WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-Castro Cuban-Americans are donating more money to Democratic lawmakers in hopes of blunting momentum in Congress to lift the U.S. trade embargo of the Communist-ruled Caribbean nation, a report said on Monday.

Calif. lawyers reap financial benefits from voting rights law they wrote. Every lawsuit filed or even threatened under a California law aimed at electing more minorities to local offices ? and all of the roughly $4.3 million from settlements so far ? can be traced to just two people: a pair of attorneys who worked together writing the statute, The Associated Press has found.

Nonprofit report: Pro-Cuba embargo money on the rise to congressional campaigns. Supporters of tough U.S. sanctions against the Cuban government have given more than $10 million to congressional campaigns over the last seven years, according to a study released late Sunday night by a group supporting campaign finance reform.

Nonprofit says Pro-Cuba embargo money flows to congressional campaigns, influences votes. Supporters of tough U.S. sanctions against the Cuban government have given more than $10 million to congressional campaigns over the last seven years, according to a study released late Sunday night by a group supporting campaign finance reform.

Report: Blacks, Latinos at disproportionate risk in ongoing foreclosure crisis. Black and Latinos are at a disproportionate risk in the ongoing foreclosure crisis because they are more likely than whites to have higher-cost mortgage loans and face higher unemployment rates, a report says.

CAPITAL CULTURE: Unlike other justices, Sotomayor becomes a celebrity outside the courtroom. Apparently, no one told Sonia Sotomayor that Supreme Court justices are supposed to be circumspect, emerging from their marble palace mainly to dispense legal wisdom to law schools, judges' conferences and lawyers' meetings.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - African-American women are twice as likely to suffer a late-pregnancy loss as white women -- partly because of higher rates of pregnancy- and labor-related complications, a government study finds.

Net gain: Survey finds more Americans playing tennis, with Hispanics, blacks showing big jump. More Americans are playing tennis, with Hispanics and blacks showing a marked increase.

Every lawsuit filed or even threatened under a California law aimed at electing more minorities to local offices ? and all of the roughly $4.3 million from settlements so far ? can be traced to just two people: a pair of attorneys who worked together writing the statute, The Associated Press has found.

Calif. lawyers reap financial benefits from voting rights law they wrote. Every lawsuit filed or even threatened under a California law aimed at electing more minorities to local offices ? and all of the roughly $4.3 million from settlements so far ? can be traced to just two people: a pair of attorneys who worked together writing the statute, The Associated Press has found.

Latinos hope the use of bilingual census forms will aid the 2010 count despite obstacles. When Teresa Ocampo opens her census questionnaire, she won't have to worry about navigating another document in English.

A senior US diplomat met with Cuban officials and dissidents in previously unannounced talks, in new signs the United States is toning down hostility toward communist Cuba, US and dissident sources said.

Henderson rodeo provides residents with link to native culture and history. About 90 minutes before the sun set Saturday, a man in a black cowboy hat moseyed to the center of a dusty corral next to a long-shuttered casino along Hendersons stretch of Boulder Highway.

Federal Reserve report says 1 in 3 loan applications denied in 2008; lenders raised standards. Nearly one in three borrowers who applied for a mortgage last year was denied as lenders kept their standards tight as the mortgage crisis accelerated, the government reported Wednesday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Cuban exiles, who had previously opposed a concert last month in Havana by Colombian singer Juanes, ended up mostly backing the event after Juanes spoke out in favor of uniting Cubans, a new poll showed.

Commerce Department rules out seeking halt to immigration raids to try to improve census count. With the 2010 census six months away, the Commerce Department said Thursday it won't seek a halt to immigration raids as it did in the previous census in hopes of improving participation in hard-to-count communities.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino was not much of an expert on global epidemics or dim sum, but he knew the heart of one of the city's ethnic communities was in trouble. Chinatown's bustling lunch business had taken a dive in 2003 because people were afraid they might contract the SARS virus if they ventured into the neighborhood. So he did the thing for which he is most famous: He showed up. Tucking into a steaming array of shrimp dumplings and spare ribs at China Pearl, he declared to a battery of television cameras that Chinatown was safe and open for business. In the process, he also reminded yet another ethnic community that he would be there when they needed him. The city's growing ethnic and minority communities have emerged as a battleground in the mayoral election and as a crucial source of strength for Menino, the 66-year-old son of Italian immigrants who presides over a city that, year after year, looks less and less like him. Rather than being washed away as a relic in a profoundly ch

Mayor Thomas M. Menino was not much of an expert on global epidemics or dim sum, but he knew the heart of one of the city's ethnic communities was in trouble. Chinatown's bustling lunch business had taken a dive in 2003 because people were afraid they might contract the SARS virus if they ventured into the neighborhood. So he did the thing for which he is most famous: He showed up. Tucking into a steaming array of shrimp dumplings and spare ribs at China Pearl, he declared to a battery of television cameras that Chinatown was safe and open for business. In the process, he also reminded yet another ethnic community that he would be there when they needed him. The city's growing ethnic and minority communities have emerged as a battleground in the mayoral election and as a crucial source of strength for Menino, the 66-year-old son of Italian immigrants who presides over a city that, year after year, looks less and less like him. Rather than being washed away as a relic in a profoundly ch

NYC's Chinatown could get 1st Chinese rep on council as Asian-Americans see surge at the polls. Chinatown is likely to get its first Chinese-American representative on the City Council, and a Taiwanese immigrant is headed for citywide office ? a dramatic change for the nation's largest city, which had no Asian-Americans in elected office just eight years ago.

African-American, Latino and civil rights groups have launched an ad campaign aimed at pressuring moderate Democratic senators to support health care legislation that allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry.