It’s been a while since we’ve published release notes, but we have a lot to share, including improvements to our crowdsourcing Assignments tool and a number of new DocumentCloud features.

This week, we take a look at how Louisiana’s Attorney General not only backtracked on a records release, but decided to throw the book at a requester in a surprising way. Plus new documents from the Defense Intelligence Agency provide fodder for star-struck requesters.

After years of reporting, Reuters has released a first-of-its-kind national database of deaths in local jails, offering a unique resource for news organizations looking to examine inmate mortality in the facilities they cover. Next Wednesday, Peter Eisler and Grant Smith share how they gathered and cleaned the data and how you can use it for your own reporting and analysis.

In this week’s FOIA roundup, a look at how open data was shown to be misleading through a FOIA request, the case of the high-priced pens, and what FOIA shows us about name brand drugs versus generics.

It started as a bit of a FOIA troll: Requesting CIA’s documentation on how it uses poisons for covert assassinations was always a long shot. Now the court case could help improve FOIA responses for requesters everywhere. Read how to tune in live.

In this week’s roundup, FOIA helps understand which national franchises benefitted the most from the Paycheck Protection Program. Plus transparency on whistleblower claims, a new FOIA portal, and more.

What FOIA is and isn’t getting about the Trump administration, plus using privacy software to evade transparency in Michigan.