L.A.-New York Has The Most Traffic

Which city-to-city air routes get the most passenger traffic? New York to Los Angeles was tops in 1996, with 3.1 million passengers, according to the Air Transport Association. Six of the other top 10 routes were between New York and Chicago, Miami, Boston, San Francisco, Orlando and Washington. Other high-ranking pairs were Honolulu-Kahului, No. 4; Dallas-Houston, No. 8; and Los Angeles-Las Vegas, No. 9.

Sleep-Tight rooms: Sleeping in a big-city hotel room can be tough if your room is within earshot of traffic or noisy distractions such as an ice machine.

Hilton Hotels is addressing the problem with what it calls Sleep-Tight Rooms, which employ features such as blackout curtains, ear plugs, relaxation music, and “white noise” devices. Another ploy is the dual wake-up call, which allows guests to sleep without worrying about missing a single call.

So far, a few of the rooms are available in New Orleans, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Honolulu and New York, including the Hilton Towers and the Waldorf-Astoria.

Forced labor: Burma is using forced labor to build tourist facilities at a national marine park, a Burmese student group in exile in Bangkok has alleged.

The group said a villager who had escaped last month said he was among 150 people rounded up weekly to work without pay at a marine park on Lampi Island in the Andaman Sea, according to an Associated Press report.

The villager also said told that about 400 prisoners also were used as forced labor at the site.