USA ESTA Travel Pass News

After the Memorial Day holiday, the summer travel season has begun. To save on travel expenses that have skyrocketed due to the airline crisis and inflation, it is advantageous to postpone the schedule to the end of August and make a reservation 60 days before departure. Also, considering the recent strength of the dollar, going abroad rather than domestic may be a way to save money.

According to the US Travel Association on the 30th, 6 out of 10 Americans plan to travel this summer. This reflects the increased enthusiasm for travel due to the lifting of the pandemic. The problem is money. According to the association, this year’s summer vacation is expected to cost at least 25% and in the worst case 50% more than last year’s summer vacation. Several flights were canceled due to a serious shortage of manpower, which made ticket prices high, and various kinds of inflation caused the cost to rise.

In this regard, Christopher Elliott, manager of travel agency Elliott Confidential, said, “From airfare to various travel costs, it has risen to record levels.

Nevertheless, if you must go on a trip, the best itinerary is at the end of August. According to online travel agency Expedia, the average air ticket price in August is 5% lower than in June and 10% cheaper than in July. In particular, the two weeks at the end of August when school starts, and summer travel ends in some countries are the cheapest during the summer travel season. Since the air ticket price gets cheaper as the year goes on, if you are traveling alone or as a couple, it is better to postpone the trip than to leave during the peak season.

The timing of booking is also important if you want to save on air ticket prices. Many travelers, including Koreans, think that it will be cheaper to book air tickets early, but this is not the case. Christie Hudson, manager at Expedia, said, “If you book at about a month plus two weeks ahead of your travel date, you are more likely to get the best price. You will pay the fee.” In addition, if you have decided on a specific destination, using various flight search engines such as Skyscanner to receive price notifications will help you find the best ticket.

For Korean travelers who have considered traveling domestically and are surprised by the high cost, changing their destination abroad may be a good option. This is because spending money abroad is cheaper than spending it domestically in a situation where the dollar is strong due to the recent Federal Reserve (FRB) rate hike.

Summer Hull, manager of PointsGuy, a travel online company, said, “It is very advantageous to travel to Europe considering the weak euro.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on the 5th that the BA.

According to the US media The Hill, the CDC announced on the 2nd that as of the 2nd, BA.5 mutation accounted for 53.6% of new confirmed cases in the United States, and BA.4 accounted for 16.5%.

When the two sub-variations are combined, they account for 70% of the total.

BA.4 and BA.5 are sub-mutations derived from Omicron and have the characteristic of avoiding natural infection or immunity caused by existing vaccines.

These mutations accounted for only 1% in the United States even at the beginning of May, but on the 19th and 25th of last month they accounted for 15.7% and 36.6%, respectively, exceeding half of the total.

The number of daily COVID-19 cases in the United States is increasing.

The number of daily new confirmed cases, which recorded a maximum of 800,000 in January, when the omicron mutation epidemic peaked, gradually subsided and fell to the level of 30,000 in March, then increased again from the end of April, increasing to an average of 100,000 a day from May. .

The two mutations are now rapidly spreading not only in the U.S. but also around the world, leading the COVID-19 resurgence.

On the 29th of last month, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), announced that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, led by BA.4 and BA.5, increased in 110 countries.

Infectious disease expert Celine Gunder said, “BA.4 and BA.5 are much more mutated than the existing omicron mutations, and our immune system recognizes these submutations regardless of whether we have previously been vaccinated or infected with COVID-19. I’m having a hard time with it,” he said.

For this reason, the US health authorities have requested vaccine manufacturers to develop vaccines that block BA.4 and BA.5 mutations, not the Omicron prototype virus.

However, as the prospect that this improved vaccine may not be distributed in a timely manner in the United States has emerged, concerns have grown that the pandemic could once again strike the world this fall and winter.

Gunder said that the improved vaccine would not be available until October at the earliest and advised to get a booster shot (boost) in advance if possible.

Although the new mutation of Omicron has immune-avoidance properties, the general opinion of experts is that vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the likelihood of severe illness or hospitalization.

The number of applications for immigration with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) stood at more than 5.2 million, nearly doubling the number before the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report recently submitted to Congress by the Office of the Immigration Ombudsman under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there are currently over 5.2 million applications that have been received by USCIS and have not been processed and are pending. The number of cases reached more than 8.5 million, according to the Federal News Network.

