Given the journalistic ugliness that my Monday kicked off with... see today's International Adoption Blog for details ... I'd like to start of this week's News Blog with something pretty ...

How about Brad Pitt?

Not only is he easy on the eyes, when he talks about his kids he radiates a dad beauty that has the perfect touch of real: "I love it and can't recommend it any more highly - although sleep is non-existent."

He sure looks to be holding up well, and at forty-three, at that.

In a Baby Safe Haven Hoops story that seems nit-picky at best, sheriffs in Orange County, Florida, are apparently choosing not to arrest a 16-year-old mother who handed her baby off to firefighters.

Seems there's some issue because the baby is eight-months-old, well over the three-day limit the state's safe haven law stipulates can be surrendered, and as an administrator for the Florida Department of Children and Families says: ""You can't just drop your child off somewhere."

Considering the fact that she didn't 'just drop her child off somewhere' should count for something.

On the doing stuff to help front, Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman has kicked off his "Change for Orphans" campaign.

He's asking people attending his concerts to come with their pockets full of the spare change that might be filling up jars and coffee cans around the house and donate it to his orphan-caring cause.

Good idea!

In an absolute mess of a case, two US families are fighting over one child, an adopted toddler from China.

At the center of it all, Scott and Karen Banks, owners of the now-defunct adoption agency, Focus on Children, closed after charges of fraud and immigration violations were filed. (You can read about the Federal Grand Jury indictment against the agency and Scott and Karen Banks here in post from April.)

There are many dangling threads of lingering grief attached to Scott and Karen Banks, and this story of a tug-of-war with a little girl in the middle is one of the very painful ones.

Things are looking better for foster adoptions in South Carolina, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the state's governor.

Through the governor's Children in Foster Care and Adoption Services Task Force I wrote about recently, issues of delays that force children into extended stays in state custody being addressed.

Problems that are to be addressed include "a backlogged family court system, a lack of goals and consequences for birth parents and a high turnover of social workers that causes case files to shuffle from one state employee to another."

The governor is supporting increased incentives to adopt and putting more case workers on the job in adoption cases. He's given his task force until February to come up with ways to improve the system.

For a look at adoption from a military angle, Stars and Stripes features an article about how the Navy is extolling the merits of military families adopting.

With a Navy family posted in Italy adopting a son from China at the center, the article details the process and the problems faced by military families living on bases around the world when dealing with agencies.

Families interested in adoption are pointed toward Navy Fleet and Family Support Centers which are designed to offer support, referrals and information on state and international adoption.

Later this month the Navy will launch a web page that will include an 84-page step-by-step guide to the adoption process.