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In search of someone - anyone - on this planet who is not in love with Barack Obama, I am in the banquet hall of a Cuban restaurant in the Miami suburbs, and there are dozens of men and women around me and they are hollering "McCain! McCain! Sí McCain!" A man shouts out in Spanish that I am a political reporter from Canada visiting South Florida. He asks for a show of hands declaring presidential preference. The result: John McCain, about 50; Mr. Obama, two. And the room is just beginning to fill. Soon there will be 250 people...

Many Cubans here are fond of saying, "Things are not meant to be understood." After a couple of days, you get a sense of what they're talking about. Havana is a city of contrasts and contradictions, a place where the most spectacularly restored colonial building can stand near two crumbling structures held in place by wooden planks. A place that endured a decade of daily blackouts ... A place where an egg can cost, in Cuban pesos, 15 cents, 90 cents or 1.50 - depending on where it is purchased. Each Cuban receives a monthly allowance of food, referred to...

HAVANA - Ailing leader Fidel Castro on Monday denied U.S. presidential hopeful John McCain's claim that Cuban agents helped torture American prisoners of war in Vietnam in the 1960s, calling the assertion "a strange legend." "Let me remind you, Mr. McCain: the commandments of the religion you practice prohibit lying," Castro wrote in an essay published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma. "The years in prison and the wounds received because of the attacks on Hanoi do not excuse you from the moral obligation of the truth," the essay added. McCain, Republican front-runner for the November presidential contest, was a...

MIAMI -- The Latin Builders Association basked in the attention of four Republican candidates today, all of whom pledged to pay attention to issues prized by Latino voters. While Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) came at the end of the day, as association members were sipping cocktails, he came with a key guest: Sen. Mel Martinez, who formally announced he is endorsing his colleague for president. "The man that we should trust with the leadership of our nation as commander in chief ought to be John McCain," Martinez said, breaking into a mix of Spanish and English. "This is a man...

HAVANA (AFP) - Cubans Sunday cast show-of-support votes for a new National Assembly which will choose the country's president amid doubts about whether ailing Fidel Castro will retake the reins of the only communist government in the Americas. Castro, who has been sidelined from power for nearly 18 months following major intestinal surgery, is among 614 uncontested candidates for the legislature, which will name 31 lawmakers to the Council of State led by the president. The election is free of surprises and choices. But the new assembly will be closely watched as it will name by March 5 a new...

"United States policy must continue to stand with the Cuban people and against those who have oppressed, terrorized, and murdered so many Cubans over the past half-century. This was my position when I served in the Senate; it is my position today; it will be my position as President. Fidel and Raul Castro are unaccountable dictators who can serve no role in Cuba’s future. We must continue supporting the growing internal opposition in Cuba while also denying the regime any source of funding that could prop up this cruel, illegitimate government. This means keeping current sanctions in place, and increasing...

Editor’s Note: By participating in the historic Spanish-language debate on Univision, Republican candidates finally realized that they need Latino votes. But is it “too little, too late?" NAM editor Elena Shore monitors Spanish language media. The first Spanish-language Republican presidential candidate debate couldn’t have come at a better time for the GOP. Latino support for the Republican Party has dropped substantially when the Latino vote is more important than ever. The candidates’ jostling over who is tougher on immigration has alienated Latinos even further. Seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates showed up at the University of Miami Sunday with...

Just Three Weeks Before Dallas, Feds Uncovered Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago, Says Ex-Secret Service Agent By CHUCK GOUDIE, WLS-TV Nov. 22, 2007 — A former Secret Service agent has told WLS-TV there was a plot to kill President Kennedy in Chicago three weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas. Kennedy was murdered on Nov. 22, 1963. Today is the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald would never have had the chance to kill Kennedy in Dallas, had an assassination plot in Chicago succeeded three weeks earlier, a plot that has been mentioned over the years. Kennedy...

