Washington, May 21 - An official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned here that high public debt would raise the possibility of fiscal crisis.

"We tend to underestimate the cost of fiscal crises before they occur," Carlo Cottarelli, director of IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department, said Monday during a luncheon speech hosted by the Washington-based think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

He said the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) has surpassed 90 percent in some advanced economies, and high debt would hamper economic growth, reported Xinhua.

Washington, May 21 - US Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed concern at global problems of discrimination and violence against religious groups, including Baha'is, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs besides increasing use of blasphemy and apostasy laws.

"In too many places, governments are also failing to protect minorities from social discrimination and violence," he said Monday releasing an annual State Department survey of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries.

Washington, May 21 - A devastating tornado in the Oklahoma City suburbs in southcentral US, that has killed at least 51 people, including seven children at an elementary school, was second only to one in May 1999 in its fury.

The twister 13 years ago, rated a maximum EF5 on the Fujita Tornado Scale, killed 36 people and smashed some of the same communities, according to CNN.

Washington, May 21 : NASA cameras have captured video of the largest explosion it has ever seen on the moon, when a meteorite crashed into the lunar surface in a bright burst of light visible to the naked eye.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, in a statement.

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."

Washington, May 21 : Ahead of the second US-India Homeland Security dialogue here Tuesday, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans has sought expanded cooperation between the two countries on internal security issues.

Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who arrived here Sunday, will be co-chairing the dialogue with the US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. He will also meet Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Muller and the US Attorney General Eric Holder, before leaving for Boston Tuesday evening.

Washington, May 21 : The World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will make a joint visit to Africa's Great Lakes region, a World Bank statement said Monday.

The visit is to be undertaken in support of a landmark peace agreement and to push for economic development in the troubled region.

"The visit will draw attention to the plight of fragile and conflict-affected countries struggling to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Washington, May 21 - At least 51 people, including seven children at an elementary school, were killed as a massive tornado slammed Oklahoma City in south central US leaving widespread destruction in its wake.

Emergency personnel were scouring the rubble at flattened Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, hours after the tornado struck Monday afternoon, a video from CNN affiliate KFOR showed.

As nightfall approached, determined searchers in hard hats dug in the debris for students possibly trapped, but officials cited by the news channel described the work as a recovery, not rescue, effort.

Washington, May 21 : A gigantic tornado Monday ripped through a suburb of Oklahoma City in the US , destroying a school, sparking fires and flattening homes across whole neighbourhoods.

The twister struck about 4.00 p. m. (local time) Monday in Moore city, a suburb of about 55,000 people just south of Oklahoma City in the Oklahoma state.

Rescuers were searching for survivors as scores of primary school children were believed to be trapped under debris. The "mile-wide" storm came on the second day in a row that twisters hit the Midwestern state of Oklahoma, BBC reported.

Washington, May 20 : The board of web pioneer Yahoo has reportedly approved a deal to buy popular blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, according to various media reports.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Tumblr CEO David Karp were reported to be in talks last week. On Sunday, the board approved the deal, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The deal is expected to be announced as soon as Monday, the New York Times said citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.

It would be the largest acquisition of a social networking company in years, surpassing Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram last year, it said.

Washington, May 20 - Tornadoes tore through three central American states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa with baseball-sized hail and wind blasts ripping roofs off homes and turning trees to matchsticks, as severe weather swept the region.

A large "violent and extremely dangerous" tornado was spotted Sunday night on the southwest side of Wichita, Kansas and a second confirmed one was seen near Edmond, Oklahoma, the National Weather Service said.

Another tornado was spotted in nearby Luther, Oklahoma, but it was not immediately clear whether that was the same twister, CNN reported

Washington, May 18 - At least 60 people were injured, five of them critically, in a head-on, rush-hour collision between two commuter trains Friday evening near New York City, officials said.

Metro-North Railroad described it as a "major derailment", just outside Bridgeport, the most populous city of Connecticut state in the US.

About 250 people were on the trains involved in the crash, BBC reported, adding no fatalities had been reported.

The accident occurred around 6.00 p. m. after a train which left New York City's Grand Central station en route to New Haven, Connecticut, derailed and then was hit by another train, said officials. (IANS)

Washington, May 17 - Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan has moved a step closer to making history as the first South Asian judge on the US Court of Appeals for the American capital.

Srinivasan, 46, who in August last year was named principal deputy solicitor general of the US, succeeding another Indian American, Neal Kumar Katyal, Thursday won unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Washington, May 17 - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a message on the wall of the boat in which he was captured, claiming responsibility for the April 15 bomb attack, CBS News reported.

CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former assistant FBI director, cited sources as saying that the 19-year-old Tsarnaev had written the message with a pen on the inside wall of the boat cabin as he hid from police, bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout with police that killed his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan.

Washington, May 16 - US industrial production, an indicator of the output of mines, factories and utilities, dropped 0.5 percent in April, US Federal Reserve reported.

Manufacturing output, the largest component of the overall industrial production, declined 0.4 percent last month, reported Xinhua.

Outside manufacturing, the output of mining sector rose 0.9 percent, and the output of utilities shed 3.7 percent last month.

Washington, May 16 - International migration is projected to surpass natural increase as the principal driver of US population growth by the middle of this century, the first time in two centuries, the US Census Bureau estimates.

According the three latest series of projections, the shift in what drives US population growth is projected to occur between 2027 and 2038, depending on the future level of international migration, reported Xinhua.