Washington  - The United States has pulled a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Russia from congressional consideration in response to Russia's ongoing conflict with Georgia, the White House said Monday.

Pulling the nuclear agreement was one of many steps under consideration by the United States in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, which has brought relations between the two powers to their lowest level since the Cold War.

In a letter to Congress, President George W Bush said Russia's actions had been "incompatible with peaceful relations with its sovereign and democratic neighbour Georgia," forcing the White House to kill the deal for the time being.

Russia said it regretted the move.

Washington - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has pulled ahead of his Democratic rival Barack Obama in a series of opinion polls released after the two parties' nominating conventions.

Polls showed McCain received a major boost from the Republican convention last week - greater than Obama was given after the Democrats' convention the week before
- as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - A day after the US clinched international approval for a nuclear trade deal with India, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the George W Bush administration's record in halting nuclear proliferation.

Speaking to reporters in Rabat, Morocco, late Sunday, Rice cited the dismantling of the AQ Khan nuclear weapons' network, the proliferation security initiative that has stopped ships on the high seas carrying banned weapons cargo, Libya's renouncing weapons of mass destruction, the UN sanctions on Iran and progress in getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programme.

Washington  - After killing nearly 170 people in Haiti, Tropical Storm Hanna hit states along the US Atlantic coast Saturday, disrupting power lines and throwing flights out of gear.

The storm first drenched the states of South and North Carolina, whirling in with sustained winds of 85 kilometres per hour, before moving further northeast.

Washington, September 6 : Just like birds learn to fly by watching other birds, helicopters can also learn complex aerial tricks and manoeuvres by looking at each other, thanks to a piece of software written by Stanford University computer scientists.

The researchers have revealed that their software could learn and flawlessly replicate more than 20 years of radio-controlled helicopter expertise in just 10 minutes.

Washington, September 6: A new research has shown that the oldest individuals in a group of sheep contribute most to population growth when climate changes makes conditions harsh.

Carried out by researchers at Imperial College London and Universite Claude Bernard Lyon, the research has shown how a sheep population on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland responds to two consequences of climate change: altered food availability and the unpredictability of winter storms.

According to Dr. Thomas Ezard, lead author of the study, “When times are good and food is plentiful, lambs contribute almost twice as much to changes in population size than when times are hard.”