Haitians

Apparently that tired, worried, cranky old beast called America still can cook up a story line of dreamy nonfiction, for it's just bloody hard to choose the best part of finding Jozy Altidore in this nook of eastern England commonly called "Hull." Maybe the best part would be that scene from Sept. 19, when the Hull City starting 11 strode out and lined up in their tiger orange to play Birmingham in the world's biggest sports league, and a cheer went up in a soccer-soaked household across the Atlantic in Boca Raton.

A boat loaded with Haitian migrants capsized early Friday, leaving at least 16 dead and about 60 missing, authorities said. Some of the bodies bore wounds from shark bites. The Turks & Caicos government said 78 people were rescued. About 160 were believed to have been aboard. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter spotted survivors clinging to the hull of their overturned vessel, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Barry Bena. The helicopter crew guided a boat to them.

Police in the Turks and Caicos scaled back their search for more than 40 missing Haitian migrants, assigning a single vessel to scan the shark-infested Caribbean waters where the crowded sailboat capsized Friday. Searchers found no bodies or survivors over the weekend, dimming hopes for the rescue effort. "We haven't called the search off completely as yet," police Inspector Hilton Duncan said.

When Daniel Castin told people he was from Haiti, the response was always the same. "Isn't that the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere?" they would ask. So at some point, Castin -- who emigrated to escape poverty at home -- stopped telling people his nationality. "It's like I was drowning and you were describing the water to me," said Castin, who lives in Pasadena. "Give me a break already." Roughly 5,750 Haitian immigrants live in California, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

U.S. immigration officials apprehended 46 illegal immigrants Friday after the group landed on the beaches of this upscale town in a 45-foot cabin cruiser, then hid among vacation rentals, luxury condominiums and mansions before being detained. In custody were 29 men, 15 women, a boy and a girl. All were Haitian except a Cuban man and a Jamaican man, said Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald.

Homes stood here once. Now, there are only trash-strewn lawns, piles of wood and concrete, and brick steps to nowhere. This is why they had come. This week, 167 people from Haitian American communities in Florida's Broward and Palm Beach counties traveled by bus to Mississippi's storm-ravaged coast to see if the reality matched the horrors of Hurricane Katrina they'd seen on television.

Hours before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned, Haitians throughout Southern California were getting their Saturday night blend of Caribbean music and news from back home on a radio show broadcast from Riverside County. Throughout the hourlong program, listeners called in to make their feelings known. "Democracy can't do anything with him just sitting on his throne while people are dying," one caller said in Creole. "He must accept that he must go."

First word came as the shrill morning calls of roosters were echoing off the walls of shantytowns and villas in this still-slumbering Caribbean city Sunday. Within minutes, there were explosions of celebratory gunfire, happy cries of "Ca y est!" -- "It's over!" -- and outbreaks of looting. In the wealthy hillside suburb of Petionville, scores of boys and young men sacked an abandoned police station, carrying away police helmets and shields, thermos bottles and battered file cabinets.

Through the crisply appraising eyes of a military man, U.S. Marine Col. Mario LaPaix gazes out at this city and sees a strife-torn capital that needs the help of American troops to restore calm. But through the eyes of a native son, LaPaix casts his mind back and sees a lighter picture: his happy childhood spent in one of Port-au-Prince's sunny neighborhoods, with all the sugar cane, mangoes and lip-smacking local candy a boy could want.