Fred Thompson's campaign named a handful of volunteer grassroots leaders in Miami-Dade to help boost its outreach to Latino voters -- a territory rival Rudy Giuliani is putting great effort in reaching. County leadership positions announced today include co-chairs: Homestead Mayor Lynda Bell and Miami-Dade Commissioners Joe Martinez and Natacha Seijas. The latter two previously endorsed Thompson when he appeared at Miami's Urbeita Oil in October. Other's involved Lois Jones, Chris Miles and Luis Rodriguez.

GENEVA - The United Nations has expressed regret that undercover Cuban officials attended a U.N. news conference on human rights, where they sought information on a French journalist asking critical questions about Fidel Castro's regime. Elena Ponomareva, spokeswoman for the global body's European headquarters, said she was unable to prevent two Cuban diplomats from entering the Oct. 11 news event with Jean Ziegler, a U.N. rights expert who was preparing for a mission to the communist-run island. The U.N. strictly prohibits government officials from attending news conferences unless they are explicitly invited and included among those presenting. Previous run-ins have...

All of the Republican presidential contenders have turned down an invitation to speak in Orlando to the nation's largest gathering of Hispanic elected officials, at a time when their constituents are poised to be a powerful force in the 2008 election. Making the GOP field's absence particularly conspicuous, all of the leading Democratic candidates are planning to address NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, on June 30. The Republicans were asked to participate in a forum the previous day. About 1,000 Hispanic leaders, representing the fastest-growing part of the electorate, are expected at the conference. Hispanic...

Either by chance or by design, a growing number of Venezuelans -- more than 2,000 since 2002 -- are marrying Cuban refugees on the fast track for green cards, and drawing scrutiny from U.S. immigration officials. The escalation coincides with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's increasing ties to Cuba's Fidel Castro, which have prompted thousands of Venezuelans to flee and then overstay their visas in the United States. In South Florida, attorneys say marriages between Cuban refugees and Venezuelan immigrants top the list of non-Cubans marrying Cubans, followed by Colombians and Mexicans.

CLICKRomney advertisement appeals to Cuban voters- Radio AUDIO Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is appealing to Cuban voters in South Florida with a radio commercial saying he will meet with exile leaders. This is the second political ad the former Massachusetts governor has broadcast in Florida. A television ad introducing Romney to GOP primary voters had a limited run in Tampa and Orlando last month. The 30-second radio ad features former Florida GOP Chairman Al Cardenas, who tells listeners: "This great nation needs a new dawn and the leader that could bring us hope is Mitt Romney. "Mitt Romney is...

MIAMI (Reuters) - While hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agents intercepted imaginary Cuban migrants during a massive training exercise in south Florida, two boatloads of actual Cubans sneaked ashore on Miami Beach on Thursday. Boaters dropped off 21 Cuban migrants at a popular nudist beach and left 19 others on another beach a few hours later, the Border Patrol said. Both vessels escaped. "It's our belief that they were the result of organized smuggling," Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald said. The Cubans arrived on day two of a training exercise to test "Operation Vigilant Sentry," the U.S. Department of Homeland...

The US coast guard is staging a huge exercise in Florida in preparation for a possible mass exodus from Cuba in the event of the death of Fidel Castro.More than 300 agents and 85 law enforcement agencies are taking part in the two-day Operation Vigilant Sentry. Actors are playing imaginary Cuban migrants in mock interceptions. The operation has taken on a renewed urgency since President Castro fell ill and handed temporary power to his brother Raul last July. President Castro recently spoke in a live broadcast with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, but has not been seen in public...

Immigration reform is a predicament wrapped in a dilemma. While it is common for issues to separate Republicans and Democrats, immigration is an issue that opens yawning divides within each group. "We are engaged in a struggle for the soul of the party," Mel Martinez, the general chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me. Martinez said Republicans must back more than border security if they are to survive politically. The party, he believes, must back legislation that will lead to the "regularization" of illegal immigrants already in this country. Alex Castellanos, media strategist for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney,...

