The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 470 which was held on July 31, 2019:

1) Norwegian dossier from October 2012 referred a male child age aged 3 years and 2 months

2) Italian dossier from October 2013 referred a make child aged 7 years and 10 months

3) French dossier from December 2013 referred a female child aged 6 years and 11 months with features in health status

4) US dossier from January 2014 referred a female child aged 6 years

Editor's note: This story was posted Wednesday on the Atlas Obscura website.

Last week, Atlas Obscura announced the five finalists for First Journey, the competition we launched this year to send one of our readers on their first real journey. The idea was inspired by our co-founders, Dylan Thuras and Josh Foer, who both went on transformative journeys of their own when they were younger.

This year being Atlas Obscura's 10th anniversary, we decided to celebrate by giving someone out there — a person with an amazing idea who just needed the means to pull it off — $15,000 to take a meaningful, life-changing trip.

Thousands applied, and our panel of judges spent weeks narrowing down an incredibly impressive field of applicants to just a handful of finalists. Each of the four runners-up is being awarded $500, which, we hope, will serve as seed money toward making their journeys a reality.

And now, at last, we couldn't be more thrilled to announce that the winner of First Journey — who receives $15,000, logistical support and will be featured on Atlas Obscura — is Jenn Smith of North Adams, Mass.!

Tue, 30 Jul 2019

to Bjoern.SEIBERT

Dear Mr. Seibert,

Please find attached my plea to President-elect Von der Leyen.

From: Roelie Post

Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2019 at 00:04

Subject: Re: Your email to Ms Day and Mr Mordue on last 17/02

To: Catherine.Day@ec.europa.eu

Dear Catherine,

Before speaking on ‘Understanding Abortion’, Sushmita Sen gave her views on motherhood, not finding the right man at the right time, and Hyderabad.

HYDERABAD: Former Miss Universe and actor Sushmita Sen adopted a girl when she was 24, thus becoming an example for thousands of single Indian women who wanted to become mothers. The 43-year-old mother-of-two was recently in the city attending a programme by Young Ficci Ladies Organisation. Before she started her talk on ‘Understanding Abortion’, she gave her views on motherhood, not finding the right man at the right time, and Hyderabad. “Hydrabad is my Janmastan,” she began, adding, “I was born here. Coming here always feels like coming home. I have a room here in Filmnagar that’s named Sush,” said the gorgeous actor who was wearing a pale yellow dress.

Explaining the beauty of adoption, she said: “A biological mother and her child are connected through an umbilical chord, but a mother and her adopted child are connected by a higher power.” However, the journey was fraught with struggles. She said: “The process of adoption in our country is very complicated. Documents, orientation and many such things make it very difficult for people to adopt. I appeal to authorities to make adoption less tedious. I fought a legal battle of 10 years to be able to adopt my second daughter, Alisa, because Indian laws don’t allow adoption of another girl after a girl. I challenged this along with like-minded people and changed the law.”

When asked what made her make such an unconventional decision at the peak of her movie career, the actor says, “The decision to adopt a child was a culmination of a lot of things. Being crowned Miss Universe when I was 18 years old opened up my world. Before that, I was a regular girl worrying about college admissions. Winning the title also took to various orphanages around the world, and that is when I felt a strong connection with children. Sometimes, children from the orphanages would ask me to take them home, and that made me think. I started wondering what the use of all my fame was if I could not give one of those children a home?”

Disagreeing that adoption was the highest form of altruism, Sushmita said, “Adoption was not an act for charity for me. It stabilised a lot of things in my life. It was an act of self preservation. However, I am proud of the fact that I stuck to my true calling at the peak of my career. I wanted to be a mother, but I was not particular about giving birth.”

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) -

For Gina Schneider, a global gamble paid off in every way she could have imagined.

“It’s just a question mark, I couldn’t answer it,” she said.

At a young age, she was adopted from the country of Romania. She grew up with the only parent she knew – Doctor Stephen Schneider and his wife Linda.

Both of whom were convicted nearly a decade ago, when prosecutors accused them of running a ‘pill mill’ operation. They’re both serving sentences for illegally prescribing opioids to patients.

From: Arun Dohle

Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2019, 16:10

Subject: Duty of care / security

To:

Dear Mr. Roques,

Imagine you are wanting to set up the perfect database to locate and reunite Chinese birth parents and adoptees. Imagine that the birth parents relinquished their child illegally, and could face potential fines or jail for doing so (at least in their own minds if not in reality). How would you go about doing this? How would you get the birth parents and the adoptees to submit their DNA to your database to be matched? And how would you do it on a large enough scale that matches would be likely?

Several logistical questions arise: What database? Who processes the DNA? Who pays for the database, DNA processing, advertising, etc.? How are matches made? How are the matches communicated? In which country would the database be managed?

These questions are important, especially when it comes to China. As you research, you learn that any DNA database that sets up shop in China by definition must partner with the national Chinese government, and that the government will "oversee" your operations. You learn that most of the current DNA databases don't use the most current DNA technology in order to save money. You learn that Chinese birth families are inherently suspicious, afraid of the government, afraid of being discovered for having relinquished a child.

So, how do you locate birth families and convince them to participate in your project? How do you convince an adoptee to participate? How much do you charge, and to whom?

Adoptive families have sought a perfect solution to this problem for years. In 2014, we set up DNAConnect.Org as an attempt to provide a solution to the DNA problem. We structured our protocol based on the following assumptions:

My diary about our adoption, being a family and being a mother

Archive for the month of July 2015

At home, a day later on July 29th

JULY 29, 2015

Today was over twenty-four hours. It feels like ages ago that we left Russia behind. But only a few hours have passed since our arrival in Germany. We are at home! Richard and I still can not believe that our life as a family started. Our children will stay with us and no one can ever take them back from us. It seems like a dream from which we have to wake up someday.

Actor-entrepreneur Sushmita Sen says she was privileged to adopt not once but twice

A former beauty queen, celebrated model, actor and entrepreneur, Sushmita Sen wears many hats. But what comes to mind prominently was her path-breaking act of adopting a child when she was just 24 and at the peak of her career.

A long battle

Her father was baffled when she first shared her wish to adopt a child at the age of 19 after giving up her Miss Universe crown, she recalled with a laugh. The adoption centres were also reluctant to let a teenage single woman adopt a child.

She succeeded when she was 24 and adopted a girl who she named Renee.