Do mask mandates matter? Were governments that shut down schools sooner making the right call? Julia Raifman, assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, has been organizing the COVID-19 US state policy database (CUSP) to collect and analyze state-wide mandates from across the country to help answer these questions and inform future policy. This Thursday, she shares what she’s learned in a question and answer session with Garance Burke.

We’ve loved seeing the creative ways users have used our Assignments crowdsourcing tools, from digging through documents to building petitions. Now, to help newsrooms quickly gather answers to big questions, we’ve created an experimental spinoff of Assignments designed to help organize volunteers in gathering and label large amounts of data no matter where it may live.

We’re offering a free training session and plenty of ways to demand transparency in the midst of a pandemic and the movement for police accountability.

This Friday, we’re hosting the first of a number of ongoing free trainings focused on uncovering how COVID-19 is impacting communities around the United States. Come join us, and subscribe to the project newsletter to get first look at key data sets, free training, and more.

In March, as government agencies closed or reconfigured operations at all levels, we paused our automated follow-up systems. Now that agencies are getting back to work at the new normal, we’re resuming our automated follow-up systems to ensure requests get a timely acknowledgment and response.

As more industries begin to rely on PPE to protect themselves against COVID-19, Georgia is straining to identify and address shortages.

We put all these transparency changes into one easy-to-use table

Our standard advice holds even during this extraordinary time. Be empathetic to transitions necessary to maintain health and safety of government workers but be prepared to enforce the expectations of the state public records and open meeting laws. The following FAQ can help you work through the rest.

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