Huge in the news now, but without much idea of which way the adoption winds will blow as a result, is the Alvaro Colom win in the Guatemalan presidential run off.

Fingers are tightly crossed that his direction will lead to a situation that best benefits the children in his country, and not one that grandstands on the lives and futures of children whose lives depend on which way the political winds blow. Given the state of Guatemalan governing and politics, he certainly has his work cut out for him on every front.

An interesting story from MSNBC details a meeting between adoptive families with Guatemalan connections and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota where the topic was, of course, the present and future process of adoptions from that country.

Of course, Guatemala is far from the only country where governments have been known to pull the rug out from under citizens, leaving them with few options. This story gives a good example of how that happens in the heart of American government, just out the backdoor from Washington, DC.

Titled, "Low-Cost Housing Eliminated, But Nothing Built in Its Place", this Washington Post article lists building after building that had housed families and now don't. Details of the human stories are scant, but there is no doubt there was fallout.

A new study about about the effects of lead in the human body has some important implications for those of us with kids born in developing countries where lead continued to be used in paint and gasoline long after restrictions came into effect in the US.

It has been discovered that even people with low levels of lead in their blood may have dangerous amounts of the toxin stored in their bones, and when our bones release calcium, as they do during pregnancy and breastfeeding, the lead is released into the system.

Lead seeps into the womb and breast milk, too, exposing developing babies when their brains are most vulnerable, says Adrienne Ettinger, a leading expert in bone lead at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The impact of lead exposer during fetal development can cause lower birth weight, slower weight gain in the first month and lower test scores of mental development in two-year olds, and women who lived through a bout of lead poisoning when they were kids are three times as likely to produce children with learning disabilities.

By the way, it's Adoption Awareness Month in Canada now, too, and you can read the official announcement for British Columbia here.

And if you've been hankering for some celeb-flavored news, here's Madonna's mother-in-law talking about what great parents her son and his wife are.

Not merely MIL to a star, Mrs. Ritchie is Cabinet Member for Family and Children's Services for The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, so she should know.