She May Perform Minor Surgery

When the premed students at Lee College in Baytown, Tex., first saw 11-year-old Kristen Banerjee in their classes, they thought she was someone’s daughter. Until she opened her mouth. “She often has the answer to a question before we have time to look it up,” said Sharon Svrcek, 36. “It makes me feel dumb since she’s only 11 and it took me 17 years to return to college.” Kristen, a genius with an IQ of 164, could ostensibly receive her medical degree by 17. She was speaking in sentences before her first birthday, and, at age 4, became fluent in Norwegian after spending the summer there with her father, Dallas research scientist Salil Banerjee. Her parents are divorced, and Kristen lives with her mother, Carol Harrison, in Crosby, Tex. For light reading before bed, Kristen browses through the Physicians’ Desk Reference, a thick volume about prescription drugs. “I love to read it. I like learning about the warnings and names of medicines,” she said. “This is going to be a fabulous year, I can tell you. I’m almost afraid to talk about it for fear I might wake up and find it was only a dream.”

--Florida, one of the latest states to adopt a lottery, has its first millionaire winner, and he’s finding his good fortune a mixed blessing. Thomas Sawyer, a St. Petersburg paint store owner, has already had his phone number changed. “I’ve got a few calls from charities,” said Sawyer, who won $1 million. “But they’re not as big a hassle as the various investment companies. . . . Everybody says they want to help.” When the number change failed to deter the more aggressive funds-seekers, who learned his unlisted number, Sawyer’s wife and daughter resorted to screening all his calls at home. That Sawyer even entered the lottery was a fluke. He has never bought a ticket, saying he’s opposed to lotteries. But that didn’t stop him from turning in one that had been discarded in front of his store. That ticket was selected from among 460,000 entries. The lottery has generated sales of about 300 million $1 tickets in five weeks.

--A marathon runner training for the Olympics interrupted her regular regimen to finish first among women competing in the 11th Annual Empire State Building Run-Up. Janine Aiello of San Francisco pounded up the 1,575 steps to the 86th-floor observation deck of the 102-story landmark in 13 minutes, 43 seconds--28 seconds off her women’s record in the event, set in 1985. In the men’s competition, Australian Craig Logan led a field of 79 to the top of the building in 11 minutes, 29 seconds. “It wasn’t too bad, really,” said Logan, a 26-year-old pastry chef from Melbourne. “(But) it gets a bit boring, going around and around.”