Budget and other project documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show how the National Institutes of Health set up its flagship long Covid research initiative, including the scientific expertise that government reviewers prioritized in selecting research teams to lead the RECOVER program and the early goals and timelines. Experts who reviewed the contracts and project documents say the agency set itself up for failure.

In 2017, Priscilla Villarreal — sharing updates through her popular La Gordiloca Facebook page — first confirmed with a government source and then reported on a series of deaths in and near Laredo, Texas. They were not unusual stories for Villarreal to share — she has gained wide attention for local updates and breaking news on public corruption and thousands tune in to her videos and updates.

In Brazil, presidents and other top government officials have the right to use “corporate cards” to cover occasional travel expenses and other small value purchases on behalf of the federal government. In January 2023, the journalism non-profit Fiquem Sabendo secured access to the invoices for these cards, and last week, the Brazilian newsroom detailed how they meticulously scanned and organized these documents, making them accessible for the first time.

MuckRock is working to obtain PPP loans by candidates in the 2024 election by using public records.

MuckRock’s #FOIAFriday webinar series continued last Friday with a step-by-step guide on how to request data inventories from federal and state agencies.

DocumentCloud now allows Add-On developers to customize the emails sent when a scheduled run fails, making it easier to understand why something stopped working and potentially fix it. The Regex Extractor Add-On now enables tagging documents when a matching regular expression is found, opening up new ways to sort and filter large document collections with ease.

This week’s For the Record shares how reporters at MuckRock and the Cicero Independiente overcame rejection in their “Air We Breathe” series.