Cubans feel betrayed by tourist playground Last Updated: 2:58am GMT 13/02/2007 Carlos swung his legs over the sea wall bordering one side of Havana's famous Malecon seafront promenade and looked on curiously as a 1957 Chevrolet with an open top slowed to allow its passengers to photograph the faded facade of a colonial building. "They watch us and we watch them," he said with a resigned laugh as the tourists turned their cameras to capture the image of a young boy optimistically fishing in the oily waters. A tourist horse and trap pass infront of a Che Guevara mural "It's...

When Juan Penton took the witness stand this week, he described himself as a Hialeah carpenter who made wooden cigar boxes stamped ''made in Cuba'' to sell as novelty gifts. But on Friday, a dozen Miami federal jurors found him guilty of selling $3,000 worth of counterfeit cigars in those imitation boxes. They concluded he was essentially copying famous Cuban cigar trademarks such as Montecristo, which are registered in the United States by its largest cigar producer. The David-and-Goliath legal tale pitted Penton not only against the U.S. government but also the giant cigar company that funded part of the...

On a tape of a closed-door meeting with advisers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are naturally feisty and temperamental because of their combination of "black blood" and "Latino blood." "I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot," the governor says on the recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times and made available on its Web site Friday. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it." The six-minute tape was made earlier this year. On it, Schwarzenegger and Chief of...

MIAMI (AP) A psychology professor accused of being a Cuban agent admitted Friday that he was a ``collaborator'' with Cuba's intelligence service, communicating with officials using a short-wave radio, sophisticated encryption techniques and a code name, ``David.'' Carlos Alvarez insisted, however, that he had distanced himself from the communist government by the time he confessed details of his work last year. He also denied being a Cuban agent and said he was never employed by that government. ``I was not an agent of the Cuban government. I was a collaborator, which is very different,'' the Florida International University professor testified....

Cuban Americans, the time is near and the long waited for challenge is at hand. The demise of the aging Castro brothers, like the Berlin Wall is at hand. Will Cuba fall to the petro-peso Chavez and suffer another generation of subjugation? Can Cuba be resusitated to realize her enormous economic potential? Cuba's destiny will be determined by the will of Cuban's on the island and around the world. This post is initiated by a non-Cuban, American capitalist who simply dreams of a free Cuba. A place that will welcome her expatriots. Where free enterprise will reward a Cuban middle...

June 4, 2006 -- IT'S mind-boggling to think about, but our nation's nuclear policies may have been shaped in part by Marilyn Monroe. Biographer Anthony Summers, who has examined hundreds of pages of unreleased federal documents, says the blond bombshell met with her occasional bedmate President John F. Kennedy less than a month before her death of a drug overdose in 1962 - and one subject discussed over lunch was "nuclear testing." The lunch was three months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since the nuclear issue was the hot potato of the day, and Monroe was known to have acquaintances...

TALLAHASSEE - Only a couple of months ago Alex Villalobos was on the cusp of making history as a future president of the state Senate, the first Cuban American who would hold the post. But the Miami senator's long history as a moderate and independent cost him the leadership post. Then, Monday night, it led to his firing as Senate majority leader minutes after he cast a deciding vote to kill Gov. Jeb Bush's efforts to revive one of his prized education jewels: giving parents public money vouchers to send their kids to private school. Three days earlier, Villalobos had...

The United States may have to deal with repercussions from its campaign against Cuba that led to Cubans being asked to leave a U.S.-owned hotel. BY PABLO BACHELET pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's feisty campaign to curtail U.S. contacts with Cuba sparked an angry row with Mexico, which announced Tuesday that it could fine or even close a U.S.-owned hotel in Mexico that threw out a Cuban delegation after a call from the Treasury Department. Three Mexican agencies -- the Mexico City government, the federal consumer protection office and the national commission against discrimination -- will look into the...

MIAMI -- A federal judge suggested Thursday that the U.S. government acted illogically this week when it sent back 15 Cubans who had landed on an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys. U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said he would not rule immediately on the emergency lawsuit filed on the Cubans' behalf by an advocacy group that is seeking to bring them back to this country, but he questioned the government's reasoning.

