Washington, May 25 : The birth rate among American teenage girls has dropped considerably, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The birth rate among women ages 15-19 decreased by almost half from 1991 to 2011, from 62 to 31 births per 1,000 adolescents.

From 2007 to 2011, the most recent period of the study, the birth rate fell 25 percent, but its decline was even greater among Hispanic girls, who had a 35 percent decrease.

Washington, May 25 : India's strategy of eradicating poverty by "growing the pie rather than slicing it", and fuelling the country's growth with market-based policies holds lessons for other developing countries, suggest two leading Indian-American economists.

In a new book, Jagdish Bhagwati senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Arvind Panagariya, Columbia University professor, demonstrate how growth was the strategy successfully deployed to reduce poverty in India.

Washington, May 25 - Nearly six in ten adults in the South Asian region and Indonesia sent or received a payment or remittance in 2012 with a majority doing so informally, according to a new Gallup study.

In terms of hard numbers 800 million South Asians and Indonesians transferred money with 512 million people sending or receiving cash in person or sending it informally in some other way, according to the study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Remittances or payments could have been domestic or international; sent to friends or family, a school, or other institution; or received from the government, a non-government employer, or from the sale of crops, produce, or livestock.

Washington, May 24 : A number of vehicles and people fell into a river when a highway bridge collapsed in Washington state, officials said. But no death was reported.

The four-lane bridge links Seattle with the rest of the US Pacific Northwest and Canada, Xinhua reported Friday. The incident took place Thursday.

Three people were rescued and shifted to hospitals. It was not clear what caused the disaster.(IANS)

Washington, May 24 : An 8.2-magnitude earthquake under the Sea of Okhotsk was recorded early Friday, the US Geological Survey said.

The temblor was at a depth of 601.80 km, reported Xinhua.

The epicentre was located nearly 360 km southwest of Esso, a town in Russia's Kamchatka Krai region.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center of the US said in a statement that no tsunami is expected due to the depth of the quake. (IANS)

Washington, May 24 : History-making Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan's unanimous Senate confirmation as the first South Asian judge on the powerful appeals court for the American capital has been widely hailed.

Senate Judiciary Committee's Democratic Chairman Patrick Leahy, welcomed Srinivasan's confirmation, but criticised "Republican efforts to delay a floor vote of the highly qualified nominee, who waited months for a confirmation hearing and who was first nominated nearly one year ago."

Washington, May 24 (IANS) Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan made history Thursday as the US Senate confirmed his nomination as a top US judge in a 97 to 0 vote.

Srinivasan, 46, currently principal deputy solicitor general of the US, would be the first judge of South Asian descent on the powerful appeals court for the American capital, often called the nation's second-highest court.

Washington, May 24 : Making a shift from a boundless "global war on terror", US President Barack Obama Thursday announced a new counter-terrorism policy narrowing the use of drones that has put it at odds with key allies like Pakistan.

"Today, the core of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on a path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us," Obama said at the National Defence University.

Washington, May 24 - Researchers in the US have captured rare images of the creation of a massive galaxy about 10 times the size of the Milky Way that was formed when two young galaxies collided 11 billion years ago, a study said.

"Capturing the creation of this type of large, short-lived star body is extremely rare - the equivalent of discovering a missing link between winged dinosaurs and early birds," scientists from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) who made the discovery said in a statement.

Washington, May 23 : General Motors Corporation said it is recalling nearly 20,000 new Cadillac SRX SUVs for faulty wheel lug nuts, according to a Detroit News report.

The Detroit automaker told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it is recalling 18,871 2013 SRX SUVs in the US and nearly 1,000 in Canada over concerns that a wheel could eventually fall off, reported Xinhua.

Washington, May 23 : Twelve-year-old Indian-origin boy Sathwik Karnik won the 2013 National Geographic Bee by correctly naming Chimborazo, a peak in Ecuador, as the farthest point on earth from the Equator.

A seventh grader from King Philip Regional Middle School in Norfolk, Massachusetts, in the US, he won the 25th edition of the bee in a heated final against 13-year-old Conrad Oberhaus of Lincolnshire, Illinois.

By winning the title, Karnik bagged for himself a $25,000 college scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands for him and a parent and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society.

Washington, May 23 : The tornado that killed 24 people and injured more than 200 others in Moore, Oklahoma, could have done more than $2 billion worth of damage, officials said Wednesday.

State Insurance Commissioner John Doak announced that figure Wednesday in a statement to the press, adding that losses from the wreckage could equal the amount caused by the twister that struck Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, leaving 161 dead.

Nonetheless, a spokesperson from Doak's office told EFE that these are still very preliminary estimates and are based solely on a visual evaluation of the devastated area.

Washington, May 23 : Immigration reform that plans to legalize some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US passed its first test as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 to approve a bipartisan bill to overhaul the system.

The draft prepared by the "Gang of Eight" Republican and Democratic senators will next go to the full Senate for debate.

President Barack Obama congratulated the Judiciary Committee and hailed the "leadership" of its chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy.

Washington, May 23 - Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a 2011 gruesome triple murder outside Boston along with a Chechen killed during a confrontation with law enforcement officers, according to media reports.

Ibragim Todashev was fatally shot early Wednesday during an interview with the FBI and Massachusetts State Police in Orlando, Florida, CNN reported citing a federal law enforcement official.

But before he was shot, Todashev not only confessed to his direct role in slashing the throats of three people in Waltham, Massachusetts, but also fingered Tsarnaev in the deaths, the official said.

Washington, May 23 : Ahead of an expected Senate vote on the nomination of Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan to a top US court, 21 lawmakers have penned their support for him.

Srinivasan, 46, currently principal deputy solicitor general of the US last week won unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the American capital.