Washington  - As hurricane Gustav faded, a sister storm called Hanna reached hurricane status late Monday and took aim for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, with Florida and eastern Cuba possible long-range targets.

Gustav hit the Louisiana coast earlier Monday, where it spent much of its strength and dropped to a category 1 on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Washington  - Keen to demonstrate that his administration had learned a hard lesson from Hurricane Katrina, US President George W Bush was in Texas on Monday to oversee disaster relief efforts.

"Coordination on this storm is a lot better than during Katrina. This has a lot to do with the coordination of the governors of various states involved," Bush said, after a briefing by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Washington, Sep. 1 : Fresh questions have arisen over whether John McCain’s running mate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been vetted properly before her selection.

According to The Times, 44-year-old Palin is now the subject of an Internet rumor that says that her fifth child, born in April with Down’s Syndrome, is actually her 17-year-old daughter’s.

Palin is already facing allegations that she tried to use her gubernatorial office to take revenge on her former brother-in-law.

An ethics investigation is already underway and will be released to the public on October 31 " five days before the presidential election.

Washington, Sep. 1 San Francisco is playing host to a four-day Slow Food Nation conference-convention-festival that highlights the connection between your plate and the planet.

Slow Food was founded in 1989 by Carlo Petrini in response to the 1986 opening of a McDonald''s in Rome, near the Spanish Steps, the first McDonald''s location in Italy.

The movement began with a fledgling group called Arcigola. It is headquartered in Bra, Italy, in the Piedmont region.

Today, it has 83,000 members from 131 countries; and roughly 20 percent, or 16,000 members, are from the U. S.

Slow Food USA, which is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, was established in 2000. There are roughly 200 chapters in 47 states.

Washington, August 31: Three new studies have suggested that consuming meals after exercising may go against the overall health benefits that physical work outs create.

The three studies, published by kinesiology researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, suggest that, unless you are a competitive athlete, consuming sports drinks or high-carbohydrate foods such as energy bars right after exercising may negate the health benefits that physical exercise creates.

According to Barry S. Braun, associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Energy Metabolism laboratory at UMass Amherst, most people who exercise are competitive athletes.

Washington  - The US economy is "beginning to improve" President George W Bush said Saturday, and was confident the 152- billion-dollar stimulus package signed earlier this year would ward off a recession.

The housing market was still facing tough times, but the decline in home sales had levelled off, Bush said in his weekly radio address, and the economy grew 3.3 per cent in the second quarter, beyond analysts' expectations.

"These welcome signs indicate that the economic stimulus package that I signed earlier this year is having its intended effect.