Washington, Sept 17 : Children who worry a lot about conflicts between their parents are more likely to have problems in school, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, and the University of Notre Dame, found that this happens because such kids have more difficulty paying attention to the tasks before them.

This study is one of the first to chart how children''s concerns about their parents'' relationship may increase their vulnerability to later adjustment problems.

For the study, researchers looked at a group of 216 predominantly White 6-year-olds, their parents, and their teachers annually over a three-year period.

Washington, September 17 : Geologists have uncovered the signs of ancient devastation on a remote tropical island of Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean, in the form of giant coral boulders deposited by a mega-tsunami thousands of years ago.

According to a report in Discovery News, Matthew Hornbach of the University of Texas, Austin, and a team of researchers discovered are seven giant boulders made of coral on the island of Tongatapu last year, which may represent the largest rocks ever deposited by a mega-tsunami.

“They just looked so out of place. Tongatapu is flat as a pancake, and here are seven boulders from bus-sized to house-sized sitting hundreds of meters inland and 10 to 
20 meters (33 to 66 feet) above sea level,” Hornbach said.

London/New York - Britain's Barclays bank has agreed to buy some of the core assets of stricken US investment bank Lehman Brothers for 1 billion pounds (1.75 billion dollars), the two banks said Wednesday.

Barclays had bought Lehman's North American investment banking and trading unit for 250 million dollars, and paid 1.5 billion dollars for its New York headquarters and two data centres following negotiations in New York.

Sana'a, Yemen - Two explosions were heard in the vicinity of the US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sana'a Wednesday, according to witnesses.

Singapore - Anxious Singaporeans queued up in the wake of the near-collapse of US insurance giant American International Group (AIG) for a second day Wednesday to surrender policies issued by its local subsidiary.

American International Assurance (AIA) policyholders lined up despite news the US Federal Reserve Bank moved to bail out parent firm AIG with an 85-billion-dollar bridge loan.

A bankruptcy filing by AIG, a huge world player in insuring risk for institutions, would have had an even greater impact on the US and global finance system than Monday's 
600-billion-dollar bankruptcy by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, industry experts warned.

Washington - The mammoth international insurance firm American International Group Inc (AIG) early Wednesday moved to reassure policyholders over the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout while Democrats laid the blame on the White House for failing to regulate the finance industry.

In a statement late Tuesday, AIG conceded it had "serious liquidity issues" but said it believed the loan would "protect all AIG policyholders, address rating agency concerns and give AIG the time necessary to conduct asset sales on an orderly basis."