particularly promising locations in eastern Washington. One location, dubbed the Columbia Hills Site, is just north of Boardman, Ore., on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The second, called the Yakima Minerals Site, is about 10 miles north of Selah, Wash., in an area called the Yakima Canyon.

But the research team determined the two sites are suitable for two very different kinds of compressed air energy storage facilities. The Columbia Hills Site could access a nearby natural gas pipeline, making it a good fit for a conventional compressed air energy facility. Such a conventional facility would burn a small amount of natural gas to heat compressed air that's released from underground storage. The heated air would then generate more than twice the power than a typical natural gas power plant.

The Yakima Minerals Site, however, doesn't have easy access to natural gas. So the research team devised a different kind of compressed air energy storage facility: one that uses geothermal energy. This hybrid facility would extract geothermal heat from deep underground to power a chiller that would cool the facility's air compressors, making them more efficient. Geothermal energy would also re-heat the air as it returns to the surface.

"Combining geothermal energy with compressed air energy storage is a creative concept that was developed to tackle engineering issues at the Yakima Minerals Site," said PNNL Laboratory Fellow and project leader Pete McGrail. "Our hybrid facility concept significantly expands geothermal energy beyond its traditional use as a renewable baseload power generation technology."

The study indicates both facilities could provide energy storage during extended periods of time. This could especially help the Northwest during the spring, when sometimes there is more wind and hydroelectric power than the region can absorb. The combination of heavy runoff from melting snow and a large amount of wind, which often blows at night when demand for electricity is low, can spike power production in the region. Power system managers have a few options to keep the regional power grid stable in such a situation, including reducing power generation or storing the excess power supply. Energy storage technologies such as compressed air energy storage can help the region make the most of its excess clean energy production.

Working with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, BPA will now use the performance and economic data from the study to perform an in-depth analysis of the net benefits compressed air energy storage could bring to the Pacific Northwest. The results could be used by one or more regional utilities to develop a commercial compressed air energy storage demonstration project.

The $790,000 joint feasibility study was funded by BPA's Technology Innovation Office, PNNL and several project partners: Seattle City Light, Washington State University Tri-Cities, GreenFire Energy, Snohomish County Public Utility District, Dresser-Rand, Puget Sound Energy, Ramgen Power Systems, NW Natural, Magnum Energy and Portland General Electric.

REFRENCE: BP McGrail, JE Cabe, CL Davidson, FS Knudsen, DH Bacon, MD Bearden, MA Chamness, JA Horner, SP Reidel, HT Schaef, FA Spane, PD Thorne, "Techno-economic Performance Evaluation of Compressed Air Energy Storage in the Pacific Northwest," February 2013, http://caes.pnnl.gov/pdf/PNNL-22235.pdf.

COMPRESSED AIR ENERGY STORAGE SITES

Columbia Hills Site

? Location: north of Boardman, Ore., on Washington side of Columbia River

? Plant type: Conventional, which pairs compressed air storage with a natural gas power plant.

? Power generation capacity: 207 megawatts

? Energy storage capacity: 231 megawatts

? Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour

? Would work well for frequent energy storage

? Continuous storage for up to 40 days

Yakima Minerals Site

? Location: 10 miles north of Selah, Wash.

? Plant type: Hybrid, which pairs geothermal heat with compressed air storage

? Power generation capacity: 83 megawatts

? Energy storage capacity: 150 megawatts

? Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 11.8 cents per kilowatt-hour

? No greenhouse gas emissions

? Potential for future expansion

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/mb3lmNXBYK8/130520142823.htm

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Syrian army, Hezbollah attack rebels in border town: opposition

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said.

At least 32 people were killed when rebel fighters clashed with mechanized Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, 10 km (six miles) from the border with Lebanon's Bekaa valley, they said.

Speaking from Qusair, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed Qusair in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute.

"The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery form the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west," he said.

"Most of the dead are civilians killed by the shelling."

The region near the Orontos River has been segregated into Sunni and Shi'ite villages in the civil war that grew out of protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It is vital for Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, to keep open a route from Shi'ite Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa to areas near Syria's Mediterranean coast inhabited by co-religionist Alawites.

Opposition sources say Syria's coastal region could serve as an Alawite statelet in case Assad falls in Damascus, in a potential fragmentation of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines that raises the prospect of many more deaths.

Sources in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley said shells fired by rebels hit the edges of the town of Hermel, a stronghold of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, but no casualties were reported.

Syrian Television said the army is "leading an operation against terrorists in Qusair", with troops reaching the town's center.

"Our heroic forces are advancing toward Qusair and are chasing the remnants of the terrorists and have hoisted the Syrian flag on the municipality building. In the next few hours we will give you joyous news," the television said.

The United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful demonstrations against four decades of family rule by Assad and his late father.

The protests were met by bullets, sparking an armed uprising that turned into a civil war mainly pitting majority Sunnis against the Alawite sect, which has controlled Syria since the 1960s.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-army-hezbollah-attack-rebels-border-town-opposition-132854254.html

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Powerball jackpot could go higher than $600M

By Karen Brooks

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Powerball jackpot Saturday night could be even higher than the record $600 million being advertised, possibly rivaling the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, a Texas Lottery official said on Saturday.

"Oftentimes, the advertised amount is lower than what the actual jackpot ends up being," said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery. "It's entirely possible this $600 million jackpot will end up being a bigger jackpot."

The Powerball record in November was advertised at $550 million, but ended up being $587.5 million when the winning numbers were drawn, thanks to last-minute sales.

Powerball officials told participating states on Saturday they would not be raising the advertised number for the drawing, Cripe said.

There had been speculation the advertised amount for the lottery would be increased to surpass $656 million - the largest jackpot in U.S. history, set by the Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. The lottery is offered in 43 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

Chances of winning the Powerball on Saturday were one in 175 million, Cripe said.

If the drawing yields no winner, all records will be shattered as the jackpot for Wednesday would go to $925 million.

But players across the country weren't pushing their luck, shelling out bills for the nighttime drawing.

"It's only a couple bucks for a small daydream," said Russell Williams, 35, a salesman in Austin, Texas.

In New York City, talent acquisition agent Michelle Amici was playing the "if I win" game.

"Not sure that I'd buy anything," she said. "Rather, I'd attempt to quench my wanderlust by traveling the world. I'd also donate a large portion to education reform."

El Paso, Texas, mom Bonnie Carreno rarely plays but was taking a chance on this one. "I only ever buy a ticket when I see the amazing numbers in the headlines," she said.

For Austin marketing professional Becky Arreaga, the odds are not so long that she was discouraged about her chances.

"As long as the odds are 1 in anything, I'm in," said Arreaga, a partner at Mercury Mambo marketing firm. "I truly believe I could be the one."

"Just takes one ticket to win," echoed Tela Mange of Austin.

The popular lottery has not had a winner in two months.

The $2 tickets allow players pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35. The numbers will be drawn Saturday at 10:59 p.m. EDT (02:59 GMT on Sunday) in Tallahassee, Florida.

(Reporting by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune, Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/powerball-jackpot-could-higher-600-million-161816661.html

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