Sunlight Foundation

A quick reminder before we dig into today's open government news. If you are still relying on Sunlight's Congress API please begin to transition to ProPublica's API. The Sunlight Congress API will shut down as of August 31.  Read on for stories on on data-driven efforts to reduce traffic fatalities, the Congressional app challenge, the White House communications office's war against leaks, and much more.

In today's edition, we're running out of new ways to describe what's happening in the Senate or what the President of the United States is saying on Twitter. Read on to hear about that, plus the annual Whistleblower Summit coming up on Thursday and Friday, various ways that foreign governments can legally influence elections,  our concerns over attempts to defund the Congressional Budget Office, and much more.

In today's edition we review the first six months of the Trump Administration, tensions rise around the Russia investigation, the House attempts to curb improper payments, Poles protest an attempt to weaken their judiciary, and more...

Today's look at open government news includes the firestorm of headlines sparked by President Trump's comments to the New York Times, new research on open data's impact in the developing world, how one reporter boosted accountability in Georgia by opening data on their own, the return of pork-barrel spending in Washington, and much more. 

Forbes and ProPublica have found details on 6 of the Trump Organizations 39 ongoing hotel deals around the country. Now, they "are asking local journalists and interested citizens to help find and ferret out the facts out on the remaining 33 deals. It’s important to know who the president’s family is in business with since it’s possible that Trump’s business interests could conflict with his day job of representing the American people." Read on for more on that important story, plus the rest of today's open government news from Washington, around the United States, and across the globe.