Storms Africa

Sally Ride doesn't look like a woman outrageous enough to sit on top of a stack of enormous flaming rockets. There's absolutely nothing about her refined appearance or manner to suggest she has the grit to travel into the great, dark, airless abyss strapped to the seat of a hurtling piece of machinery. She's small, reserved, a reluctant heroine uneasy with eminence, a self-possessed but distant star who navigates her rarefied universe with quiet control.

Heavily armed white commandos stormed a prison in the black tribal homeland of Ciskei early Friday and freed the former head of its security services, who had been jailed by the Ciskei president--his half-brother--after an attempted coup three years ago. Half an hour later, other commandos abducted the president's son, who commands an elite brigade of palace guard troops and who is seen as his father's preferred successor, outside a casino near King William's Town. The freed man--Gen.

Heavily armed white commandos stormed a prison in the black tribal homeland of Ciskei early Friday and freed the former head of its security services, who had been jailed by the Ciskei president--his half-brother--after an attempted coup three years ago. Half an hour later, other commandos abducted the president's son, who commands an elite brigade of palace guard troops and who is seen as his father's preferred successor, outside a casino near King William's Town. The freed man--Gen.

Atypical song like "Storms in Africa" on Enya's "Watermark" album has the feel of a boy soprano singing hymns in Latin against a new-age instrumental setting with backing vocals from a pop girl group. In fact, the mystery syllables are neither Latin nor even CocteauTwin-ese, but Gaelic. The elusive and entrancing "Watermark" is not a likely record to be nearing the 500,000 sales mark just two months after its release.

Pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager may suffer a permanent 30% hearing loss because an electronic device designed to shield them from some engine noise in the Voyager's tiny cabin has failed, the expedition's physician said Thursday. Dr. George Jutila's comments underscored the increasing concern over the physical condition of Rutan and Yeager as they passed the halfway mark in their projected 10-day around-the-world flight without refueling.

July 24, 1999: It is the last day--in fact, the last mile--of the Axelrad family vacation. Liza Bercovici and her husband, David Axelrad, Studio City attorneys, are bicycling in Grand Teton national park with their children, Gabriella, 13, and Jake, 8. It is an empty road, a gorgeous place, a perfect finale to the annual summer excursion. "We never took vacations without the kids," Liza would later say. "Maybe we should have." A van appears. The young man at the wheel is changing a CD.