CUBA . . . REFUGEES TRY A BACK DOOR

The U.S. Coast Guard picked up 84 Cuban refugees this morning west of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the second group of would-be Cuban emigres in two days to try a new strategy to reach U.S. soil, TIME Miami correspondent Tamerlane Drummond reports. Yesterday, more than 65 Cubans reached Florida's Gulf Coast or were intercepted at sea, the first to be caught since the Cuban boatlift crisis petered out last fall. While the Coast Guard thinks the incidents are isolated, Drummond says, at least 150 Cubans living in a tent city in the Cayman Islands have taken to the sea during the past week, just before the U.S. had planned to airlift them back home. Unlike last summer's rafters, the Caymans refugees are trying the indirect route to reach the lightly-patrolled north Florida coast. Once they manage to come ashore, U.S. authorities usually have allowed them to stay.