A pill to ease a type of mental retardation? An experiment is under way to develop one, aimed at a genetic disorder that might unravel some of the mysteries of autism along the way.

A small study suggests that at least 10 percent of children with autism overcome the disorder by age 9 - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy.

George Mark Children's House, which is funded through donations and is the only free-standing hospice and respite-care center for children in the U.S., has only enough money to operate through June.

The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.