* Hall Cheer: Arsenio Hall brightened the...

* Hall Cheer: Arsenio Hall brightened the spirits of Jason Knight, 7, a cancer patient in Bennettsville, S.C., with a phone call. For 30 minutes Hall made jokes, talked about his talk show and promised to be Jason’s friend for life. “It made me feel very good,” said Jason, who has lung cancer and faces surgery to remove his cancerous right leg. The first-grader says Hall also has promised to get him in touch with rapper M C Hammer.

* Games Plan: Patriotism, cunning and Marxism are the reasons why China amassed such a huge total of medals at the Asian Games, a top sports official said Thursday. China has collected 155 golds, more than all the other nations put together. Liu Ji, the deputy chief of China’s games delegation, said: “In each athletic team . . . . we have organized the athletes to study seriously Marxist philosophy, the ‘Art of War’ and the ’36 Points.’ ” The last two are classical Chinese works on conducting war through all means, including propaganda, psychology and clever stratagems.

* Pete’s Partner: Pete Sampras, the young U.S. Open tennis champion, visited the White House Wednesday and teamed up for a couple of sets with George Bush, and they defeated Bush’s son Marvin and Steve Quanby, a friend of Marvin’s. “He moves well,” Sampras said of the 66-year-old president. “He has excellent reflexes. He held his own.”

* Hospital Report: Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had an artificial right hip joint replaced Wednesday and is “recuperating,” said Dr. Dan Michaeli in Tel Aviv. “He had a dislocation, something that happens through wear and tear on the joint, especially artificial ones.” Begin, 77, former leader of the ultra-right Herut Party, resigned as prime minister in 1983 without explanation.