Coming up on CNN this weekend a "World's Untold Stories" segment on Romanian orphans.

Revisiting the situation in Romania all these years after Baroness Emma Nicholson and Co. put the kibosh on international adoption of Romanian kids should be very interesting ... and heartbreaking. Give the show a look on Sunday if you can.

And speaking of Romania, here's a story of a British woman and her efforts to help kids in an orphanage there.

In the US, a protest at the Federal Building in Des Moines, Iowa was all about international adoption.

Apparently a family that has adopted children from Sierra Leone is frustrated at some holdup in issuing visas to the boys and is concerned the upcoming elections in the country could cause serious instability.

I can see why they're worried.

And a family in Missouri is facing difficulties with their adoption because of weight issues.

Asked to adopt a cousin's child ... a second adoption for the couple ... they're finding it difficult, maybe even impossible, due to what they are calling discrimination. There's no doubt that there is extra poundage involved, as the husband weighs around a quater of a ton, but how that should or shouldn't impact their ability to parent is at issue.

And while we're chewin' the fat ... sorry about that ... this story suggests it's catching.

Yep, a new fedreally funded study suggest that obesity is "socially contagious", and those with fat friends are more likely to get fat themselves.

"We were stunned to find that friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person's weight status as friends who are right next door," said co-author James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

The study found a person's chances of becoming obese went up 57 percent if a friend did, 40 percent if a sibling did and 37 percent if a spouse did. In the closest friendships, the risk almost tripled.

Having more to do with perceptions of what sort of body style is okay than genes, the experts are not suggesting we all drop our portly pals, as: "There is a ton of research that suggest that having more friends makes you healthier."

Maybe we should just start up another support group, "Fond of Fat Friends and unFazed from Fat Fears" (FFFFfFF) ... or something.

In Australia, there's talk of prosecuting parents who make offensive remarks about each other.

Yes, the courts there have begun ordering parents to quit their carping because it can hurt the kids, and mothers and fathers who put each other down in front of the children may soon be breaking the law.

In one case, an estranged couple in a custody fight were told to stop backbiting in front of their three-year-old daughter. When the mother insulted the father over the phone, it was used against her and the dad was awarded custody.

Another reason for people to be nicer.

For international adoptive families, this article on immigrant parents' efforts to keep their kids bilingual may be interesting.

It shows how difficult it can be to maintain cultural ties even within families that have all their roots in common.

Julia Sigalovsky of Sudbury, a scientist from Russia who arrived here in 1989, said she was stunned when her 11-year-old son suddenly refused to speak Russian after a few months in this country.
When she and her husband chatted in Russian at the supermarket, he was mortified. "Speak English," he told them.

In a study of immigrant families, it was found that among the 87% of kids that grew up speaking another language at home, only 34% spoke that language well as adults and 70% said they preferred English.

Moms are the focus of this story, and how resuming a career after time off to raise kids can be a real problem.

Calling it the "opt-in" revolution, there are some who claim it's an easy thing to jump back into the world of work, insisting that employers are beginning to realize just what a professional gold mine there is in former SAHMs.

Others disagree, saying that those out of work for more than three years see their earning power drop by 37%, and advising not to opt out in the first place.

Easier said than done, and very subject to speculation on what's important in life.