After stern opposition from transparency groups, Assemblymember Laura Friedman has decided to halt AB 700 for this year’s legislative session in California. The bill would have exempted information relating to a researcher or their research at a state university or community college.

Following sweeping changes to access to police records, California legislators remain focused on reforming the state’s public records law. This time around, however, environmental groups, scientists, and transparency activists are up in arms against a new bill that’s looking to limit the scope of what researchers at higher-education institutions can and cannot release.

In the Boston area? Join MuckRock’s JPat Brown, Beryl Lipton, and Michael Morisy this Thursday, April 18, as they discuss their latest book “Scientists Under Surveillance: The FBI Files” at the MIT Press bookstore as part of the Cambridge Science Festival.

In April 1950, the US federal government raided the offices of Scientific American Magazine to destroy every printed issue, burning three thousand copies. The reason? The banned magazine contained an article, titled “The Hydrogen Bomb: II” written by Professor Hans Bethe, one of the country’s most prominent nuclear scientists, which had been deemed a threat to national security.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation file on famed artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky documents what appears to be a 1964 investigation into the wife of one of Minsky’s acquaintances, whom the Bureau suspected of being a Soviet spy. Though details are scarce and redactions heavy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor does manage to add some fuel to an ancient Ivy League rivalry.