[naviga:h3]U.S. airlines bump fewer passengers[/naviga:h3]

DALLAS — Following widespread outrage over a passenger who was violently dragged off an overbooked plane, U.S. airlines are bumping customers at the lowest rate in at least two decades.

The Transportation Department said Tuesday that just one in every 19,000 passengers was kicked off an overbooked flight in the first six months of this year.

That’s the lowest rate since the government started keeping track in 1995.

The biggest decline took place between April and June, partly because airlines began paying many more passengers to give up their seats.

Airlines have routinely overbooked flights for years in the expectation that some passengers won’t show up. When a flight is overbooked, airlines typically offer travel vouchers to encourage a few passengers to take a later flight.

That practice backfired in April when United employees, whose offers of vouchers were ignored, asked Chicago airport officers to help remove four people from a United Express flight to make room for airline employees commuting to their next flight.

A 69-year-old man was dragged forcibly down the airplane aisle and other passengers captured the spectacle on camera phones, turning the incident into a public-relations disaster for United.

[naviga:h3]Safety experts warn about sleep apnea[/naviga:h3]

U.S. officials are abandoning plans to require sleep apnea screening for truck drivers and train engineers, a decision that safety experts say puts millions of lives at risk.

The Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said late last week that they are no longer pursuing the regulation that would require testing for the fatigue-inducing disorder that’s been blamed for deadly rail crashes in New York City and New Jersey and several highway crashes.

The agencies argue that it should be up to railroads and trucking companies to decide whether to test employees. One railroad that does test, Metro-North in the New York City suburbs, found that 11.6 percent of its engineers have sleep apnea.

The decision to kill the sleep apnea regulation is the latest step in President Donald Trump’s campaign to drastically slash federal regulations. The Trump administration has withdrawn or delayed hundreds of proposed regulations since he took office in January — moves the Republican president has said will help bolster economic growth.

[naviga:h3]McDonald’s plans more China sites[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — McDonald’s will nearly double the number of restaurants in China in the next five years, eventually surpassing Japan as the hamburger chain’s second-biggest market outside the U.S.

The company expects to have 4,500 restaurants in China by 2022, up from 2,500. With fewer people eating at U.S. locations, it hopes to grow sales in China by double digits in each of the next five years.

Slowing traffic at home has other American companies turning to China for growth. Starbucks, for example, wants to have 5,000 coffee shops in the country by 2021, more than doubling its store count.