Washington, August 26: Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have made a significance advance in restoring terminally ill rodents with type 1 diabetes to full health by injecting them with a substance other than insulin.

Describing their work in a paper published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers say that their progress suggests that insulin is not the only agent that is effective.

They add that leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells, also lowers blood glucose levels, and maintains them in a normal range for extended periods.

Washington, Aug 26: US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad, who is an Afghan by birth, has reportedly been pulled up by US State Department officials for unauthorisedly establishing contacts with Pakistan’s presidential hopeful and PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.

The conduct by Khalilzad has raised eyebrows because of speculation that he might seek to succeed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Though, Khalilzad himself has denied of having any such plans.

Washington - Financial shares led a sharp drop Monday on Wall Street after news of the collapse of a small bank in Kansas fed continuing worries about bad loans still on the books of companies in the sector.

Columbian Bank & Trust Co, based in Kansas, became the ninth federally insured bank to fail this year in the United States, a symptom of the continuing repercussions of the US mortgage crisis, which has plagued Wall Street since the deflation of a housing price bubble last year.

Washington  - Financial shares led a sharp drop Monday on Wall Street after news of the collapse of a small bank in Kansas fed continuing worries about bad loans still on the books of companies in the sector.

Columbian Bank & Trust Co, based in Kansas, became the ninth federally insured bank to fail this year in the United States, a symptom of the continuing repercussions of the US mortgage crisis, which has plagued Wall Street since the deflation of a housing price bubble last year.

Washington  - US President Dick Cheney will head to Georgia next month in support of its government following the Russian military assault on the former Soviet republic, the White House said Monday.

Meanwhile, a high-level US delegation left to Tbilisi for a three- day trip to review country's economic and reconstruction needs as the United States has pledged to help the Caucasus nation rebuild. The US delegation is headed by Undersecretary of State Reuben Jeffery.

Washington  - US home sales rose 3.1 per cent in July from a month earlier as some buyers appeared to take advantage of market- bottom deals, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

Sales of previously owned homes climbed to an annual rate of 5 million on the month, more than forecast and up from a 10-year low of 4.85 million in June.

The July figure is still down 13.2 per cent from July 2007, indicating that the housing crisis is still far from a recovery stage.