An eye-popping and unprecedented Powerball jackpot whose rise to $1.6 billion became a national fascination will be split three ways. The winners’ identities remain a mystery, but they bought their tickets in Florida, Tennessee and a Los Angeles suburb where even lottery losers were celebrating on Thursday that such heady riches were won in their modest city. The winners of the world-record jackpot overcame odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on the numbers drawn on Wednesday night, 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10. They can take the winnings in annual payments spread over decades or a smaller amount in a lump sum.

The California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California, lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Associated Press. The winning ticket in Tennessee was sold in Munford, north of Memphis, according to a news release from lottery officials in that State. The California store and its surrounding strip mall immediately became a popular gathering spot in the usually quiet suburb of 75,000 people. Hundreds of people, from news crews to gawkers, crowded the store and spilled into its parking lot.

They cheered and mugged for TV cameras as if it were New Year’s Eve or a sporting event. Many chanted, “Chino Hills! Chino Hills!” in celebration of the city. “It’s history. We’re all so excited for our city,” Rita Talwar, 52, who has lived in Chino Hills for 30 years, told the local newspaper, the San Bernardino Sun. Some took selfies with the store clerk on duty, who became an instant celebrity and may well have been the man who sold the ticket after being on duty for much of the run-up to Wednesday night’s drawing. “I’m very proud that the ticket was sold here,” the clerk, M. Faroqui, told the Sun. “I’m very happy. This is very exciting.” The 7-Eleven will get a $1 million bonus for selling the winning ticket, Mr. Traverso said.

No details were immediately available about the Florida winner. The estimated jackpot amounts had risen steadily since November 4, 2015, when it was reset at $40 million. Texas Lottery executive director Gary Grief has said this Powerball offered “absolutely” the world’s biggest jackpot. Powerball tickets are sold in 44 States, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. But residents in the six States that don’t participate found ways to get their hands on tickets. Some of the biggest Powerball sales have come from cities bordering States that don’t sell the tickets, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. The association oversees the Powerball Lottery, but management rotates annually among member States.

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Thursday issued a stern warning to those, in particular the Islamic State militants, who threaten or try to harm the U.S. “We’ve made it clear that those who threaten or incite harm to Americans, wherever they are, will surely come to feel the long arm and the hard fist of justice,” Mr. Carter said in an address to his soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He said the U.S. campaign to deliver Islamic State (ISIS) or ISIL a lasting defeat, at its source and wherever it rears its head, is far from over.

“But the outcome is not uncertain. There will be extraordinary challenges ahead, and as I will emphasize in Paris next week, we must all do more,” he said. “But our campaign will continue to adapt and build on our success as ISIL’s territory decreases, its resources dwindle and local, capable forces gain the capacity to not only win on the field of battle, but to lay the foundation for lasting security in the region and a more secure future for the world,” he added. Observing that U.S. alone cannot accomplish the goal of defeating the ISIS, he said its lasting defeat must be a global undertaking because it’s a global threat.

“Any nation that cares about the safety of its people or the future of its civilisation must know this. America will continue to lead the fight, but there can be no free riders,” he said. “That means as we invest in the acceleration of the campaign, so much every one of our coalition partners and every nation in a position to help,” he said. “That means greater military contributions, but it also means greater diplomatic, political and economic engagement. It means development and reconstruction. It means actions at home and abroad to disrupt, dismantle and degrade ISIL’s capabilities. It means stepping up,” he said.

Mr. Carter said that he has personally reached out to his counterparts, the ministers of defence in 40 countries, to ask them to contribute to enhancing the fight against ISIL: more special operations forces, more strike and reconnaissance aircraft, weapons and munitions, training assistance, as well as combat support and combat service support. “Many nations are already contributing greatly. Many can do more. And some are on the wrong track entirely. We don’t ask for favours, but neither do we grant favours. We recognise that nations follow their own interests as we follow ours.

That means that they themselves must accelerate their efforts disrupting the networks that enable the flow of foreign fighters and materiel through their lands,” he said. “That means joining and taking advantage of the opportunity to fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria before it becomes a more serious threat to their public. And for Muslim-majority nations, in particular, that means stepping forward and debunking ISIL’s false claims to religious or ideological excuses for brutality,” he argued.

The action by Pakistan, promised by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a telephonic conversation with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi last week, had been expected for some days, especially after pressure from several sides. The Indian government had made it clear that there would be “no talks without action” from Pakistan on the basis of evidence and leads handed over by India about the Pathankot attackers who killed 7 Indian soldiers.

In a telephone call on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the tough message, calling for swift action, to which Mr. Sharif had replied “the world will see our effectiveness and sincerity” in fighting terror. In two separate statements, China too had condemned the attack, saying it “shared the pain and anger of the people of India.”

In the meanwhile the Ministry of External Affairs kept up the pressure by refusing to confirm or cancel the Foreign Secretary-level talks which had been informally agreed to for January 15. Until just a day before the arrests in Pakistan, officials had said they had seen “little evidence of any action on the ground”, calling news reports about Pakistani officials moving in the case as “trial balloons.”Security experts also warned against reading too much into the action against Jaish-e-Mohammad, the group that was set up by Masood Azhar after he was released at Kandahar by the Indian government in 1999 in exchange for hostages on board IC-814. India has demanded action against Azhar for the 2001 Parliament attack and the deadly bombing of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly building in Srinagar a few months before that, as well as several terror attacks since then.

The Pakistan government, that has never explained how Azhar appeared in Pakistan shortly after his release, and has not curbed any of his recent public statements vowing violence on India, only acted against the JeM in 2003, when it banned the outfit for attempting to assassinate former President Gen. Musharraf. Azhar was put under house arrest at the time, but released subsequently.

U.S. President Barack Obama has outlined a four-point agenda that he said was about focusing on the future beyond the next year — making the economy work for everyone, making technology work for everyone, retaining American leadership in the world “without becoming its policeman,” and overcoming the current hostility in U.S. domestic politics. In his last State of the Union address, Mr. Obama said despite the growth in manufacturing and employment, the nature of the global economy allowed workers less leverage for a raise and encouraged companies to “put quarterly earnings over long-term returns.”

Outlining his idea of America’s global leadership in the coming decades, which he said would be of instability in West Asia, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia, Mr. Obama said: “We can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis.” He said threats came not from evil states, but from failing states. “Leadership means a wise application of military power, and rallying the world behind causes that are right,” Mr. Obama said, listing the new opening with Cuba, the nuclear deal with Iran, the Trans Pacific Partnership that would limit China and establish U.S. leadership in Asia as examples of his internationalism.

Vice-President Joe Biden and House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, who sat right behind Mr. Obama through the one-hour speech, represented the extreme emotions that Mr Obama evokes — adulation among supporters and total rejection among critics. Speaking for the Republican Party, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley agreed with Mr. Obama that there were lots of “irresponsible talk”, but blamed him for that. “He is divisive.”

Mr. Obama said for the American leadership to sustain, the country had to fix its internal politics. One of the few regrets of his presidency, he added, was “that the rancour and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.”