Noam Ross

@noamross.net

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Computational disease ecologist. Executive Director of @ropensci.org. Co-founder of https://grant-witness.us/. Brooklynite. One Health, open science, #RStats, cities, civics, bikes, fun, love, progress + justice. he/him

A photograph shows Representative George Whitesides seated and speaking into a microphone at a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing. Behind him, staff members hold two large poster boards displaying line charts that track cumulative grant data across multiple fiscal years. The left poster shows a sharp drop in the number of grants awarded in Fiscal Year 2026 compared to previous years, with a red caption reading "55% Decrease in Total Grants from FY 2024." The right poster illustrates a similarly steep decline in funding obligations, with a red caption reading "30% ($1.3B) Decrease in Total Grant Amounts from FY 2024."
A dashboard summary from Grant Witness tracking AHRQ grant disruptions displays three key metric cards across the top: a total of 150 disrupted grants, 0 restored grants, and a total current loss from disrupted grants of $94.01M. Below the metrics, a table lists individual terminated grants, showing award numbers, titles, a current status of "Disrupted," a detailed status of "Terminated," first disruption dates around August 2025, and latest disruption dates in July 2026.
A table titled "Words most disproportionately common in terminated AHRQ grants" lists fifteen terms sorted by the percentage-point gap between their termination rates. The table includes columns for the term name, the number of terminated grants containing the term, remaining grants containing the term, and the percentage of grants containing that word that were terminated. Top terms include "equity" with 75 terminated grants and an 85.2% termination rate, "disparities" at 73.3%, "training" at 69.9%, "diverse" at 68.2%, and "faculty" with the highest termination rate listed at 95.8%.
A dot plot titled "Terminated grants" maps each canceled grant as a single dot along a timeline from April 2025 to October 2029. A vertical dashed line around mid-2026 marks when termination letters were issued. Purple dots to the left of this line show when each grant's most recent budget period actually ended, peaking heavily between July and October 2025 to illustrate that most grants had budget renewals withheld months before being officially terminated. Teal dots to the right of the line stretch through late 2029, showing the originally planned project end dates cut short by the cancellations.
Grouped bar chart for fiscal years 2021 through 2026 comparing two values for NSF new awards: the total planned budget (red bars) and the amount actually obligated at the start of the award year (blue bars), measured in billions of dollars. Bars are displayed side by side for each year. Percentage labels above the blue bars show the ratio of same-year obligations to planned budget. From 2021 through 2024, the blue bar is well below the red and percentages range from 57% to 61%. In 2025, it is 55%, and both bars are much lower than prior years. In 2026, it is 75%, with far lower values than any other year.
Stacked bar chart of NSF obligations for fiscal years 2021 through 2026, measured in billions of dollars. Blue segments show obligations to awards made in the same fiscal year (new awards); red segments show obligations to awards made in earlier fiscal years (prior-year awards). Dollar amounts and percentages are labeled in white text inside each segment. From 2021 through 2025, new awards account for more than half of obligations each year. In 2026 the red segment exceeds the blue for the first time.
Dot plot of NSF award sizes for fiscal years 2021 through 2026 on a log scale from about $1,000 to $10 million. Each grey dot represents one award, arranged in a beeswarm pattern. A red horizontal bar marks the mean and a blue bar marks the median for each year, each labeled with a dollar value. 2026 is modestly different: In 2026 the mean falls to $560,000 from $680,000 in the prior year, and no awards above $30 million were made. The median rises to $443,000 from $383,000, and a spike of awards around $50,000 is missing from 2026 but present in other years.
We should call this action what it is – blatant union-busting. But there’s worse: we also have reason to believe that the sale was motivated by fear within Springer Nature that our attempts to doggedly report on the crisis facing science in America today would lead to repercussions from the Trump administration. On multiple occasions the company has sought to quash or tone down political or sensitive stories that were journalistically sound.
A horizontal bar chart comparing the percentage of non-competing NIH grant continuations that are 60+ days overdue between fiscal years 2025 and 2026. The left panel shows FY 2025 (light blue bars) and the right panel shows FY 2026 (dark blue bars). The x-axis represents the percentage from 0% to 50%. The y-axis lists various NIH institutes and centers (e.g., FIC, NCCIH, NHLBI). Across almost all institutes, the rate of overdue renewals is notably higher in FY 2026 compared to FY 2025. In FY 2026, the Fogarty International Center (FIC) shows the highest rate, with over 40% of renewals more than 60 days overdue, followed by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Phil Hartman from a 1992 SNL sketch about driving directions in New England, saying "Can't get there from here."
“I think everybody probably in writing their proposals knew to sanitize their language proactively,” said Kate Zinsser, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, who was not affected by the cancellations but is planning to attend the conference and has been in contact with the cancelled researchers. “But these are not radical sessions, these are seemingly run-of-the-mill research presentations that are receiving this kind of scrutiny and censoring.”
