Transparency News, 9/30/20

The Virginia Department of Health rolled out new public COVID-19 dashboards Monday that include guidelines for reopening schools, the first time the state has publicly laid out numerical recommendations. The new Pandemics Metrics dashboard is different than the daily dashboard. While the daily dashboard focuses on raw numbers, the new dashboard interprets the information more. It also shows how guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control for school reopening apply to every locality. “The data that we are showing are not intended to be a true forecast," said VDH State Epidemiologist Dr. Lilian Peake in a news conference Monday. "They really are available to place into the context of the local setting, to understand what steps we need to take to reduce transmission of the virus.”
Daily Press

What happens in polls doesn’t always happen at the polls and that’s why a University of Virginia politics prognosticator has teamed up with an international research firm ahead of the November presidential election. Ipsos, a French firm that provides information and research gleaned from the internet and social media to corporations, governments and in public polls, is combining efforts with the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball to give political junkies insight into the increasingly fractured U.S. electorate. The team has created Political Atlas to provide not only polling figures but spending trends and hot items and topics on social media and internet searches. The information goes from the national scene down to the state and, in some cases, the county level. The atlas can be found at political-atlas.com and is free.
The Daily Progress

Bristol, Tennessee officials were tight-lipped Tuesday about the details of social media posts that recently resulted in reprimands for five officers in the Bristol Tennessee Police Department, including two captains and a lieutenant. Earlier this month, administrative officials at the BTPD were notified of possible inappropriate social media posts made by officers. Officers Adam Dye and Thomas Laughlin, Lt. Dannielle Eller, Capt. Charlie Thomas and Capt. Terry Johnson have since been counseled, according to documents provided to the Bristol Herald Courier through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Bristol Herald Courier
(NOTE: The same type of documents would likely be unavailable from Bristol, Virginia.)

 

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) committed Monday night to releasing a recording of the grand jury proceedings in the Breonna Taylor case.  Cameron said in a statement to The Hill that he plans to release the recording Wednesday in compliance with a judge’s order, despite concerns about how it could affect the ongoing investigation and have other “unintended consequences.”  The state attorney general had previously refused to release grand jury proceeding records but faced pressure from lawyers for Taylor’s family, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and an anonymous grand juror to do so.  “The Grand Jury is meant to be a secretive body,” Cameron's statement said. “It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen.”
The Hill