The number of such backlog cases nearly doubled in three years from 2.7 million in July 2019, before the pandemic. USCIS was unable to prevent the deepening of backlogs due to temporary suspension of work and shortage of staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To alleviate this situation, USCIS plans to hire more than 4,000 new employees by the end of this year and work to accelerate the processing period for each immigration application for fiscal year 2022-23.

According to the USCIS, premium processing of work visa application (I-129) and employment immigration petition (I-140) documents, which are expedited by paying an expedited fee, are processed within two weeks of receipt, and regular I-129 applications that are not premium processing has set a goal of processing within two months of receipt.

In addition, four types of applications, including work permit application (I-765), re-entry permit (I-131), extension/change of status of residence (I-539), and addition of permanent residence card for accompanying family members (I-824), are processed within 3 months of receipt. USCIS said it aims to in addition, other application documents such as citizenship application (N-400), permanent residence application (I-485), and I-140 that are not premium processing plans to select a processing time cycle within 6 months of receipt.

Construction of a new terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport will begin on the 8th. Accordingly, the use of the Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 parking lots, which are used by Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, will be banned from today, so caution is needed.

According to a report by the online media ‘The Points Guy’ citing the New York and New Jersey Port Authority, the green parking lot of Terminal 1^2 will be closed from the 8th to prepare for the start of the new terminal.

These parking lots are open for about two weeks to allow previously parked vehicles to exit, but new entrants are controlled.

In addition, Terminal 2 Airtrain service will be suspended from today. In particular, Terminal 1 is used by Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, so you need to be careful when using the parking lot. Terminal 1 users can park in the red parking lot near Terminal 8 and use the Airtrain to get to Terminal 1.

In the case of Terminal 2, since the Airtrain service is also suspended, you must first go to Terminal 1 and then walk to Terminal 2 along the outdoor passageway.

Meanwhile, plans to start construction of the new terminal were announced by Governor Kathy Hokuul on the 12th of last month. The goal of this $9.5 billion plan is to build a 2.4 million square foot international terminal with 23 new gates and state-of-the-art facilities on the site of existing terminals 1, 2, and 3. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, with partial opening in 2026 and full facility opening in 2030.

Amid the spread of monkeypox in Europe, there are concerns in the United States that control of the disease may be lost.

According to The Hill, a political media outlet on the 3rd, some infectious disease and public health experts in the United States pointed out that the Joe Biden administration’s response to monkey pox was too slow, similar to the initial outbreak of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

The point of their argument is that although monkeypox is showing a different rate of spread than before, it is causing the spread of the disease through fairly limited testing and vaccine distribution.

David Harvey, director of the National Center for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention and Cooperation (NCSD), said: “The United States is lagging behind in simplifying testing, providing available vaccines, and streamlining access to treatments. “He said.

James Krelenstein, co-founder of Prep4All, a non-governmental organization advocating treatment for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), said, “We have been vocal about how bad the monkeypox diagnosis is for a month.” He claimed that this is evidence that he is not learning anything from the initial COVID-19 crisis.

Associate Professor Andrews advised, “We’ve had five or six waves of COVID-19, and each time we’ve been taken aback. To stop the spread of monkeypox, you should read those pages.”

First of all, the US government has expressed confidence in its approach to monkey pox.

“We know how monkeypox spreads,” Assisi Zha, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said recently. “We have testing tools and effective vaccines to identify who is infected.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 460 people have been infected with monkey pox in 30 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. However, infection experts see this as a lower number than the actual number because extensive testing is not performed.

The Biden administration is stepping up its response by expanding access to testing and vaccines.

First, at the end of last month, the inspection was extended to private facilities.

CDC Director Rochelle Wallensky emphasized that “patients with a suspicious rash should be tested.”

However, it is currently taking more than a month to increase the number of tests from 8,000 per week to 10,000, and it is pointed out that the problem is that even this is concentrated in large cities such as Washington DC and New York.

Director Wallensky also said that he would provide the vaccine not only to those who were exposed to monkeypox, but also to those who are suspected of having been exposed even if it was not confirmed and said that the government would immediately supply 56,000 doses of the ‘Genneos’ vaccine.

However, New York and Washington, D.C. started providing the vaccine to same-sex men with those who had been exposed to the virus, but the vaccine was exhausted within a day, The Hill said.

The US government said an additional 296,000 doses would be supplied in the next few weeks.

