MIAMI (AP) -- Sonia Rodriguez whipped up milk-and-espresso drinks at the Latin American Grill as talk turned to a new push in Congress to tighten restrictions on travel to Cuba. Like growing numbers of Cuban-Americans, she's worried about the U.S. reinstating strict limits on how often she can visit relatives and even how much money can be sent to loved ones on the island.

HARBOR BEACH, Mich. (AP) -- A New York pilot who crashed into Lake Huron and survived without a life jacket by swimming and treading water for about 17 hours says he was finally rescued Wednesday when he frantically waved a sock to get the attention of people on a boat.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Nine-year-old Rachel Beckwith had hoped to raise $300 to bring clean water to an African village. She was close to that goal when she died after a car crash.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of people seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level since early April, a sign the job market may be healing after a recent slump.

DETROIT (AP) -- Detroit's mayor unveiled a plan Wednesday that could determine what the city looks like as it fights for vitality, announcing that neighborhoods will receive different kinds of services depending on the conditions of homes, how many people live there and the level of blight.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- From New Jersey to California, police, courthouse officials and real estate agents are being confronted with a baffling new problem: bogus legal documents filed by people claiming to follow an obscure Black-focused religion called Moorish Science. Their motives range from financial gain to simply causing a nuisance.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's flagship hospital where privates to presidents have gone for care, is closing its doors after more than a century.

Recent U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) statistics show that Blacks are still the group hardest hit by the economic recession—showing a 16.2 percent unemployment rate in June.  According to Politic365.com, it is unclear how Blacks will vote in 2012 and if Black joblessness will affect President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The NAACP plans to spend the next year fighting against a slew of voting laws that it says disenfranchise huge swaths of minority voters, the civil rights organization's president said at the group's convention on Monday.