48 Transit Workers From Philly Keep Working After Winning $172 Million Dollar Powerball Jackpot

PHILADELPHIA — Four dozen Philadelphia transit agency workers who won a $172 million Powerball drawing are all still working and don't intend to change much about their lives despite becoming millionaires.

A pool of workers at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's headquarters scored the winning ticket in the April 25 multi-state lottery. They purchased the ticket at a newsstand across the street.
Though the annuity payout of 30 annual installments was $172 million, the group decided to take a one-time cash payout, reducing their windfall to a mere $107.5 million. Split 48 ways, it amounts to a little more than $2.2 million each before taxes.
Most of the "SEPTA 48," as they call themselves, attended a news conference Friday at the agency's headquarters to smile for cameras with a giant ceremonial check for $107,533,278.27 from Pennsylvania Lottery officials. The real thing will be in winners' hands in four to six weeks, lottery executive director Todd Rucci said.
All who spoke expressed gratitude for the security the windfall will provide their families, but said they don't plan to make any drastic alterations.
"I will still bring my lunch every day," said winner Bryant Vaders with a smile. "My wife makes a lovely lunch for me."
There are technically 49 winners because two co-workers split the $5 per-person buy-in for the office pool. They will split their $2.2 million share.
The enviable crowd ranges in age from 26 to 69 and has logged SEPTA tenure from less than a year to 42 years. They work in a variety of departments. They declined to give specifics on their job titles but said none of the winners currently works as a driver.
They come from "culture, backgrounds, heritages ... as varied as the customer base we serve," said winner Robert Landgraf of suburban Abington.
"We are all in awe. We're excited, we're humbled and we're grateful to be given this gift and this opportunity," he said.
Marylouise Wagner of Essington, just south of Philadelphia, said she underwent heart surgery in January, returned to work after "a long unpaid absence" on April 10 and jumped right back into the lottery pool.
"A scant 15 days later, I won the lottery with my SEPTA co-workers," she said. "I just want to give my message to everyone — don't ever give up because you never know what's right around the corner."
The office pool has been active since 2004, though only when a jackpot reaches $100 million or more. Before their millionaire-making ticket, they said they've probably won $150 a couple of times.
The group said they'll keep on playing the lottery.
Daniel DeSantis, the 42-year SEPTA employee, noted that all the winners showed up for work the next day and continue to do so.
"When I look at the light at the end of the tunnel, it's no longer a regional rail train coming at me, it's a way out," he said with a laugh. "It's a tremendous blessing to all of us."

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Phil Mushnick, NY Post writer: Brooklyn Nets should be called 'New York Ni**ers' because of Jay-Z ownership

New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick provoked outrage this week as he used a racial slur in an insensitive rant against the Brooklyn Nets and their co-owner rapper Jay-Z. Opining that the team should consider changing their name to the 'New York Ni**ers' in what one can only assume is meant to be a dig at Jay-Z's use of the n-word in his lyrics, Mushnick argues that since the team has a new "urban" locale it should get the full "Jay-Z treatment.":
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots -- what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new "urban" home -- why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?
Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B----hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!
Mushnick's comments have already fueled a firestorm on Twitter, with numerous commentators in the sports world calling for him to be fired by the Post immediately.
The sports blog Bob's Blitz has posted a response from Mushnick to the backlash. He wrote:
Bob - Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don't call black men the N-word; I don't regard young women as bitches and whores; I don't glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand.....Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N--ers?"
Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I'M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.

Adam Yauch dies; Beastie Boys rapper was 47

Adam Yauch, the raspy-throated rapper known as MCA whose rhyming skills helped make the Beastie Boys one of the most influential hip-hop groups, died April 6 in New York. He was 47.

The death was confirmed by Billboard magazine, which reported that salivary cancer had been diagnosed in 2009. Because of health problems, Mr. Yauch was unable to attend the Beastie Boys’ induction into the Rock Hall of Fame in April.

Bursting onto the black-dominated hip-hop scene in the 1980s, the Beastie Boys were at first considered rap gimmickry: three white, beer-chugging hellions with little rhyming talent.

Today, the Grammy Award-winning, Brooklyn-based trio is regarded as hip-hop royalty and known as one of the most innovative acts in modern music history.

Mr. Yauch’s lyrics could be zany, socially conscious and surprisingly intellectual — with references to politics, the environment and the astrophysicist Carl Sagan.

