The latest on FOIA, transparency and accountability battles, threats and wins from MuckRock.

MuckRock’s tech team has been hard at work enhancing our transparency platforms, all of which are open source. Read on for what’s changed.

The congressional campaign of TV executive Margarita Wilkinson in California’s 49th District, despite being a political novice and never having held elected office, is a case study in what major political parties are looking for, above all else, in a hyper-politicized 2024 campaign season, experts say: Wealth and a blank political slate.

With its new elections project, MuckRock is providing training and support for journalists and the public to explore political races and candidates.

The latest on FOIA, transparency and accountability battles, threats and wins from MuckRock.

As MuckRock and STAT News reported last year, after receiving $1.15 billion in December 2020, the federal government’s RECOVER initiative has moved slowly and devoted the majority of its funding to observational research. Now, several U.S. senators called for better oversight of the National Institutes of Health, pointing to criticism of the largest recipient of federal Long Covid funding so far.

How do we better gauge in advance whether a request for information will be accepted or denied? And how do we improve the process for requests for information to increase the chances of a successful response? A new chatbot aims to help requesters.

In Texas, a self-described Christian sex trafficking abolitionist sought to create a “Mayo Clinic” for juvenile survivors and raised tens of millions to create a new nationwide model. But the Refuge Ranch, and other programs like it, fell far short, a MuckRock and Texas Observer investigation has found, leaving those it treated with more traumatic experiences than they came in with.

The United States should not expand nuclear energy use, at least until the federal government can make up for the harms caused by previous nuclear projects, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri said at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

The latest on FOIA, transparency and accountability battles, threats and wins from MuckRock.

DocumentCloud premium users can now utilize revision control to store document changes and easily retrieve previous versions. The platform’s sidebar has undergone a redesign, while additional improvements include dropdown menu support in Add-Ons and the ability to select which Whisper model you would like to use with the Transcribe Audio Add-On.

The latest on FOIA, transparency and accountability battles, threats and wins from MuckRock.

With competitive Congressional races across the country and state and local candidates fighting to keep or take elected office, there are endless stories that can be reported out to help the public make informed decisions when heading to the polls.

Nuclear waste stored outside St. Louis was found to pose a risk to nearby Coldwater Creek as early as 1949. The contaminated creek will finally have warning signs almost 75 years later.

The Koppers coal tar plant in Cicero has been found in violation of both state and federal environmental laws dating back 50 years — from the late 1970s until this past summer. A new Illinois EPA list of violations raises new questions about how much cancer-causing chemicals the plant is emitting.

The latest on FOIA, transparency and accountability battles, threats and wins from MuckRock.