In a sign of the troubled economic times, a county health department in Washington state is coping with budget shortfalls by cutting back on services, slashing jobs and raising fees.

The Snohomish Health District serves an estimated 687,000 residents on Washington's Puget Sound. It is hoping to balance its budget by making cuts that will affect 25 percent of its programs

An eighth grader from Houston died Friday from meningitis prompting city health officials to set a medical exam for students who rode with the victim on a bus to see if they were infected.

The City Health Department will also examine the bus driver of the Revere Middle School as a precaution to contain a possible outbreak of bacterial meningitis

Amnesty International is alarmed over the risk of extreme hunger in Zimbabwe after a failed agricultural season. The economic difficulty of Zimbabweans is worsened by the ongoing political crisis in the country.

AI pointed out most of the victims of political violence after the March elections were subsistence farmers. Some became crippled because of secret police beatings that left them too weak to work in the fields. The bulk of the violent incidents were made by state security forces, AI said

The United States pledged an additional $320 million to the global bird flu fight, warning on Saturday that complacency in fighting the virus could lead to a deadly pandemic.

Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, announced the additional $320 million Saturday at the opening of a conference in Egypt on bird flu attended by ministers of 60 nations

An Ontario court cited farmer Michael Schmidt for contempt Monday because of his continued production and sale of unpasteurized milk.

Raw milk is not permitted to be made or sold in Canada because of the health risks it brings, particularly spreading salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes. The ruling is timely because the nation struggled with health crises because of Listeria and E. coli outbreaks the past few weeks