In response to the government’s response, Celine Gownder, an infectious disease expert, said, “We have already been able to test and use vaccines. criticized

NCSD Director Harvey said, “I think this outbreak is already out of control,” and he also gave a pessimistic outlook that “we cannot contain it at this time because there are not enough vaccines at this time.”

A boat carrying more than 200 Haitians on board, who were trying to reach the United States, ran aground on the Cuban coast in the center-north of the island where they were rescued by the authorities, the daily announced on Tuesday. Granma official.

The boat ran aground Monday evening on the coast of Caibarien, a village in the province of Villa Clara (center), which was in the past a point of departure for many Cuban migrants seeking to flee the country by sea.

On Tuesday, the 200 Haitians received humanitarian aid and medical assistance, the provincial director of the Red Cross, Miguel Angel Fernandez Lopez, told the daily.

In May, 800 Haitian migrants, including children and a baby, who were also trying to reach the United States, were stranded in the same area.

Another group of 292 Haitians had arrived in Ciego de Avila province, also on the country’s north-central coast, in February. Their boat was adrift.

The islands of Cuba and Haiti are separated by a 77 km strait, the Passage du vent, whose strong currents regularly divert Haitian migrant boats and cause them to run aground on the Cuban coast, particularly in the province of Guantanamo (east).

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is shaken by a serious political, economic, and social crisis. The island has been under the rule of gangs for months. The assassination of its president Jovenel Moïse nearly a year ago has plunged the country even further into uncertainty.

NAPCA, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Health, provides home COVID-19 vaccine immunization to Los Angeles County residents.

LOS ANGELES, CA – As the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out nationwide, millions of people across California and Los Angeles County are being vaccinated.

However, older people who cannot leave their homes to get vaccinated and who must stay at home remain marginalized. To bridge this gap, the National Center for Aging in Asia Pacific (NAPCA) is partnering with the Los Angeles County Department of Health and the Mobile COVID-19 Vaccine Immunization Program to provide home COVID-19 vaccine immunization to older Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and To do this, residents simply need to call the language-specific NAPCA Helpline, which assists with filling out an application and providing all appointments and home visit scheduling services. Skilled staff from the Los Angeles County Department of Health will visit your home to administer the primary and secondary vaccines, along with any necessary booster doses.

“Mobility and language accessibility are barriers that our seniors constantly struggle with. Fears and the spread of anti-Asian hatred caused by the coronavirus have made our seniors reluctant to go out in public. Now They can get vaccinated without leaving home. More than 2.5 million Los Angeles County residents speak limited English, of whom 240,000 are over 65. The NAPCA Helpline is designed to provide seniors with language assistance over the phone about the resources and care they need.” -Bang Jun, CEO of NAPCA

Since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, NAPCA’s Helpline has been instrumental in helping older Asian American and Pacific Islander communities get the support they need.

NAPCA’s early partnership with Lyft and Shaper Hands demonstrates its commitment to a community that is often excluded from providing free necessities. The Helpline now provides national language assistance in seven languages ​​to those who need help completing a home vaccination application. We support individuals by providing grounding, relaxation, breathing and gratitude exercises along with recorded guided meditations.

Residents can use the NAPCA Helpline to request home vaccination in various languages including English, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, or Spanish. The NAPCA Helpline is available 7 days a week from 8:00 am to 8:30 pm PST Pacific Time.

As the demand for ‘retaliatory travel’, which was suppressed by Corona 19, is in full swing, there is a global air turmoil. Online media outlets such as Axios and Bloomberg reported that flight cancellations or delays were caused by the imbalance between supply and demand.

According to travel application Hopper, U.S. air passengers increased by 50% in June this year compared to the same period last year. Even compared to the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 epidemic, it increased by 25%.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) also announced that on the 17th of this month, ahead of June Teens Day, more than 2 million passengers passed through the airport. This is an increase of 100,000 people compared to the previous peak travel season, Memorial Day, TSA explained.

The surge in tourism demand is also attributed to the fact that major tourist destinations, such as Europe and Australia, lifted COVID-19 quarantine regulations and reopened borders. However, the supply of airlines and airports is far from meeting the explosive demand.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. airline industry predicted that it would take a significant amount of time for travel demand to recover, so it implemented large-scale staff cuts, such as encouraging senior pilots and flight attendants to retire early. Airports and others have also made large-scale workforce cuts over the past two years to cut costs.