MIAMI -- Fifteen Cubans who fled their homeland and landed on an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys were returned to Cuba Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the piling did not constitute dry land, authorities said. Under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in the country, while those caught at sea are sent back. Earlier Monday, officials said the Cubans were aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, as they awaited a final decision as to their status. The historic Old Seven Mile Bridge, which runs...

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Dozens of Cuban migrants, including at least nine children, came ashore Friday throughout Southern Florida and Dry Tortugas, officials said. A total of 87 Cuban migrants reached Florida, said Steve McDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol. Two groups totalling 37 people came ashore in Marathon, 28 came to Miami Beach, three reached Key Biscayne and 19 made it to the Dry Tortugas at the tip of the Florida Keys. The group that came ashore in Miami Beach consisted of 12 men, seven women and nine children — the youngest 6 years old, said Arley Flaherty,...

After two men pleaded guilty to organizing a smuggling trip in which a 6-year-old Cuban boy died, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that it had sent 25 passengers on the trip back to Cuba. Under the so-called "wet foot-dry foot" policy, immigration officials interview Cubans caught at sea and repatriate them if they do not show they have a credible fear of persecution if returned to the island. Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are withholding their party membership dues until they receive assurances from House Democratic leaders that the party will make a concerted effort to engage Hispanic voters and better serve the needs of the Hispanic community. Lawmakers withholding their dues said that their decision was the culmination of several years of frustration with what they view as the Democratic Party’s failure to reach out to Hispanics and include them in the decision-making process. They are also increasingly concerned by results at the ballot box and of post-election surveys showing that President Bush won 44...

Imagine the surprise!  Before November, public polls showed Sen. John Kerry with 65 percent of the Latino vote. “Kerry is winning the Latino vote by a margin greater than Al Gore’s,” one analyst proclaimed. Then, on election night, the exit polls showed Kerry getting nine points less than Gore had among Latinos. (The Kerry campaign’s internal polling had revealed consistent sub par performance among Latinos.) Shortly after the election, I wrote here that for too long Democrats had considered Latinos part of the base, failing to acknowledge changes and contradictions in their political views. For example, we found in 2002...

Babalu blog's Val Prieto, who was profiled recently on the front page of the Miami Herald as a brilliant new voice of the often-dismissed Cuban-American community, has a striking update about the Elian Gonzalez case. Back in 2000, the rescue of the 6-year-old Cuban refugee by fishermen off the coast of Florida triggered a three-way tug-of-war between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the cowardly Clinton Administration, and the Cuban-American community over custody of the child. The Clinton administration resolved the question with a savage pre-dawn raid, grabbing the terrified child at gunpoint from his Miami relatives and delivering him straight to...

150 detainees freed; more expected soon The Bush administration has begun to comply with last month's Supreme Court decision ordering the release of Mariel convicts in indefinite detention. By ALFONSO CHARDY Miami Herald In response to last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling, federal officials have released nearly 150 people who came to the United States from Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift and later were convicted of crimes. About 600 more Mariel convicts remain in prisons and jails nationwide, along with more than 100 non-Cuban detainees, said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington,...

CARACAS - The many bizarre aspects of the recent arrests of some 80 alleged Colombian mercenaries accused of plotting to kill President Hugo Chávez have sparked deep skepticism and worry among many Venezuelans and foreign diplomats. The concern is that the leftist Chávez will use the case as an excuse to crack down on his nonviolent opponents or block an ongoing attempt to force a recall referendum on his rule. ''I have no doubt at all that this is an invention of the government,'' said former Foreign Minister Simón Alberto Consalvi, part of the opposition that accuses Chávez of leading...

Sources: Chavez Calls In Foreign Aid in Preparation for Crackdown?Dec 09, 2002 Summary The risk of violence is escalating in Venezuela, where multiple sources say President Hugo Chavez is arming domestic supporters and possibly calling in help from Cuban nationals and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Analysis The threat of major violence in Venezuela within the next two or three days is increasing rapidly in cities like Caracas and Maracaibo, Stratfor sources say. The government of embattled President Hugo Chavez is arming hundreds of civilian supporters, at least three small groups of Colombian rebels have crossed the border...

