From the San Francisco Chronicle

Carole Warner said Friday that she won $85 million in the California Lottery but isn't sure if she will claim the money.
That's if she can find the ticket.

The Benicia resident said she doesn't want the cash -- and a trailing pack of instant friends, long-lost relatives and hangers-on to disturb her family's "simple" life.

Warner said she had last seen the ticket shortly after the Wednesday night drawing of the SuperLotto Plus numbers.

Lottery officials say that no one has stepped forward claiming to have the winning ticket, which was purchased at a Quik Stop Market in Vallejo. The losers list now may include Warner.

"I can't find my ticket," the 44-year-old Costco employee said Friday night outside the apartment she shares with her husband, Steve, and their 10-year- old son. "We've been looking all over for it."

Not surprisingly, Steve Warner isn't happy.

"He's extremely ticked off right now at the fact that I misplaced the ticket," Carole Warner said.

Even if she finds the lucky ducat, Warner said, she doesn't know if she'll keep it. Money changes things. And she doesn't want to be changed.

"I'm very simple," Warner said. "I like quiet and calmness and doing the things we do as a family."

While everybody talks about what they would do if they won the lottery, Warner said, "It's a lot different story when it actually goes down. It's overwhelming."

Already people have been acting weirdly around her, and she hasn't won anything yet. She told just one of her fellow employees at the Vallejo Costco outlet, "and it spread through every Costco in the county." Soon, people were coming up to her just to touch her -- which she found weird.

If she eventually finds the ticket, Warner said, she might give it to charity.

"I have six months to think about it, and I'm going to," Warner said. "I'm overwhelmed right now. I guess I'm not used to the 15 minutes of fame."

Refusing a jackpot would be a first in California.

Fifteen jackpots have gone unclaimed in the 17-year history of the California Lottery, "but we always assume it's because somebody lost their ticket," said Cathy Doyle Johnston, a lottery spokesperson. "But even if she didn't want it, she could give it to charity."

According to lottery rules, California's public schools may be the big winners if the prize isn't claimed. Johnston said the state's general education fund could get $31 million after taxes if Warner -- or whoever -- bypasses the jackpot.

The Quik Stop where the winner was purchased will get its $425,000 share regardless.

Celebrity-driven circulation gains
By PAUL D. COLFORD DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER

The new In Touch Weekly can't get enough of Jennifer Aniston.
She dominated three of the last five covers and appears on a fourth this week because Beverly Hills neighbors have tired of construction on the home she shares with husband Brad Pitt.

The response to such celebrity obsession is that Bauer Publishing will raise the circulation it guarantees advertisers - to 350,000 copies an issue, from the current 250,000 - in April.

Though well below Us Weekly's 1.05 million and mighty People's 3.35 million, the hike suggests In Touch is getting traction on brutally crowded newsstands since its October launch.

Indeed, the Daily News previously reported that an early issue fronted by "Diana's Secret Love Story" sold some 460,000.

As Bauer Publishing targets women in their 20s and 30s, it's priced In Touch to please - at $1.99 - $1.30 cheaper than both Us and People.

Now, the boasting has begun.

In Touch executive editor Steve LeGrice noted the new mag looked into whispers that Aniston and Pitt's love is on the rocks - last week's cover - before Us and People did so in their issues this week.

But faster can be easier when a mag recycles a number of quotes from other media, as In Touch did in its "Can They Stop the Rumors?" story.

"Although this is a new magazine, the people involved in it are not new," LeGrice said. The staff includes veterans of the Star and Fleet Street.

"Apparently, they're trying to ride the People and Us wave," said Media Industry Newsletter editor in chief Steven Cohn, who's struck by how much In Touch looks like Us.

"It's all legal," he said of the resemblance, "and clever as well."

An Us spokesman said: "Imitation is the oldest form of flattery."