Faint

As Van Evers squeezed beside the freshly unearthed casket for the six-hour ride, one thought consumed him: He was going to see his father.He never believed he'd have this chance. Three years old when his father, Medgar Evers, was killed, Van had only faint memories of a man leaving bubble gum cigars on his bunk bed. After the murder, he would pick up the phone and ask, "Have you seen my daddy?"Now, nearly 30 years later, the body was being brought to Albany, N.Y., from Arlington National Cemetery for an autopsy to bolster a case against the accused killer.

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said "everything's fine" after he collapsed at practice Friday and was taken off the court on a stretcher and to Baylor Medical Center. Mavericks President Donnie Nelson said Carlisle was "lightheaded and fainted" on the court at American Airlines Center. Carlisle was released from the hospital later Friday. "I got to feeling a little lightheaded," Carlisle told a Dallas radio station, "fainted and, before I knew it, they were pulling me out of there on a stretcher.

Time was, it was easy to shop in Columbia. You had two choices: K-mart and the Columbia Mall.Nowadays, however, to shop in Columbia you need a bargain-hunter's battle plan.The burgeoning range of discounters, which continues unabated, might leave the average person shell-shocked from the experience. In the good old days, you knew you weren't getting much of a bargain, so you didn't have to watch much for sales or comparison shop.Now, it's easy to separate the wimps from the serious shoppers.

Former U.S. Sen. Charles McC. Mathias was treated and released at an Annapolis-area hospital yesterday after collapsing at an outdoor ceremony commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Mathias, 81, took the lectern outside the State House just after 10:30 a.m. and said, "Let me start with a moment of advice based on personal experience ..." and then was silent for several moments before fainting. He was caught by several people, including actor Charles S. Dutton, and then transported to Anne Arundel Medical Center.

ARLINGTON, Ohio -- He's sunburned, he's running late, he's getting hoarse and the heat is so intense even hardy Midwesterners are dropping like flies right in the middle of his speeches. Yet President Clinton looks like he's having the time of his life."This is my idea of heaven!" Clinton told White House press secretary Mike McCurry. "He loves the romance and the history of it," McCurry said. "So do I."There is something mystical about trains and presidents and as he snakes his way toward Chicago, Clinton -- and those who come to see him -- are falling under the spell.

Carefully arranged on a bed of ice, the fish on the counter at Capitol Seafood in Jessup looked like a still-life composition.Gold-striped wild rockfish, their lips sporting blue plastic tags, lay in the upper left corner. Just below them were the smaller, dish-faced hybrid rocks raised on farms. To the right, the bright color of several red snappers contrasted with the plain brown of the flounder below.Framed by these lesser species, two large, silver-sided creatures formed the composition's centerpiece.

The physician's assistant was removing stitches from my head, one week after neurosurgery. Sitting upright, I suddenly got lightheaded, and the room began to fade away. "I think I'm going to pass out," I matter-of-factly announced to my husband. Faster than you can say "syncope," the medical term for fainting, I was out cold. When I regained consciousness moments later, I was still in the chair. My husband told me I had slumped backward and was unresponsive.

Although professing neutrality, county animal-control officials expressed strong reservations during a public hearing last night on a bill that would require cats to be licensed as dogs are now.The bill, sponsored by Councilwoman Maureen Lamb at the request of the county's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, would impose a $30 licensing fee for an unspayed or unneutered dog or cat and $4 for an altered pet, with discounts for veterans, the...

THE DAY AMERICA TOLD THE TRUTH. By James Patterson and Peter Kim. Prentice Hall. 270 pages. $19.95. IS AMERICA really the mom-and-apple-pie country it is made out to be? Not according to Messrs. Patterson and Kim, who set out to take the "moral pulse" of America in the "largest survey of private morals ever undertaken."The authors based their interviews on the premise that most people want to tell someone what they really think -- without consequences. In the questionnaires and interviews, anonymity was guaranteed; hence, we're to believe, the participants let down their BarbaraSamsonMillsguard.

The fainting spell that put President Bush on the floor yesterday was probably caused by a common intestinal bug, although fatigue and jet lag may have heightened his vulnerability to the illness, doctors said.Specialists in digestive illnesses agreed that Mr. Bush's unexpected collapse probably had nothing to do with the overactive thyroid that produced an irregular heartbeat last year, or with the sleep medication Halcion that the president took the night before his attack.From media accounts, doctors surmised that the president was overcome by an intestinal virus that is "going around" this winter, usually producing symptoms of nausea and diarrhea.