Teen discovers a winning lottery ticket, and more

Teen discovers a winning lottery ticket

A teenager ordered to tidy his room by his long-suffering mother really cleaned up when he discovered a winning lottery ticket in the mess. Ryan Kitching, 19, of Penicuik, Scotland, won over $83,000 after finding a pile of discarded lottery tickets buried in a drawer. Kitching’s mother said she had been nagging her son to clean his room for several weeks. The teenager said he’d treat her to a holiday with his winnings—and keep his room tidier in the future. “I won’t need telling twice,” he said.

The Waldorf-Astoria then and now

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Back in 1952, Joan and Isidore Schwartz spent the first night of their marriage in New York’s historic Waldorf-Astoria hotel, paying the then-significant sum of $16.80 for a room. Sixty years on, the couple celebrated their anniversary last week in the very same hotel, and paid the exact same amount to stay the night—a far cry from the usual $319-a-night rate. The Waldorf honors the original room rate for couples commemorating special occasions at the hotel, but the Schwartzes, of East Lyme, Conn., are only the second couple to use the deal to celebrate their diamond anniversary.

A fisherman's memoirs

A fisherman who learned to read and write at the age of 91 has gone on to write his memoirs at the age of 98. James Arruda Henry, of Mystic, Conn., was encouraged to pick up literacy skills by his granddaughters following the death of his wife several years ago. Before long, he was writing out stories taken from his life in longhand on a legal pad. With the help of his tutor, Henry collected them all into a book, In a Fisherman’s Language, which is now being distributed by a local publisher.