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Immigrants Race To Get U.S. Citizenship The Skinny: Surge In Applications Comes Amid Heated Debate Over Immigration Bill
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"Excessively Late" Flights, Cancellations Already Up Significantly Over Last Year
"Excessively Late" Flights, Cancellations Already Up Significantly Over Last Year
NEW YORK, July 5, 2007
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
(CBS) The Skinny is Joel Roberts ' take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.
The day after the United States celebrated its independence, The New York Times (Related) reports there's been a surge in the number of legal immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens.
The Times says the number of new naturalized citizens has increased steadily from 463,204 in 2003 to 702,589 last year. Yesterday, more than 4,000 new Americans were sworn in, including 325 foreign-born soldiers serving in the U.S. military in Iraq.
This year, there's beeen a big jump in citizenship applications, with the number rising every month, from 65,782 last December to 115,175 in May.
The surge was fueled in part by an imminent hike in application fees. Starting July 30, the new applications will cost $675, a 69 percent increase from the current $400.
The rush to citizenship also comes amid the heated fight over the immigration bill, which failed in the Senate last week, and may reflect "new feelings of insecurity" among immigrants even legal ones.
The Times says many Hispanic immigrants were mobilized to press their applications by a citizenship campaign on Spanish-language radio and television.
Warning To Drivers: Turn Off That Xbox
Legislators in a dozen states are trying to crack down on a new form of DUI: driving under the influence of electronic gadgets.
According to a report in USA Today (Related) , states like Texas, New York and Arizona are weighing bills that would go beyond restrictions on using cell phones while driving and limit the use of in-car DVD players, video game consoles, computers and fax machines.
While statistics on safety threats posed by electronic devices such as iPods and front-seat movie screens are scarce, USA Today says "high-tech driving distractions are gaining more attention from police."
"We're seeing people driving down the road at night watching a video," says a Phoenix police officer. "I tell people you're just plum stupid for doing this. It's a really serious problem."
Not-So-Friendly Summer Skies
As the summer travel season kicks into high gear, The New York Times (Related) reports the growing problem of flight delays may be even worse than the airlines are admitting.
While airline on-time performance records are at an all-time low, The Times says the official numbers do not begin to capture the severity of the situation.
That's because airlines measure the length of a delay by how late planes are, not how late passengers are. So if a flight from, say, Detroit to New York is delayed two hours, causing a traveler to miss a connecting flight to London and spend the entire night at the airport waiting for the first flight the next morning, the airlines only count it as a two-hour delay.
And remember last winter, when thousands of frustrated passengers were stranded as their flights sat idly on tarmacs in New York and Texas for hours, awaiting takeoff instructions that never came? Those sort of travel nightmares arent even counted in flight delay statistics.
Ready for even more bad air-travel news? In addition to extensive delays, crowded planes, disruptive thunderstorms, and an overtaxed air traffic control system, The Times says travelers this summer can expect to deal with some "very grumpy airline employees," who had to take big pays cuts while airline execs took home huge bonuses.
Add it up and The Times says this could be a "dreadful summer to fly."
A NOTE TO READERS : The Skinny is now available via e-mail . Click here (Related) and follow the directions to register to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.
The day after the United States celebrated its independence, The New York Times (Related) reports there's been a surge in the number of legal immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens.
The Times says the number of new naturalized citizens has increased steadily from 463,204 in 2003 to 702,589 last year. Yesterday, more than 4,000 new Americans were sworn in, including 325 foreign-born soldiers serving in the U.S. military in Iraq.
This year, there's beeen a big jump in citizenship applications, with the number rising every month, from 65,782 last December to 115,175 in May.
The surge was fueled in part by an imminent hike in application fees. Starting July 30, the new applications will cost $675, a 69 percent increase from the current $400.
The rush to citizenship also comes amid the heated fight over the immigration bill, which failed in the Senate last week, and may reflect "new feelings of insecurity" among immigrants even legal ones.
The Times says many Hispanic immigrants were mobilized to press their applications by a citizenship campaign on Spanish-language radio and television.
Warning To Drivers: Turn Off That Xbox
Legislators in a dozen states are trying to crack down on a new form of DUI: driving under the influence of electronic gadgets.
According to a report in USA Today (Related) , states like Texas, New York and Arizona are weighing bills that would go beyond restrictions on using cell phones while driving and limit the use of in-car DVD players, video game consoles, computers and fax machines.
While statistics on safety threats posed by electronic devices such as iPods and front-seat movie screens are scarce, USA Today says "high-tech driving distractions are gaining more attention from police."
"We're seeing people driving down the road at night watching a video," says a Phoenix police officer. "I tell people you're just plum stupid for doing this. It's a really serious problem."
Not-So-Friendly Summer Skies
As the summer travel season kicks into high gear, The New York Times (Related) reports the growing problem of flight delays may be even worse than the airlines are admitting.
While airline on-time performance records are at an all-time low, The Times says the official numbers do not begin to capture the severity of the situation.
That's because airlines measure the length of a delay by how late planes are, not how late passengers are. So if a flight from, say, Detroit to New York is delayed two hours, causing a traveler to miss a connecting flight to London and spend the entire night at the airport waiting for the first flight the next morning, the airlines only count it as a two-hour delay.
And remember last winter, when thousands of frustrated passengers were stranded as their flights sat idly on tarmacs in New York and Texas for hours, awaiting takeoff instructions that never came? Those sort of travel nightmares arent even counted in flight delay statistics.
Ready for even more bad air-travel news? In addition to extensive delays, crowded planes, disruptive thunderstorms, and an overtaxed air traffic control system, The Times says travelers this summer can expect to deal with some "very grumpy airline employees," who had to take big pays cuts while airline execs took home huge bonuses.
Add it up and The Times says this could be a "dreadful summer to fly."
A NOTE TO READERS : The Skinny is now available via e-mail . Click here (Related) and follow the directions to register to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.
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