Legislation would no longer require adoption agencies to check a national registry of child abuse and neglect cases because the registry doesn't exist.

Indiana birth certificates list the birth mother and the father. For a lesbian couple like Nicki and Tonya Bush-Sawyer, that leaves one of them out.

Despite passing more than 100 bills, and resolving issues that had lingered in the the legislature for years, the 2016 session of the Indiana General Assembly may be remembered more for what lawmakers couldn't get done.

Legislation opening records from Indiana's closed adoption era is one step away from becoming law. Last year, a similar measure didn't even get a vote in a House committee.

This year's adoption records bill gives birth mothers four options - allow contact, allow contact only through an intermediary, bar contact entirely, or only allow their children access to the birth mother's medical records.

The 11-member delegation asked Obama in a letter sent Tuesday to call Congo's president and ask that he "swiftly and thoroughly" resolve the exit permit process that's been stalled since 2013.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Thursday that seeks to allow adopted children access to information about their birth parents.

Efforts to open records from Indiana's closed adoptions era - 1941 to 1993 - have failed for years, largely to shield birth mothers who don't want to be contacted. But changes made to this year's version of the bill are already showing signs of changing minds and ensuring the measure's passage.