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Statt-us Update 1/25/22 Today’s Headlines & More

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Woman Accidentally Finds ‘Shocking’ $3M Winning Lottery Ticket in Spam Folder

Michigan woman recently found something by surprise in her email spam folder: millions of dollars.

The Michigan Lottery issued a press release January 21 saying that Laura Spears, a resident of Oakland County, experienced “the surprise of a lifetime” when she was looking for an email and had difficulty finding it.

She ended up coming across an email in her spam folder that stated she won a $3 million Mega Million prize.

“I saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so I got on my account and bought a ticket,” Spears said. “A few days later, I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account.

“That’s when I saw an email from the Lottery saying I had won a prize. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my lottery account to confirm the message in the email. It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!”

Rob Gronkowski Undecided on Playing Future

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers could have a very different look to them less than two years after their Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs last February. Quarterback Tom Brady will turn 45 years old in August and isn’t yet publicly committing to returning for the 2022 NFL season, and four-time All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski will be 33 in May and is set to hit free agency when the new league year opens in March.

Gronkowski spoke with reporters Monday following Sunday’s heartbreaking playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams and suggested he could walk away from the Buccaneers and from pro football, in general.

“I’m really going to basically do what’s best for myself in terms of the football world,” Gronkowski explained, according to Nick Shook of the NFL’s website. “It’s going to be a decision based upon of where I’m at in a couple weeks.”

Gronkowski missed time this fall with a rib injury and is no longer the dominant force he was in his prime, but he nevertheless finished the season with 55 catches for 802 yards and six touchdowns across 12 contests. He then tallied nine receptions for 116 yards and a score in a pair of postseason games.

Per Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk, Gronkowski added he could continue playing either with the Buccaneers or elsewhere if Brady retires this winter. Head coach Bruce Arians said Monday Tampa Bay will give Brady “all the time he needs” to make a final decision on his future, and one assumes the same holds true regarding Gronkowski.

Stowaway Found on Plane May Have Been in Air for 11 Hours

Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS — A cargo flight that originated in South Africa had a surprise waiting on board when it finally landed in Amsterdam: a guy hidden in the plane’s wheel section, still alive after what may have been 11 hours in the air, per ABC News. “The man was found alive in the nose wheel section of the plane and was taken to hospital in … stable condition,” a Dutch Royal Military Police spokeswoman told AFP, adding it was “remarkable” that he’d lived through the ordeal. The BBC notes it’s not common for stowaways to make it through long flights alive due to the cold temps and low oxygen at high altitudes.

CNN reports that the airport crew at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport initially caught sight of the man, believed to be between 16 and 35 years old, on the Cargolux plane and flagged down authorities. When cops and first responders got there, the man was found to be alive but with a low body temperature. Dutch media reports he was revived at the scene and able to respond to simple questions by the time the ambulance arrived to transport him to the hospital.

Although the flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam typically takes about 11 hours, a police rep says it’s not clear if the man stashed himself in the plane while it was on the tarmac in South Africa or during a stopover in Nairobi. The police rep tells CNN that once he’s recuperated from his journey, the government will determine if the man was trying to seek asylum. His nationality wasn’t reported.

Grandma Outsmarts Scammer by Luring Him to Her House for Cops

Long Island, NY — This time, the “grandparent scam” backfired in a big way an on alleged scammer. Police on Long Island say a 73-year-old woman lured a man trying to con her out of $8,000 to her home, where officers arrested him, reports News 12. The case unfolded last week, when the Seaford woman, identified only as Jean, received a call purportedly from her grandson saying he needed $8,000 to get bailed out of jail for drunken driving. That seemed a little fishy to the former 911 dispatcher, especially since none of her grandsons are old enough to drive.

“I knew he was a real scammer,” she tells CBS New York. “I just knew he wasn’t going to scam me.” Jean played along in the call and in subsequent phone calls from others who said they were lawyers or court officials. But she also called police, and officers who were sent to her home heard some of the calls for themselves, per Newsday. When Jean told her alleged scammer that she had $8,000 in cash at home, he told her a bail bondsman would stop by to pick it up. In reality, she handed him wrapped-up paper towels, and police tackled him as he left her house.

“She’s not afraid of these guys,” says Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder. “She knows what she had to do, and God bless her.” The man arrested is 28-year-old Joshua Estrella Gomez, who is charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree. The Washington Post notes that scams targeting senior citizens victimize millions of people a year, and the number of such cases have risen during the pandemic. The FBI estimates that people over 60 lost a combined $1 billion to scams in 2020, a figure that has since tripled.