The D.C. Council on Tuesday approved the legislation that aims to authorize physicians/doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients to help them get rid of untreatable agony.

Sponsored by Democrat Mary M. Cheh, the “Death with Dignity Act” got the preliminary approval in an 11-2 vote. The opposing votes were cast by Ward 7 Democrat Yvette Alexander and Ward 1 Democrat Brianne Nadeau.

More U.S. children and teenagers are being poisoned by opioid painkillers that are often prescribed for other members of their families, the Yale School of Medicine warned in its latest report.

A team of researchers form the Yale School of Medicine surveyed the risk of opioid overdoses among children, and found that the number of children who visited emergency rooms to receive treatment for a drug overdose jumped more than 100 per cent between 1997 and 2012.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service has apologized for the recently-detected massive data breach, in which unknown hackers slipped away with personal details of as many as 550,000 blood donors.

The data breach, which is said to be one of the country’s largest ever breaches, was discovered on Tuesday this week, when an online service that offers hacked websites was contacted by a concerned user who had stumbled on the trove of private data.

Parents of autistic children can help reduce the severity of their symptoms and enhance their ability to communicate by working with them from a young age, a new study suggested.

In the Pre-school Autism Communication Trial, the researchers found that parents who get involve with autistic children can reduce symptoms like repetition and improve their communication skills.

Dr. Jonathan Green, a professor of child & adolescent psychiatry at University of Manchester, noted that autism is a really devastating diagnosis for families, who often question what to do next.