A new kind of bird flu has been causing deadly pneumonia in baby seals off the northeastern U.S. coast and could pose a risk to humans, according to U.S. research released Tuesday.

The new strain has been named avian H3N8, and is blamed for the deaths of 162 seals along the U.S. coastlines last year, said the study in mBio, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Arizona's ban on abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy is poised to take effect this week after a federal judge ruled Monday that the new law is constitutional.

U.S. District Judge James Teilborg says the statute may prompt a few pregnant women who are considering abortion to make the decision earlier. But he says the law is constitutional because it doesn't prohibit any women from making the decision to end their pregnancies.

Long viewed as a contributing factor in teenage isolation, computer games are now being used to treat adolescent depression in an innovative New Zealand program.

Rather than simply encouraging players to engage in mindless destruction, the SPARX video game attempts to teach teenagers how to deal with depression using a psychological approach known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

Bayer, the German maker of Aspirin, said litigation costs connected with its Yasmin oral contraceptive hit its bottom line in the second quarter but it remained confident for the full year.

Bayer said in a statement its net profit declined 34 percent to 494 million euros ($606 million) in the period from April to June.

Switzerland has given the green light for a new prenatal test for Down's syndrome amid controversy over whether this will lead to more abortions, a Swiss newspaper reported Sunday.

Testing will be available in the country from mid-August following a decision by Swissmedic, the national agency for therapeutic products, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung am Sonntag reported.

Spain's conservative government has provoked a storm among women's groups with plans to tighten abortion laws to make the procedure illegal in cases where the fetus is deformed.

About 100 people took part in a rally in Madrid's central Tirso de Molina square on Sunday to protest against the proposed reform which they argue will take Spain back to the era of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

Inequalities in South Africa are threatening economic growth, with children born into poor families unlikely ever to escape poverty or reap the rewards of living in Africa's largest economy.

The World Bank's sobering assessment released last week found that a child's gender and ethnicity at birth, combined with a lack of education, largely determine that person's chances of success in life -- even 18 years after the end of apartheid.

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that erupted in western Uganda at the start of July has killed 14 people, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

The latest outbreak was in the western Kibaale district, around 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of the Ugandan capital Kampala, and around 50 kilometers from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo,

Conjoined 15-month-old twins attached at the pelvis and sharing three legs were successfully separated at a Malaysian hospital in a complex 24-hour operation, reports said Saturday.

The boys, Muaiman and Muaimin Azli, were separated at Hospital Kuala Lumpur in an operation involving a 60-strong medical team, including 19 surgeons and anesthetists, The Star reported.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Friday said donors will continue to fund the response to the world AIDS crisis despite global financial woes and urged greater transparency by all involved.

Clinton, who works to provide low-cost HIV medications to foreign nations through his Clinton Foundation, spoke at the closing ceremony of the 19th International AIDS Conference in the U.S. capital.