BADEN, Beaver County — One of two Powerball lottery tickets worth $1 million was sold at a Giant Eagle store in this community.

The unidentified owners of these tickets correctly picked the correct numbers for the white balls — 01-18-35-39-44 — but missed on the red Powerball, which was 11.

The other ticket was sold at a store in Ringtown, Schuylkill County.

Winners get $1 million, minus 25 percent federal withholding. They have a year from the date of the drawing to claim their prizes.

Each retailer gets a $5,000 bonus for selling a winning ticket.

In November, a woman from Saxonburg won $1 million in a similar fashion when she bought a ticket at a convenience store in Winfield Township.

Officials to attend hearing on lotteryHARRISBURG — Corbett administration officials are willing to appear before a Senate Finance Committee hearing on a proposal to hire a private company to manage the $3.5 billion Pennsylvania Lottery.A spokeswoman for Gov. Tom Corbett’s Department of Revenue said Thursday that officials are happy to answer questions in any format.The hearing date was set for Jan. 14.Monday is the deadline for the Corbett administration to decide on a British lottery operator’s sole bid to manage the lottery system on a 20- to 30-year contract, but talks are under way to postpone that.Camelot Global Services runs the national lottery in the United Kingdom and is a consultant to the California Lottery. Unionized state lottery employees plan to offer a competitive alternative, which is guaranteed in their contract.

Lawmaker seeks task force on shootingsHARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania state senator began seeking Senate support on Thursday to create a gun violence prevention task force in the wake of the deadly Connecticut elementary school shooting.A memorandum issued by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, said his proposed resolution would allow the task force experts to examine issues surrounding gun violence. Those include any proposals to strengthen firearms regulations, mental health laws and efforts to fight bullying.Greenleaf said the Senate’s Republican leadership supports the idea and that it made sense to create a task force to assess lawmakers’ various proposals together and consolidate them into recommendations on how they could best respond.Appointments to the task force would be made by Gov. Tom Corbett and legislative leaders, Greenleaf said.Further regulation of firearms is only part of the issue and is not a “fail-safe solution” to prevent mass shootings, Greenleaf said in his memorandum