Baby Obama named in Florida. A Florida couple became among the country’s first to bestow the name Obama on their child, even before most news outlets had declared the Illinois senator the president-elect. Sanjae Obama Fisher was born at 8 p.m. (ET) at Hollywood’s Memorial Regional Hospital to Patrick and Sasha Hall Fisher. A hospital spokeswoman says it was the father’s idea. But mom still got to watch the election, after 14 hours at the hospital. Sanjae has two siblings, 8-year-old sister Shaniah and 4-year-old brother Shane. Read where else parents paid tribute to Obama’s family this way here.

Indicted U.S. Rep. William Jefferson wins re-election battle. Embattled congressman hopes to ride out storm. Indicted U.S. Rep. William Jefferson is breathing a sigh of relieve as he cruised to victory in the Democratic runoff for his 2nd Congressional District seat even as his trial on federal corruption charges looms and questions dog him about his effectiveness in Congress. Jefferson, 61, who became Louisiana’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction when he was elected in 1991, won 56 percent of the vote Tuesday compared to 42 percent for his opponent Helena Moreno, a former television reporter who had argued that scandal had obliterated the influence Jefferson built during his 18 years in Congress. Jefferson has pleaded innocent in the corruption case. Despite his loss of the Ways and Means post, he has insisted that he remains influential.

The most foreigners in a century become U.S. citizens.  More than 1 million people took the Oath of Allegiance and became U.S. citizens during fiscal 2008, the largest number in the 100 years that the government has been keeping records, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Last year’s spike was prompted by Hispanic media and grass-roots organizations that encouraged eligible residents to apply for citizenship during the heated debate on granting citizenship to undocumented residents. It also was the result of the government clearing a backlog of requests after increasing staff this year. The number of naturalization applications doubled from 730,000 in 2006 to almost 1.4 million in 2007. The surge led to a 16- to 18-month delay in processing naturalization applications, said Jonathan Scharfen, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director. But, the agency has reduced processing times to no more than 10 months and is on track to reduce the wait to five months by next summer, he said. A fee increase enabled the agency to hire 1,600 adjudication officers and pay for employee overtime during fiscal 2008, he said. Additionally, the agency has worked with the FBI to speed name checks, reducing a backlog of 350,000 checks to 33,000, Scharfen said. “We had people waiting five years for an FBI name check,” he said, but now every case is cleared within a year.

TAGS: Baby, florida, foreigners, obama, Rep. William Jefferson, U.S. citizens

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