Mayor López indicted for arrest of former Interior Minister The Attorney General's Office Friday indicted Leopoldo López, Mayor of the Chacao Municipality of Caracas, in connection with the detention of former Interior and Justice Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín in April 2002. López was charged with housebreaking and false arrest against Rodríguez Chachín. López said that he and his colleague Henrique Capriles Radonski, Mayor of the Baruta Municipality of Caracas, are innocent because they acted abiding by the law, and met an order that the Attorney General's Office itself issued.

LAS VEGAS - In what appears to be the largest mass defection of Cuban performers to date, 44 dancers, singers and musicians, here to stage a revue, plan to seek political asylum in the United States, members of the troupe said Sunday. Most of the artists intend to deliver their applications for asylum this morning at the federal building here, the performers said in interviews at the Stardust Resort and Casino, where their ''Havana Night Club'' revue is to have a three-month run. Seven other members of the ensemble have already sought asylum from United States officials in Berlin. Those...

Flashback to early July: The "Havana Night Club" billboards were up all over Las Vegas, media ads were being purchased and the Stardust was promoting its new Siegfried & Roy-backed revue on its Website as the "one party you can't miss." The energetic Cuban production, which has played to audiences in 16 countries over the past four years, was finally coming to America. But as the July 31 opening night neared, there were no dancers, no singers and no musicians. Simply put, there was no show. Nicole Durr's dream was spiraling into an uncontrollable nightmare. But rather than throwing up...

A Herald poll conducted by Zogby International showed Sen. John Kerry leading among voters in Miami-Dade, but he has made little gain in the Cuban community. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry holds a comfortable lead among Miami-Dade County voters, much as former Vice President Al Gore did in 2000, a Herald poll shows.The biggest exception is the Cuban-American vote, which still overwhelmingly favors President Bush.The poll, conducted for The Herald by Zogby International, shows Kerry favored by 54 percent to Bush's 41 percent. But among Cuban Americans, a voting bloc targeted by the Democrats, nearly 79 percent say they...

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- President Fidel Castro fell, possibly breaking his leg, after giving a graduation speech Wednesday in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara. Sending a buzz through the crowd, the 78-year-old leader appeared to trip as he was walking away from the podium. In an effort to calm the crowd, Castro took the microphone after a few minutes, saying: "Just so that there won't be any speculation, it seems that I broke my knee." He apologized for any concerns he may have caused for those who care about him and then joked how his spill was likely...

I have an idea about using a scare tactic...a new one or maybe it isn't. Since Castro has come out and supported Kerry and Democrats want the illegal alien vote, then why can't we say that if Kerry gets into office, he will return illegal cubans back to Cuba. I think this might work with illegal Mexicans too because I think Fox (read Mexico's president, not the news channel--for the democrats) has come out in support of Kerry as well. It is only fair because of the scare tactics Democrats use to scare old people and victicrats (thanks for the...

Sen. John Kerry blended politics and faith at a Liberty City church; he later said a multinational push could reform Cuba. Sen. John Kerry sought to court important South Florida voting constituencies in a campaign swing Sunday, taking to the pulpit of a Liberty City church to evoke the 2000 election and claims of lost black votes, and assailing President Bush's crackdown on Cuba travel. Flanked by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and one-time rival Al Sharpton -- both of whom turned a lively morning service at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Liberty City into a blistering indictment of the Bush...

HAVANA — Fidel Castro was a constant presence during Hurricane Ivan's approach to the island nation this week, appearing for hours on state television to assuage Cubans' fears, underscoring his larger-than-life role in this socialist society. "Ivan couldn't go up against Fidel," read a headline in the Communist Party youth paper Juventud Rebelde (search) on Wednesday. A poem read over state radio Tuesday night said Castro's "thumb" pushed Ivan away from the island and into the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday, hours before Ivan struck, Castro traveled to the western province of Pinar del Rio (search) to discuss disaster preparations...

