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DES MOINES | January 27, 2012 Crawford S. Shaw, a Yale graduate and attorney licensed to practice in New York, said he represents a trust that owned a winning Iowa Lottery jackpot ticket purchased at a convenience store in December of 2010 that was associated with criminal proceedings and bankruptcy filings in New York and Delaware for which the clients involved with the trust are in Belize and as such have abandoned the claim for the jackpot worth $14.3 million dollars. The Iowa Lottery has confirmed the ticket as authentic. The Associated Press states that Shaw is the former C.E.O. of Industrial Enterprises of America Inc., a bankrupt public company District Attorney's office in Manhattan said was looted in a securities fraud scheme valued at $100 million. According to a report in MSNBC, Shaw referred a reporter to a statement issued by a law firm based in Des Moines that had performed work on behalf of the trust which said the identity of the buyer(s) of the ticket were unknown even to Shaw and offered to authorize the Iowa Lottery to pay the winnings, after taxes, to charities, but lottery officials declined, saying no payments would be made until the identities of the buyers were known. The Iowa Attorney General's Office and Division of Criminal Investigation announced a criminal probe into the matter. According to the Des Moines Register, the ticket was signed by Shaw on behalf of an company called Hexham Investments Trust. The name Hexham, however, was misspelled on the signature.

This is an original work of fiction by Clark Waggoner, a freelance writer who lives in Portland, Oregon. It is a beat inspired piece about a young writer traveling across the country. It focuses on the events of a couple drunken nights that the narrator romanticizes and personifies as he stumbles about.

Literacy rates around the world are abysmal. By around the world, I include in America. Over half of Americans cannot easily read to a grade six reading level. And if they can't read your message easily, they won't read it at all. At the most basic level, shorter words and shorter sentences improve readability.

Alexander Hamilton was America's greatest ghostwriter. Here are five lessons he leaves us, with quotes from the musical that bears his name.

ane Green. Writer. Londoner transplanted to America 21 years ago. Mother of six. Former art student. Author of 21 novels and one cookbook. Mostly tired. When did you first WANT to write a book? When Freya North wrote Sally and I thought, hang on, I could do that too. I was a journalist on the daily express at the time, and had read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and realized no-one was doing this for women. Little did I know that Helen Fielding was in her flat a mile away crafting Bridget Jones's Diary. When did you take a step to start writing? I was already a journalist. Nick Lloyd left as editor of the express, and the new editor had me writing about giraffes instead of relationships. It was clearly time to make a change. I very stupidly left my job, and gave myself three months to write a book AND get a publishing deal. Miraculously, there was a bidding war for my first book, about two days before that time period was up. How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release? I think a year. How long did it take you to complete your latest book from the first idea to release? About three years, but it is historical fiction, set in the sixties in London and Marrakech, and required intensive research, including moving back to London for a bit. Read more.....