Seems these days that just about everything I read ends up having something to do with children/adoption/orphans in one way or another.

I wrote the other day on my personal blog a back-handed tribute to Marcel Maceau ... back-handed only because I am so not a fan of mime ... but learn today that as part of his work in the French Resistance during WWll he evacuated Jewish children hidden in a Paris orphanage to Switzerland.

He later performed a number of times at an orphanage for Jewish children after the war because he, "... wanted to make them happy after the pain of losing their parents in the deportations."

Father's rights are in the news in Canada, as this story about a Supreme Court ruling that overturned an earlier verdict shows. Deciding that birth fathers don't need to be notified of adoption unless paternity has been acknowledged or the birth mother has registered the father on the birth certificate, an adoption that had been held up has now gone through.

The judge also said that there is nothing in the country's Adoption Act that compels a birth mother to name a birth father.

While adoption is still an issue for gay couples in Arkansas, surrogacy is considered an "attainable option", according to this report.

"The Arkansas law has two major advantages not found elsewhere. First, the marital status of the surrogate is irrelevant; and no adoption is necessary after the birth of the child to the surrogate parent. The birth certificate lists the parents as those intended in the surrogacy contract."

There's another warning out from the FDA on commonly used cough and cold medications for children, recommending that the "Consult a physician" admonition be dropped from labels and that instead parents not give their little ones a lot of these drugs at all.

The FDA also gave drug companies until the end of the month to stop the manufacture of all unapproved prescription meds labeled for used in children under six-years that contain the pain and cough drug hydrocondone.

And since this is a blog about news, I'm thinking that this story about the giant Russian baby qualifies.

The mother is a forty-three-year-old that has given birth before to babies all weighing more than 11 pounds, but this little girl tops out at 17.5 pounds.

Sheesh!

They say she was delivered by C-section, but personally, I'm guessing she just pulled herself out ... and probably gave the doctor an ear-full in the process.