At 74, He’s Been Living on the House Under the House

--A 74-year-old homeless man named Stacy Abner has lived for a decade under the steps of the U.S. Capitol, sleeping and eating within feet of where the country’s leaders carry on the nation’s business. “He’s like anything on Capitol Hill for a long time--it gets to be kind of a fixture,” said Capt. Bob Howe, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police. Abner keeps a bedroll, two folding chairs and cardboard boxes covered with black plastic under the portico at the Capitol’s carriage entrance. By day, Abner, a World War II veteran, sits outside with two handwritten cardboard signs stating that he seeks redress from the Veterans Administration for “war-inflicted diseases” of gout, rheumatic fever and hypertension. Abner said he lives from handouts people give him--House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) has provided shirts--goes to the bathroom in the Capitol building and takes showers at various places he wouldn’t name. “I’m just like the rest of the wild animals,” he said. “Whatever I can find, I take; whatever I can’t, I do without.”

--Her husband, author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was ill, said Natalia Solzhenitsyn as she appeared in federal court in Rutland, Vt., to take the oath and become a U.S. citizen. She did not discuss the illness of her husband, 66, and no date was set for him to take the oath. Both Solzhenitsyns had been scheduled to be sworn in as citizens in the specially arranged ceremony. As she left the federal building, she held up her certificate of citizenship and said: “It is a really important moment in my life and I want to go home and share it with my family and friends.” In 1977, the Soviet government stripped her of her citizenship. She left the Soviet Union in 1974, six weeks after her husband had been expelled.

--Swimsuit queen and high-priced model Paulina Porizkova says showing off her body makes her $300,000 a year--but she hates it. “I’ve always hated modeling,” she says. “It’s superficial and fake and I hate to have to care what I look like. I get a pimple and freak.” She told People magazine that even though she hates modeling, she’s not stupid. “I’m earning a ridiculous amount of money just for being beautiful. I am the way God made me, and they splatter some paint on my face and I get $3,500 a day for it. . . . I’m not as dumb as I look.”