In an interview, Dan Charnas, author of “The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop,” called Mr. Yauch “in-your-face, loud, and electric.”

“If you could compare the Beastie Boys to an atom,” Charnas said. “Mike D was the neutron, the straight man. Ad-Rock was the electron, the way, way out into outer space one. MCA — he was the proton, complete energy, the guy with the most forceful voice.”

The Beastie Boys first formed in the early 1980s as a hard core punk band but then dropped their instruments and began rapping. While searching for a DJ to play for them, the group met a New York University student named Rick Rubin.

Rubin and his partner, Russell Simmons, signed the Beastie Boys to their new hip-hop label, Def Jam Recordings, in the mid-1980s. Joining Def Jam, the home of established rappers Run-DMC and LL Cool J, provided the young group with instant clout in the hip-hop industry.

In 1986, the group released its first studio album, “Licensed to Ill.” Propelled by the mega-hit “Fight for Your Right (to Party!)” — an alcohol-soaked anthem to teenage angst — “Licensed to Ill” sold 4 million copies and became the first rap album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts. (In the “Fight for Your Right” video, Mr. Yauch spews foamy beer into the face of a turtlenecked nerd.)

Of the group’s three bad boys — Mr. Yauch, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond — Mr. Yauch was viewed as the baddest. His sexually explicit and violence-laced lyrics were often the most lewd, rude and crude.

In the song “The New Style,” he rapped: “I’ve got money and juice — twin sisters in my bed / Their father had envy so I shot him in the head.”

The Beastie Boys had a falling out with Def Jam in the late 1980s and moved to Los Angeles, where they signed with Capitol Records. Their second album, “Paul’s Boutique,” produced by the Grammy-winning team the Dust Brothers, was recognized by music critics for its innovative use of sampling and layered lyrical references.

In the early 1990s, the Beastie Boys began to mature musically and personally. The group released two critically acclaimed albums in a row: “Ill Communication” (1994), which featured the rock-heavy single “Sabotage,” and “Hello Nasty” (1998), which featured the top singles “Body Movin’ ” and “Intergalactic.”

On “Ill Communication,” Mr. Yauch used the opening song, “Sure Shot,” to apologize for degrading women in the past.

“I want to say a little something that’s long overdue / the disrespect to women has got to be through / to all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends / I want to offer my love and respect to the end.”

Adam Nathaniel Yauch was born Aug. 5, 1964, in Brooklyn. His father was a Catholic architect and his mother a Jewish social worker, and he was raised in a secular home.

Besides his parents, survivors include his wife, Dechen Wangdu, who is Tibetan American, and their daughter.

In recent years, Mr. Yauch worked as a film director under the name Nathaniel Hornblower. In 2006, he released a basketball documentary, “Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot,” which centered on a prestigious Harlem playground pick-up game.

On a trip to Asia in the early 1990s, Mr. Yauch met Tibetan refugees while hiking the Himalayas and was inspired to pursue Buddhism.

During the 1990s and 2000s, he organized the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a series of music festivals, most of them lasting two days, that promoted pacifism and Tibetan independence. One was at RFK Stadium in 1998. Proceeds benefited Mr. Yauch’s charity, the Milarepa Fund, named for a Tibetan saint who sought enlightenment by composing music.

Having found Buddhism, Mr. Yauch said he regretted his earlier destructive ways.

“I didn’t realize how much harm I was doing back then,” Mr. Yauch said in 1998. “I had kids coming up to me and saying, ‘Yo, I listen to your record while I’m smoking dust, man.’ And I’d say, ‘Hey, man, we’re just kidding. I don’t smoke dust.’ People need to be more aware of how they’re affecting people.... R.I.P

Drunk Mama Epic Fail

Ex-NBA All-Star accused of sex trafficking

 SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Former NBA All-Star Alvin Robertson has been charged with sexual assault of a child, trafficking an underage child for purposes of sex and forcing a sexual performance by a child.
The charges were contained in an arrest warrant Friday. Robertson has not been apprehended.
Authorities claim the 47-year-old former Spurs star was part of a ring that kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from San Antonio, forced her to have sex with clients and to dance at a Corpus Christi strip club last year.
The girl escaped her alleged captors, prompting an investigation. Seven people have been charged, including Robertson's girlfriend, and he's the only one who has not been arrested.

The seventh overall pick in the 1984 draft, Robertson averaged 14 points over 10 seasons and was voted to four All-Star games.