分类： society

An ordinary errand for groceries has turned into a life-changing windfall for one scratch-and-win game participant, who walked away with a $20,000 grand prize after a random stop at Minnesota’s Twin Super Market in late July 2026.

The winner, who has chosen to remain private, shared that her big win came entirely by chance. During an unplanned trip to pick up essentials at the local grocery store, she made a split-second decision to grab two scratch-and-win tickets on a whim, never expecting the outing would lead to a major payout.

Unusually, the winning ticket sat unused for nearly a full week after purchase. It was not until last Sunday that the winner finally found a spare moment to scratch off the ticket’s coating and reveal her result. She recalled the moment of realization in an interview, explaining that she had to double and even triple-check the matching symbols to confirm what she was seeing. When the full extent of the win hit her – two matching combinations that added up to $20,000 – she was overcome with excitement and still says she can hardly believe her luck.

More than a week after claiming her prize, the winner has not yet locked in concrete plans for how she will use her unexpected earnings. The only idea she has floated so far is a small, relaxing escape: a weekend mini-vacation to celebrate her good fortune, with the exact destination still to be determined.

For other casual players who have been hesitant to try their hand at scratch-and-win games, the new jackpot winner has a simple, encouraging message. She says the prizes are not just myth or marketing – ordinary players really do win, and she urges anyone on the fence to take a chance, just like she did.

A long-running Belize City business is sounding the alarm over a coordinated loan scam that has already cheated multiple local consumers out of their money, as fraudsters abuse social media platforms to impersonate the company’s legitimate lending services. Doony’s, which has offered in-person instant payday loans to local residents for more than two decades, has confirmed that scammers have created a fake social media profile mimicking its brand to trick victims into sending advance payments in exchange for promised loans that never materialize.

Chinique Kemp, a customer service representative for Doony’s, told reporters this week that multiple affected customers have visited the company’s physical store to follow up on their loan applications, only to discover they had sent money to criminal actors operating outside the business. “We have observed that a lot of customers are coming in and talking to us about money that they have transferred, and we do not do business like that,” Kemp said in an interview. “We’re actually living in an era where technology now is being used to deceive people.”

The fraudulent scheme lures victims with a false promise: applicants who deposit a $100 advance fee to a scammer-controlled account are told they will receive a larger instant loan in return. But Kemp emphasized that this model has never aligned with Doony’s actual operating policies, which have remained consistent since the business launched more than 20 years ago.

“Do we do instant payday loans? Yes, absolutely,” Kemp clarified. “But we do not ask you to transfer any money into any account to access those loans.”

Kemp added that this is not the first time similar fraudulent impersonation scams targeting Doony’s customers have been documented. The company has already reported previous incidents of this scam to local law enforcement and regulatory authorities, and is encouraging any consumer who has interacted with the fake social media page or sent money to scammers to file an official report as soon as possible.

To avoid falling victim to the scam, Doony’s reminded the public that all of its loan services require an in-person visit to its physical Belize City location, and the business will never request advance online transfers or deposits from prospective borrowers. Consumers who spot the fake page or receive suspicious outreach claiming to be from Doony’s are encouraged to report the content to the social media platform and alert the legitimate business directly.

A 29-year-old serving Belize Police Constable, Dexter Diego, has been taken into custody to await sentencing after entering guilty pleas to four separate charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with an underage victim. Court documents confirm the victim was just 13 years old when the first abuse occurred, and had turned 14 by the time the three subsequent offenses were committed. Diego’s guilty plea was formally submitted before High Court Justice Nigel Pilgrim on a Monday, with the entire hearing concluding in under an hour, and the defendant represented by defense attorney Hurl Hamilton. Per the agreed statement of facts presented to the court, Diego was a trusted family friend of the victim. He first formed a connection with the minor in 2022, and over roughly 10 months, the pair developed a hidden relationship that the victim’s mother had no knowledge of. All of the offenses took place while Diego was actively employed in his role as a police constable, a position that put him in a position of public trust. The first abusive incident occurred sometime between December 31, 2022 and February 1, 2023, when the victim was working as a babysitter for family members. The next two offenses followed between February and March 2023, while the fourth and final charge dates back to March 2026, when the offense was committed while Diego was wearing his official police uniform. Justice Pilgrim has opted to defer the sentencing hearing until September 8, 2026, and has ordered three key pre-sentencing reports to inform his ruling: a full Prison Report to assess correctional placement considerations, a Social Inquiry Report to contextualize the offense and the defendant’s background, and a Victim Impact Statement to document the harm inflicted on the underage victim.

On a Sunday night in late July 2026, a routine emergency response to a small residential fire in Belize City led local police to uncover a heartbreaking case of child abandonment on Bagdad Street. What began as a call to extinguish a blaze in a neighborhood stairwell ended with a young child placed in the protective care of Belize’s Human Services department, after the fire incident inadvertently exposed the child’s unacknowledged presence in the area.

Senior Superintendent Stacy Smith detailed the sequence of unexpected discoveries that unfolded after first responders arrived at the scene. As crews worked to put out the flames, a local resident found a discarded birth certificate near the site of the fire. The document bore a name that struck a chord with another woman living in the neighborhood: she recognized it as the first name of a woman who had stopped by her home earlier that same day with a young child in tow.

According to Smith’s account, the unnamed mother had asked the local resident for a small favor during her visit: to help her call a taxi while she attended to an urgent matter. While the pair waited for the ride to arrive, the child drifted off to sleep, and the mother asked to leave the sleeping toddler inside the resident’s home temporarily. She left the property to handle her business, and never came back for her child.

“It was only when that incident happened that she [the local resident] realised that something may have gone awry,” Smith explained to reporters. Once authorities connected the dots between the found birth certificate and the unclaimed child, they launched an immediate investigation to track down the mother. Investigators have since successfully located the woman, though no formal charges or public statements have been released from her side as of yet.

Moving forward, Smith noted that officials will conduct a formal welfare consultation and assessment to unpack the circumstances that led the mother to leave her child behind. “We need to see what exactly went wrong that caused the mother to take that course of action that she took,” Smith added. Authorities have not yet released details on the cause of the stairwell fire that sparked the discovery, but have confirmed that no individuals suffered injuries in the blaze.

The story has circulated widely across social media since news broke, drawing an outpouring of sympathy from online users. Many commentators have pushed back against immediate judgment of the mother, suggesting she may have faced overwhelming crisis that left her with no other perceived options. One social media user wrote, “She might be having a meltdown and struggling to deal with everything life keeps throwing her way.”

As the investigation continues, child welfare officials are focused on ensuring the abandoned child receives consistent care and support while authorities work to resolve the case long-term.