Congress passed Friday a landmark health bill that will give insured employees equal medical benefits for mental illnesses. President Bush signed the bill, together with the $700 billion financial bailout act, into law on the same day.

The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 will not require health plan providers to give mental health coverage to insured individuals but if they do so, they'll have to shoulder the treatment of psychological and addictive disorders like any other diseases

Alberta health officials and Roman Catholic Church leaders in the province have turned a vaccination issue into a public debate, when the Calgary Catholic School Division disallowed schoolgirls to receive vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus or HPV.

The Calgary Herald reported that Bishop Fred Henry believes that vaccination against STDs is in effect allowing sexual promiscuity and premarital sex among Catholic schoolgirls

A father from Nebraska left his nine children at a hospital in Omaha on Wednesday so the state could take care of them under its new "safe haven" law. Two boys were also abandoned for the same reason at another Omaha hospital.

The father dropped off his six sons and three daughters aged one to 17 at the Creighton University Medical Center. Their names, including the father's, were not released

- Thailand's Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol has joined the United Nations' "Say No to Violence Against Women" campaign.

The princess - the daughter of Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn and Princess Soamsavali - joined the drive at a ceremony which marked her position as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Campaigning in Ohio on Tuesday, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) decried Republicans who touted their support for families with disabled children yet also opposed stem cell research. Biden's remarks seemed to be a swipe at his counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down Syndrome.

"I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there's joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don't you support stem cell research?" Biden, a six-term senator, said during a town hall meeting in Columbus, according to CBS