A new drug policy agency would focus as much on health as on policing under a proposal a New York City lawmaker introduced Thursday to shift how the nation's biggest city approaches illegal drug use.

The drug strategy office would advise city leaders on lowering drug-related deaths and disease along with crime. It also would coordinate answers to a problem that sometimes seems to pit one set of government objectives against another, supporters say.

The nation's poultry industry may have to live with a deadly bird flu strain for several years, which would be "devastating," the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief veterinary officer said Thursday.

Dr. John Clifford also said that while new cases should drop to close to zero once the weather warms up and kills off the virus, there's "very likely" to be a resurgence this fall when the wild waterfowl that are natural carriers of avian influenza fly south for the winter.

The U.S. state of Georgia became the 24th U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana on Thursday, underscoring the increasing acceptance of the drug across America despite remaining an illegal substance under federal law.

Governor Nathan Deal said in a statement the law would bring relief to patients suffering unnecessary pain because of an inability to obtain the drug legally and those who had to travel to get it.

Adrian Toomey made thousands of dollars a day as an "ice" dealer in Dubbo, a fairly typical Australian town northwest of Sydney, supplying the drug to everyone from bank workers to school teachers.

Before he was jailed for dealing, Toomey, 38, was not only supplying but also using ice -- a purified version of the stimulant methamphetamine that is highly addictive.

A Houston hospital says a woman has delivered five girls in what it believes is the first set of all-female quintuplets born in the U.S.

The Woman's Hospital of Texas say Danielle Busby had her babies by cesarean section April 8. Doctors say the children, born premature at 28 weeks, were doing well on Wednesday.

In the biggest survey of its kind, British researchers reported Wednesday that e-cigarettes are popular with young adolescents, but few who try them become regular users.

Of those who do use them regularly, most are also tobacco smokers, they added.

Estella Verdier keeps vigil by her sick four-month-old grandson's hospital bed, praying for his recovery but placing her faith in the earthly healing powers of Liberia's first ever children's hospital.

The 46-bed unit, just opened in Monrovia by Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), is part of the country's response to the challenge of repairing its wrecked health service as it emerges from the nightmare of Ebola.

Traces of Ebola have been found in the semen of a man six months after his recovery, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, urging survivors to practice safe sex "until further notice".

The man had been declared free of the deadly virus in Liberia last September, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Agence France Presse.

Boehringer Ingelheim, a leading pharmaceutical company, organized the 4th Regional Respiratory Expert Forum, to highlight the unmet challenges in the management of chronic respiratory diseases like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in the Middle East and North Africa region, a press release said on Wednesday.

Chronic respiratory diseases affect millions of people in the region and with effective treatment; the complications and suffering can be controlled.

When pregnant women develop gestational diabetes early in pregnancy, their children may face a higher risk of developing autism, researchers said Tuesday.

While the findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) does not prove that diabetes in pregnancy causes autism, researchers said their findings highlight a link that deserves further study.