Despite lacking legal authority to do so, localities and agencies around the United States are still pointing to the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason for delaying responses to public records requests, sometimes indefinitely.

In this week’s FOIA Roundup, we feature a new book about America’s disposal of nerve agents in the Pacific Ocean and take a look at the limits of Trump’s tweets to affect declassification. Let us know if you see something we’ve missed!

Complaints against Buffalo police officers and firefighters — regardless of whether they are unsubstantiated, pending, or involved in a confidential settlement — will remain subject to public disclosure, a New York judge ruled Tuesday.

Misinformation and disinformation originating from law enforcement sources, which has lately included Antifa raids, brick piles, poisoned milkshakes and more, has sparked considerable interest in the past few months. But journalists who cover the police say this is common — even the rule. Here’s what you need to know and how public records can help.

In this week’s FOIA Roundup, we feature an investigation from Science on oversight of clinical trials, a questionable court decision on Twitter direct messages, and the recent decision to overturn Department of Justice exemptions throughout the Mueller report.

We’re three-quarters through migrating newsrooms over to the upgraded DocumentCloud platform, so we wanted to take some time to walk through what we’ve learned so far and what newsrooms need to know for a smooth transition. The video of our discussion last week — including Q&A time where we answered burning questions — is below. We also upgraded MuckRock’s servers to offer a faster, more responsive experience.