Five years after 9/11, the bitter division between Republicans and Democrats on key issues is as intense as ever...

• a 58% majority says the Iraq War has not been worth the loss of American lives, while 36% say it has.
• Among Republicans, 58% say the war has been worth the cost in lives, while among Democrats, just 20% hold this view—a number that improves to 28% among independents.

WASHINGTON (Aug. 30) - It might be hard for some drivers to believe, but average commuting times are getting shorter for U.S. workers. The average daily commute to work has shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.  That's 0.4 minutes each way, for a total of 48 seconds a day.

"Even with these numbers, we swear up and down that we are spending more time in our cars," said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Washington.  "We are spending at least an hour a day in our cars in the Washington area," Townsend said. "We spend more time stuck in traffic and commuting (each year) than we spend on vacation."

• For example, the nation's longest commute, at 39.6 minutes, is in the Vineland, N.J., metropolitan area, about 40 miles south of Philadelphia.  Vineland, a community of 56,000 people in southern New Jersey, was part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2000. It became its own metropolitan area, along with the cities of Millville and Bridgeton, because fewer workers are commuting into Philadelphia.

"Overall, congestion isn't a problem for everyone," said Mantill Williams, a spokesman for AAA's national office. "But there are specific pockets of pain. There are specific areas where it has gotten worse."