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Release Notes: Import and search emails, extract metadata from PDFs and more
Over the past few weeks, the MuckRock team has been busy with several updates and improvements. The biggest update: Our new Email Archiver Add-On allows you to preserve email files (EML/MBOX) with corresponding metadata for long-term storage by seamlessly converting emails to EA-PDFs, a new archive-friendly standard that preserves email metadata in a consistent way while ensuring emails are consistently preserved as PDFs.
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For the Record: Requesting documents for the stadium that never was
MuckRock obtained documents on the $2 billion project that promised to bring two major D.C. teams to Virginia.
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Admiral Grace Hopper’s landmark lecture is found, but the NSA won’t release it
In a vault at the National Security Agency lies a historical treasure: two AMPEX 1-inch open reel tapes containing a landmark lecture by Admiral Grace Hopper, a giant in the field of computer science. Yet this invaluable artifact remains inaccessible, trapped in an obsolete format that the NSA will not release, stating that the agency is unable to play it back.
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Elected officials are opting out of secret Koppers community meetings about air pollution.
The Illinois EPA has created a Koppers resource website, with documents related to all four Illinois EPA violations, due to “significant public interest” in the facility. And the state attorney general’s office said it received more information from the Illinois EPA related to Koppers’ alleged violations in December, saying in a statement that it is “evaluating the matter.”
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For the Record: Celebrate the Fourth with FOIA
Get in the spirit of the holidays by making your own public records request or taking some inspiration from your fellow MuckRockers.
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Release Notes: Knight Election Hub, more OCR tools and expanded raw email access
Over the past few weeks, the MuckRock tech team has focused on several key updates and additions. These include the development of the Knight Election Hub, which offers vital resources to U.S. newsrooms for comprehensive coverage of the 2024 elections.
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For the Record: How to background political candidates through public records
As November inches closer, June’s #FOIAFriday session explored what type of public records can be used to investigate political candidates who are running in the 2024 election cycle. Friday’s session covered how to request these overlooked documents, including military personnel records, voter lists and Paycheck Protection Program loans.
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For the Record: Navigating MuckRock’s FOIA Log Explorer
MuckRock has archived data on over 160,000 FOIA requests, including the Environmental Protection Agency and Customs and Border Protection.
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Search across almost 170,000 requests via MuckRock’s expanded FOIA Log Explorer
Over the last few weeks, we have been hard at work on a range of improvements to MuckRock and DocumentCloud, but FOIA fans have something special to celebrate: We’ve imported many of the requests from FOIAonline into a searchable database which allows you to filter, browse and even re-request almost 170,000 requests with just a few clicks.
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‘They bungled it:’ NIH documents reveal how $1.6 billion long Covid initiative has failed so far to meet its goals
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.