Introducing DocumentCloud’s latest Add-On: A simplified scraper that, with just a few clicks, monitors the website of your choosing, automatically downloads and indexes any newly uploaded documents and then alerts you if there is something of interest. Read on for more on how it works plus other recent platform updates.

Fine particulate matter is responsible for an estimated 5% of all premature deaths in Chicago. What is it and where does it come from?

Chicago’s air pollution hotspots: New sensor network reveals neighborhood air quality disparities

What we did to analyze Chicago’s air pollution hotspots.

Newly-released FBI records show U.S. law enforcement identified the young man in the blue jogging suit who shot and killed Orhan Gündüz in May 1982, along with his associates in an Armenian terrorist group. But no one was ever charged for Orhan’s murder.

In 2021, there was a net loss of 735 childcare providers statewide. A $1.4 billion pot of federal relief money is being used to help. But experts say the child care industry will likely worsen, making it harder for Michigan families and the state economy. We want to hear about how Michigan’s childcare crisis is affecting you.

When an agency’s records department sends responses via the postal service (affectionately known as snail mail), those communications, including acknowledgment letters, status updates and responsive documents, come to us for processing. That address is changing for the first since in 8 years, but we’re working to ensure a smooth transition.

Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) has announced a major award to MuckRock, furthering our vision of being the public’s engine for understanding our world. FFDW and MuckRock are teaming up to integrate decentralized storage technology for DocumentCloud, our open source platform that currently hosts over 8 million verified documents. This collaboration will also expand our leading accountability and transparency tools to support a much wider range of use cases.

We’ve launched a range of new features integrated into DocumentCloud, plus an opportunity to join us to help build even more key transparency tools going forward.

Thousands of pages of newly-published FBI and CIA documents obtained by MuckRock show U.S. law enforcement agencies spent considerable resources identifying the culprits. They were never brought to justice. Read MuckRock’s series, starting Monday, May 16.