Members of Roanoke’s Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board are wondering how to continue their work when such concepts are under scrutiny from the federal government. Information about and documents relating to the equity board are gone from the city website, replaced by an error message. Nonetheless, Roanoke’s equity board — comprised of volunteer citizen members who have a constitutional right to assemble — met Thursday night at the Melrose branch library, joined briefly by Mayor Joe Cobb, as well as the elephant in the room. Equity board member Deborah Carter raised a question about “the current atmosphere.” “How are we to remain transparent to the public if we’re having to work in stealth mode?” Carter said. Cobb said things are in a weird state, but to carry on.

After a firestorm of criticism from city leaders and student journalists over proposed oversight changes to Alexandria City High School’s student newspaper, Theogony, this morning (May 2), the Alexandria School Board’s Governance Committee returned to the drawing board. School Board Members Ashley Simpson Baird, Tim Beaty and Abdulahi Abdalla serve on the committee and couldn’t reach consensus on staff changes to create a structure where stories could be stopped from publication by the editor, the school’s executive principal. The trio agreed to pursue the issue in a work session in June, which postpones the Board’s scheduled May 8 vote on the matter. In a draft proposal released three weeks ago, news stories that “may be controversial” would have to be submitted by students to the “Campus Administrator who is responsible for ensuring the content will not cause substantial disruption of school activities.” The principal would also have to approve the republication of articles to outside news outlets like ALXnow.

On March 10, 1913, under the supervision of the Clerk of Court, Thomas Firebaugh penned his name into the Rockingham County Medical Register, renewing his license and etching his place into the county’s history. However, it would be more than 100 years before the dust was carefully wiped away and his name uncovered from the archives of the Circuit Court. The medical register and its names tell a vital story of the history of Rockingham County and beyond — a way to remember the people who devoted their lives to service in our community.

The Cavalier Daily spoke with former Board of Visitors member Bert Ellis, who was fired by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin March 26, about the goals he had hoped to accomplish as a member, many of which he believes remain unachieved. These goals included key priorities of removing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, firing President Jim Ryan, lowering costs and reducing the University’s operating budget and rejuvenating the Honor system. Although the Board did vote to dissolve the Office, the resolution also had a statement affirming the value of diversity at the University. Ellis said that DEI initiatives have not fully been removed from the University noting that University President Jim Ryan had sent the Board a report in early April, but claimed that Ryan had refused to carry out the Board’s orders. The Cavalier Daily requested Ryan’s report from University Communications and later submitted a request via FOIA, but these requests were denied on both occasions. University Communications did not share a reason, but the University’s FOIA Office denied the request under an exemption in Virginia Code Section [2.2-3705.7(2)], which allows [university presidents’] communications to be kept private.

The public won’t have to wait longer to get some public records from government agencies in Colorado. State lawmakers on Friday abandoned an effort to override Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of a bill to extend deadlines in the Open Records Act. The bill’s sponsors say instead, they’ll spend the summer talking with transparency advocates who lobbied against the measure and use their input to craft a different bill on the issue for next year. “We decided that it was better to seek common ground than to, frankly, make people take a vote that makes them look non-transparent,” State Sen. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins, said of the decision to abandon the veto override vote.

When the IRS secretly demands your financial records and private information from a third party, without a warrant, what rights do you still have? That’s the question at the heart of Harper v. O’Donnell, which is before the Supreme Court. New Hampshire resident Jim Harper is fighting back against the IRS after discovering he was swept up in a massive digital dragnet. The case could redefine how the Fourth Amendment applies in the age of cloud storage—and it may determine whether your emails, location history, search queries, and financial records that tech companies store on your behalf are treated as your property.

The FDA has rehired at least some workers tasked with releasing public records generated by the agency’s regulatory activities, two employees said. The recall reverses firings carried out roughly a month ago by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the agency. Workers who process records about medical device and tobacco regulation under the Freedom of Information Act received notices from an FDA official May 1 that they were no longer being fired as part of the department’s mass layoffs, according to the employees and documents reviewed by KFF Health News, which agreed not to name the workers because they are not authorized to speak to the press and fear retaliation. The workers were told to return to their jobs immediately.