Two people have died and five others have been hospitalized in a mysterious cluster of respiratory illnesses in southeast Alabama, state health officials said. The victims, all adults, had symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath, but the cause of the illnesses is unknown, said Dr. Mary McIntyre, the acting state epidemiologist for the Alabama Department of Public Health. The hospit...

GENEVA  - The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy, U.N. experts said on Tuesday. Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, the experts said, which could still develop the ability to spread easily among humans and cause a deadly influenza p...

Search teams, including some with trained dogs, are scouring the rubble left behind by the monster tornado that flattened miles of homes, schools and businesses in Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday. More than 100 people had been found alive by rescuers as of Tuesday afternoon.While it's uncertain exactly how many people are still missing, rescuers are up against the clock to find survivors, exp...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal court in San Francisco Tuesday struck down Arizona's ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting with Roe v. Wade that guarantees a woman's right to an abortion before a fetus is able to survive outside the womb. That's generally considered to be about...

If you land in an intensive care unit sick enough for doctors to consider withdrawing life support, be warned. Whether and when to pull the plug may depend in large part on the practices and culture of the ICU itself -- perhaps more than your needs or wishes, a new study finds.That may be especially true if you’re so ill or incapacitated that you can’t make decisions about your own care, according...