Page One Wins Her $55 Million

--A 63-year-old real estate agent entered the record books when she stepped forward to claim a jackpot of $55.16 million in the Florida lottery. Sheelah Ryan of Winter Springs, Fla., picked the first numbers she came across in various stories on the front page of a newspaper. The winning combination--3, 5, 19, 20, 27 and 35--guarantees her $2,767,361 a year for 20 years--less 20% withheld for the Internal Revenue Service. It is believed to be the largest jackpot ever won in North America. Ryan, a native New Yorker who is single and has no children, said she had previously purchased two other winning tickets in the 8-month-old lottery--both paid $4. “I’ve had three firsts today,” Ryan told reporters in Tallahassee. “It has been my first plane ride. . . . No. 2, this is my first press conference. No. 3, this is the first time I’ve ever won $55 million.” She said she had not decided what to do with her winnings, but “I’ve always been middle class and the middle class always needs money.”

--Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who returned to Capitol Hill for the first time in seven months after undergoing two operations to repair aneurysms in his brain and one for a blood clot in his lung, told well-wishers that withdrawing from the Democratic presidential race “saved my life. Doctors told me the prospects of my still being alive if I stayed in the presidential race were very remote.” Biden, 45, was welcomed back to work with a surprise party in his office and a standing ovation in the Senate. He dropped out of the presidential race in September, 1987, following charges he had plagiarized speeches and exaggerated his academic accomplishments. Biden said he bore no grudge against John Sasso, an aide to Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis whose leaked reports to the press helped end Biden’s campaign.

--Guess which of the following did not make it into the Third College Edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary: “golden parachute,” “Valley girl,” “junk bond,” “kissy-face,” “couch potato,” “glasnost.” The answer, according to Editor-in-Chief Victoria Neufeldt, is “Valley girl” (“Not common enough,” she said.). The Third Edition, the first complete update since 1970, contains 20,000 new words, definitions and usages, which were added because they have become an accepted part of the American language. A group of 11 editors makes the final determination on whether or not a word is included. Neufeldt said the greatest increase in new entries came in the business and computer fields.