Kabul - A suicide bomber in police uniform blew himself up inside police headquarters in northern Afghanistan, killing one US soldier and wounding seven other people including police officers, police said Monday.

"One American soldier was killed and two others were wounded in the blast this morning," Jaweed Basharat, spokesman for provincial police chief told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He said four Afghan police officers and one child were also wounded in the Monday's blast.

The bomber, who was in police uniform, tried to enter the police chief's office in Puli Khumri, the capital of northern Baghlan province, and detonated himself when he was stopped by the guards.

Washington, Oct 27 : A high dose of influenza vaccine helps protect the elderly better than the standard vaccine, say researchers. 

Researchers at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York found that a high dose of potential drug candidate under trail increased immune responses among adults 65 years of age and older, compared with the standard influenza vaccine.

The candidate high-dose intramuscular formulation of the influenza vaccine is being developed by sanofi pasteur.

Older adults become not only more susceptible to infections, but also less responsive to vaccination.

Washington, Oct 27: Senator Barack Obama's record-breaking 150 million dollar fundraising performance in September has for the first time prompted questions about whether presidential candidates should be permitted to collect huge sums of money through faceless credit card transactions over the Internet.

Washington, Oct 27 : Democrats are increasingly confident that Barack Obama will cruise to victory on November 4 and that his election will be accompanied by the biggest congressional majorities their party has enjoyed in decades, perhaps even a filibuster-proof 60-seat presence in the Senate.

Washington, Oct 27 : Forty million voters are expected to cast early ballots this year for US presidential elections. And they are doing so amid charges from Republicans and Democrats of attempts to steal the election through either voter fraud or suppression.

To separate fact from fiction, CBS News conducted a detailed survey of 17 states that allow early voting - in person. It found that charges of widespread voter fraud or suppression are far more rhetoric than reality.

Washington, Oct 27: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has opened up an eight-point lead over his rival John McCain in Virginia, and the Illinois Senator is entering the final week of the campaign with several core advantages when it comes to turning out his supporters.

According to a new Washington Post poll, Virginia voters think that Obama is the candidate who would do more to bring needed change to Washington, who understands the economic challenges people are facing and who is the more honest and trustworthy of the two rivals.