Has Cuba's septuagenarian dictator finally gone senile? Fidel Castro is doing everything possible to secure the re-election of his archenemy, President Bush. The crucial Cuban-American voting bloc in crucial Florida has lost some of its enthusiasm for Bush, but Castro seems determined to repair the damage by directing one rant after another at the president. Today the dictator accused Bush yet again of planning to invade his tropical gulag. 'Crazy' "Do not try crazy adventures such as surgical strikes or wars of attrition using sophisticated techniques because you could lose control of the situation," Castro said this morning in a...

CARACAS - Julián runs a small office supply shop in downtown Caracas, but his main income comes from the dilapidated government immigration offices nearby. Julián readily admits that he moonlights as a purveyor of fraudulent Venezuelan passports and national identity cards, and an expediter of real ones. And he gladly ticks off the prices he offers, usually to illegal immigrants: about $260 for a fake passport and $80 for a fake national identity card known as a cedula. It's a lot more for real ones, depending on how fast his clients want them. In the post-Sept. 11 era, Venezuela's trade...

U.S. Coast Guard Returns 36 Cubans Picked Up at Sea, Including 22 in Speedboat Feb 27, 2004 The Associated Press MIAMI (AP) - Thirty-six Cubans - including 22 in a speedboat racing toward Florida - were returned to Cuba this week after separate interdictions at sea, the Coast Guard said Friday. The larger group was spotted in the speedboat Sunday about 10 miles east of Key Largo by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement aircraft, according to a Coast Guard news release. Twenty-one were repatriated and one, a suspected smuggler, was turned over to federal law enforcement. Under U.S. immigration law,...

WEST PALM BEACH -- Five Cuban immigrants waited at sea without a country and three more sat in jail Monday awaiting word on their destinies -- possibly suspended there while in a political dust-up over the United States' repatriation policy. The people, taken into custody as they made a dash for U.S. soil through the Lake Worth Inlet Sunday evening, await word on whether prosecutors will charge the man who operated the boat and whether immigration officials will forcibly return those who never made landfall to Cuba. The three men who made it to Singer Island soil remain at the...

In 1854, the despicable Franklin Pierce administration attempted to purchase the island of Cuba and make it a state – a slaveholding state. The idea was eventually to take over the whole Caribbean and create a sufficient number of slave states to offset the creation of the new free states which anyone with a map and a brain could see were on the western horizon. A better chance for the annexation of Cuba came about in 1898, when the splendid little Spanish-American war resulted in U.S. control of that island, along with Puerto Rico and the Philippines; that same year,...

Repatriated Cubans spell boatload of trouble for Bush July 31, 2003 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement It was not just that the Bush administration dispatched 12 Cubans who hijacked a boat to the tender mercies of Fidel Castro. What inflamed pro-Bush Cuban Americans in south Florida is that the United States negotiated with the communist dictator to impose 10-year prison sentences. This sudden agreement between Washington and Havana could cost George W. Bush a second term. President Bush's Cuban-American friends consider this a de facto trial, resulting in incarceration by a police state. ''This is a very pained community,''...

Cuban migrants fashioned a boat out of a 1951 Chevy pickup truck and "drove" it to within 40 miles of the United States before they were spotted and returned to the island, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday. The dozen migrants, some sheltered in the truck cab or under a yellow tarp covering the bed, were noticed last week by a U.S. Customs aircraft south of Key West, Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Doss said. A propeller attached to the drive shaft of the green vintage pickup was pushing it along at about 8 mph, Doss said. The truck-raft was...

KEY LARGO -- Three Cubans reached land in Key Largo today after jumping off their small wooden boat and swimming for more than three hours while Coast Guard boats stayed close by. Coast Guardsmen tossed the Cubans life vests, which were initially thrown back, but which were eventually accepted. A fourth Cuban gave up and was pulled from the water. Reaching shore was important, because U-S policy is that Cubans who reach shore can be allowed to stay. Those intercepted at sea are usually returned to Cuba. The three who made it tread water most of the time, but ended...