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.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Voters will get the chance to decide whether Ohio will opt out of the national health care overhaul after the state's top election official said Tuesday that opponents of the federal Affordable Care Act have enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NFL owners and players agreed early Monday to the terms of a deal to end the lockout, and players were expected to begin their voting process later in the day, two people familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.