In a situation where most of the workers were laid off due to the COVID-19 crisis, there is not enough manpower to normalize it to the pre-pandemic level. Airlines and airports have rushed to secure manpower, but it is not easy to fill the manpower vacancy in a short period of time because many employees have full-time jobs in other occupations. The large-scale restructuring that was carried out to cut costs has come back as a boomerang.

Regional airlines Piedmond and Envoy are focusing their efforts on securing manpower, including a temporary 50% increase in wages for pilots until August 2024. American Airlines has promised to raise the wages of 14,000 pilots on major routes. Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are also funding aspiring pilots after opening flight training schools earlier this year.

However, the shortage of manpower is still not resolved, and airlines are canceling flights even though it is an opportunity to earn money. Last weekend, thousands of flights were canceled across the country, including Los Angeles, again every day.

CNN reported on the 17th that 9,000 flights were canceled in the United States due to shortages and other reasons. Delta Air Lines canceled 248 flights on the 19th alone, while United Airlines and American Airlines also canceled 90 and 96, respectively. On the 20th, more than 5,000 flights were canceled nationwide.

The industry predicted that the job shortage could exceed next year. United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said: “The pilot shortage is a real problem, and most airlines have a shortage of pilots, so you won’t know how many flights they will be able to offer,” said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. did.

“It will take up to a year to address the manpower shortage,” Malaysia Airlines chief executive Isam Ismail also told Bloomberg.

Incumbent Delta Air Lines pilots said they flew more additional flights than 2018-2019 combined because of lack of staff. Although the airline is currently suffering from a manpower shortage, the recovered travel demand is expected to boost sales this year, Axios said.

U.S. media reported the second death of an American who fought to help Ukraine during a Russian invasion.

The Washington Post reported on the 20th that, citing local media in Montgomery County, New York, 52-year-old Stephen Xavielski was killed in battle on the 15th of last month.

This is the second confirmed death among U.S. citizens after Willie Joseph Cancel, a former U.S. Marine who served as a correctional officer in Tennessee, died in April while serving in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army.

Xavielski, a retired U.S. Army veteran, was reportedly killed by a landmine.

He is said to have a wife and six stepchildren.

He lived mostly in New York, but in recent years has lived in Florida and worked in the construction industry.

Foreign media reports that some of the US citizens who voluntarily joined the war in Ukraine were taken prisoner by Russia.

The Telegraph reported on the 15th that two U.S. citizens, Alexander Druk and Andy Huin, had been taken prisoner of war in Russia during the battle.

The Russian side is of the opinion that the two men are mercenaries and are therefore not entitled to the protection accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

The United States has begun the construction of a next-generation ballistic missile-equipped nuclear submarine, that is, the next-generation strategic nuclear submarine (SSBN), in earnest to respond to China’s military expansion.

According to the U.S. Naval Research Institute (USNI) website and insider media on the 13th, a ground-breaking ceremony for the first Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarine, SSBN 826, was held at the Queenset Point Submarine Construction Base in Rhode Island on the 4th. The Columbia-class Strategic Nuclear Submarine (SSBN) is an 18,000-ton-class next-generation ballistic missile-loaded nuclear submarine.

The Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarine is the next-generation SSBN that will replace the 14 Ohio-class (8,750-ton) SSBNs that are currently the main U.S. SSBN. The US plans to acquire 12 Columbia-class SSBNs by 2041. The Columbia-class SSBN has 16 ballistic missile launchers, fewer than the Ohio-class SSBN’s 24.

However, the Columbia-class SSBN is much larger than the Ohio-class in length (158 m) and has excellent propulsion and performance. The United States’ start to build the Columbia-class SSBN seems to be a steppingstone for maintaining China’s overwhelming submarine and nuclear power in the future.

The 14 Ohio-class SSBNs, the current flagship U.S. SSBN, were built between 1976 and 1997. The United States has been pushing forward with the establishment of a Columbia-class SSBN construction plan in 2007. The U.S. Department of defence allocated $6.3 billion to the development of the Columbia-class SSBN in the defence budget for fiscal year 2023 submitted to the U.S. Congress in March.

The first Columbia-class SSBN will be available for commissioning in 2027, the USNI expects. Strategic nuclear submarines are the core strength of nuclear powers and are considered as strategic weapons with the ability to survive and deliver retaliatory strikes even if they receive a nuclear attack from the other nuclear powers.