(Radio Iowa) – The Powerball and Lucky for Life games are adding more drawings later this year. Iowa Lottery spokesperson, Mary Neubauer says Powerball is going to add a Monday drawing along with the Wednesday and Saturday drawings — while the Lucky For Life game will move from two drawings to a drawing every night.” Powerball is nationwide, while the Lucky For Life game involves Iowa and 15 other states. Neubauer says the changes are in response to the feedback they’ve been getting. “Players are looking for bigger, faster-growing jackpots in games like Powerball and MegaMillions. And so, the change in Powerball is designed to help deliver those bigger, faster-growing jackpots,” Neubauer says. “When you have another drawing in the mix every week it would mean more tickets being sold and that way the jackpot would grow more quickly.”

The big jackpots in the games have lagged since the pandemic.”We’re an instant gratification society — and this is a way to speed up the pace of the games a little bit,” she says. Neubauer says more drawings don’t change your odds of winning a jackpot. “Even though extra drawings are being added in the game — it does not change the rest of the specifics in the game, ” according to Neubauer. “So the prize levels are staying the same, the odds of winning, the ticket price is all the same, it’s just that there will be more drawings per week.”

The Lucky for Life game will change first. “The first daily drawings in that game begin on July 19th. And then the changes in Powerball will occur in August — with Powerball moving to three drawings a week. The first Monday drawing in that game will happen on August 23rd,” she says.

You can win the Powerball jackpot by matching all six numbers selected in the drawing, while the Lucky for Life game gives players a daily shot at winning its top prize of one-thousand dollars a day for the rest of their lives.

(Radio Iowa) – A report on local health finds nearly one in five Iowa households do not have broadband access. The report, from the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute, uses more than 30 measures like adult obesity and air quality to rank counties on their overall health. Researcher Anne Roubal says internet access helps people apply for jobs and stay socially connected for their mental health during the pandemic. “And then also just access basic health care things like telehealth, especially in rural or even frontier areas across our nation,” Roubal says.

Iowa fell short of the report’s top benchmark of having at least 86-percent of households with broadband access. “Iowa as a state is only at 81-percent,” Roubal says. “That’s still five-percent less than what we would want them to be at.”

The report found the percentage of households with broadband access in Iowa varies from as high as 89-percent in Dallas County, down to 65-percent in Davis County. This is the first year the report has included access to broadband as a factor in health.

(By Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

Former Iowa Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer — the Democrat who lost her bid for a second term in the U.S. House last year — is reportedly considering a run for the U.S. Senate.

Finkenauer lost her 2020 race in Iowa’s first congressional district by about two-and-a-half percent or a little less than 11-thousand votes. According to Politico, two unnamed sources indicated Finkenauer is laying the groundwork for a U.S. Senate race in 2022.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s seventh term ends in early 2023. The 87-year-old has said he won’t announce until this fall whether he plans to run for an eighth term and put his name on the 2022 ballot. Finkernauer, who lives in Cedar Rapids, would face a Democratic Primary if she does run for the Senate.

Western Iowa farmer Dave Muhlbauer of Manilla launched his 2022 U.S. Senate campaign this week. Other Democrats are considering the race, too. State Auditor Rob Sand recently told the Carroll Times he will not run for the U.S. Senate, but is still considering a race for governor or for re-election to a second term as state auditor.