Washington, Oct. 20 : Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her impersonator, Tina Fey earned the American television program "Saturday Night Live" its best ratings in 14 years over the weekend.

Fey was answering questions at a news conference, something Palin hasn''t done yet as the Republican vice presidential nominee, when Palin walked on the stage. Fey beat a hasty retreat in the opening segment, walking past the real Palin with a barely perceptible nod.

Washington - Canada is to give 100 million Canadian dollars (85 million US dollars) in aid to developing countries to tackle climate change, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday.

He said that the additional assistance would help "vulnerable countries, particularly in Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific," according to Canadian broadcaster CBC.

The announcement was made at the closing ceremony of a three-day Francophonie summit in Quebec City, a biennial French-language equivalent of the Commonwealth.

Washington - NASA launched its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Ibex) on Sunday to examine the weakening solar wind, which shields planets in the solar system from dangerous cosmic rays.

Over the next two years, the Ibex spacecraft will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth to investigate and capture first images of processes taking place at the interstellar boundary 
- the farthest reaches of the solar system.

"The interstellar boundary regions are critical because they shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays, which otherwise would penetrate into earth's orbit and make human spaceflight much more dangerous," said Ibex principal investigator David J McComas.

Washington, Oct.20: In a major setback to Republican aspirations for the White House this year, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who served under President George W Bush during his first administration (2000-04), endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president on Sunday.
 
Criticizing his own Republican Party for what he called its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a serious approach to challenges that he called unprecedented, Powell, who was considered for many years the most likely candidate to become the first African-American president, told NBC''s "Meet the Press" that he was not supporting Obama because of his race.
 

Washington - NASA launched its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Ibex) on Sunday to examine the weakening solar wind, which shields planets in the solar system from dangerous cosmic rays.