Free Republic

A 19-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome has been placed under house arrest and fined after asking how a transgender police officer identifies. The incident took place in October while PCSO Connor Freel, a 25-year-old transgender police officer from England, was on duty in Mold, North Wales. 19-year-old Declan Armstrong was with his friends when he noticed Freel and “very loudly” asked: “Is it a boy or a girl?” When Freel looked over, Armstrong repeated his comment, prosecutor Rhian Jackson claimed.

This is the shocking moment a pedestrian was killed by a single punch after he got into a row about cycling on the pavement. Andrew Young, 40, became involved in an argument with cyclist Victor Ibitoye after he told him that cycling on the pavement was dangerous. The cyclist rode off but moments later his friend, Lewis Gill, approached Mr Young, who suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome, and punched him in the face without provocation.

Shortly after her move from New Hampshire to Newtown in 1998, Nancy Lanza had good news about her troubled son. "Adam is doing well here, and seems to be enjoying the new school," Lanza wrote to a friend back in Kingston, N.H., in a Feb. 9, 1999, email. But Adam, 6, then diagnosed with a condition that made it difficult for him to manage and respond to sights, touch and smell, eventually struggled in the first grade at his new school — Sandy Hook Elementary. His mother would respond, touching off a 10-year educational shuffle with moves in and out...

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class. Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under...

Two years after his 2002 graduation with honors as a double major in physics and math, Cottrell was charged and convicted as one of the nation's first ecoterrorists of the post-Sept. 11 era. He was found guilty of conspiracy and arson in the 2003 firebombings of Hummer and other sport-utility vehicle dealerships in the Los Angeles area to advocate a radical environmentalism. Two conspirators remain at large... In what prosecutors say was an example of his brazenness -- his supporters say it evidenced his behavioral disorder, one that's akin to a high-functioning autism -- Cottrell became a remorseless braggart while...

Were the Theory of Evolution even remotely like the grotesque caricature presented by various creationist and intelligent design websites, there would be no debate. It is pernicious that one of the most elegant works of science should be so routinely misrepresented. Before one can evaluate a theory's merits, he is obliged to at least understand what it actually does -- and does not -- state. Failing to understand something before attempting debate against it is absolute folly. Therefore, we offer the following: Introduction to Evolution in five easy steps (It's far more complicated than this, but you must start somewhere.)Another...

SEATTLE - Sitting in a small evaluation room at the University of Washington, apprehension written on her face, Christa Zamora turned her eyes toward her son Connor and contemplated his future. A talkative and animated 2-year-old, Connor appears normal, Ms. Zamora said, but it is too soon to be certain. Doctors diagnosed autism in her older son, Cameron, just before he turned 3. And with Connor, who is also at risk for developing the devastating neurological disorder, which runs in families, she has decided to be proactive, enrolling him in an early diagnosis study for children as young as 16...