A line graph titled "Cumulative NSF Funds Awarded Per Capita (2024 dollars) by Day of Fiscal Year" shows inflation-adjusted per-capita NSF funding from October to September. A color-coded legend groups lines by decade from the 1960s through the 2020s. A thick bright red line labeled "2026" runs far below all other years, reaching only about $3–4 per person by mid-June. Year-end labels on the right show FY2024 in teal at the top (around $23 per capita), FY2025 in dark red (around $17), and "1987" in green (around $15). A red dot marks the FY2027 President\'s Budget Request at roughly $11 per capita, with "1973" in gold labeled as the closest historical year-end value. "1969" in brown at the very bottom (around $5) marks the historical year most closely matching FY2026's current pace.
A line graph titled "Cumulative Number of Awards" tracking National Science Foundation (NSF) award dates from October through September across multiple fiscal years (FY 2021 to FY 2026). The x-axis shows months, and the y-axis shows the number of awards up to 11,000. Lines for FY 2021 through FY 2024 cluster closely together, steadily climbing over the year to peak between 10,000 and 11,500 awards. The line for FY 2025 is noticeably lower, peaking under 9,000 awards. The line for the current year, FY 2026 (shown in red), sits drastically lower than all previous years, tracking below 2,000 awards. A vertical line marks "June 3," where a pop-up box displays data for that date: FY 2021: 4,594; FY 2022: 4,983; FY 2023: 4,606; FY 2024: 4,234; FY 2025: 2,615; and FY 2026: 1,471. Past the June 3 vertical line, the red FY 2026 line completely flattens out, stopping abruptly at a dashed vertical line.
According to Decker’s email, HHS is sending the following number of RIF notices to the following component agencies: Administration for Children and Families – 3 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – 2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – 6 Food and Drug Administration – 4 Health Resources and Services Administration – 5 National Institutes of Health – 43 Office of the Secretary – 14 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration – 1
An infographic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) titled “Administration Funding Abuses Need Guardrails in 2027 Appropriations Bills.” The image is divided into four quadrants, each illustrating a different type of funding abuse: Dismantling and reorganizing federal agencies: Shows a flowchart with red boxes being broken apart. Abusing foundational grantmaking tools: Shows red ribbons with the words “POLITICIZE,” “COERCE,” and “UNDERMINE” layered over each other. Undermining operations by closing regional offices: Shows a hanging red sign that reads “PERMANENTLY CLOSED.” Targeting the flow of funds to states based on political grievances: Shows a map of the United States with several red “X” marks placed over different regions. At the bottom, text directs readers to a CBPP blog post titled “Congress Should Include Robust Government-wide Guardrails in 2027 Appropriations to Halt Unprecedented Interference by Trump Administration.” The CBPP logo and website (cbpp.org) are in the bottom right corner.
List of produce and their alert level. Tomatoes, and their alert level of EXTREME/ACT OF GOD, are highlighted. • Asparagus – EXTREME • Artichokes – ESCALATED • Bok Choy – EXTREME • Boston/Butter Lettuce – ESCALATED • Broccoli – EXTREME • Broccoli Crowns Asian Cut – EXTREME • Carrots – EXTREME • Cauliflower – EXTREME • Celery – EXTREME • Fennel, Anise – ESCALATED • French Beans – ESCALATED • Green Leaf/Red Leaf Lettuce – ESCALATED • Green Onions – ESCALATED • Honeydews – ESCALATED • Hot Pepper: All Varieties – ESCALATED Watch List • Lettuce – EXTREME • Limes – EXTREME • Napa – EXTREME • Parsley Italian – ESCALATED • Raspberries – EXTREME • Romaine – ESCALATED • Romaine Hearts – EXTREME • Sweet Corn – ESCALATED • Table Grapes – ESCALATED • Tomatoes (Rounds and Roma Tomatoes) o Mexico and Florida – EXTREME/ACT OF GOD • Warm Veg Category: Corn and Eggplant – ESCALATED • White Asparagus – ESCALATED
A drawing of a bullethole-shattered window papered over with a sign that says "FUCK RFK."
Table from a page of HHS's list of terminated grants from 04/17/2026. The dollar amounts of the amount obligated, spent, and recovered are highlighted in red to indicate they have been removed.
Side-by-side diff of HHS Scientific Integrity policy, with the old version on the left highlighting text that was removed: "Political interference is inappropriately shaping or interfering in the conduct, management, communication, or use of science for political advantage or such that it undermines impartiality, nonpartisanship, or professional judgment."
A line graph titled "N.I.H. Funds Fewer New and Competitive Grants," showing the cumulative number of grant awards by fiscal year. The gray line representing the 2021-2024 average shows the highest cumulative number of awards. The light blue line for 2025 follows a similar trajectory but remains significantly below the 2021-2024 average. The dark blue line for 2026 shows a much slower pace of awards, trailing drastically behind both the 2025 and 2021-2024 benchmarks as of April.
Test from webpage: "Protecting Scientific Processes. This section prohibits political interference and other inappropriate influence, requires reasonable efforts to ensure the fidelity of the scientific record, and requires research integrity and responsible conduct of research." "Political" is highlighted in green to indicate it is still there.
Text, all highlighted in green to indicate insertion: 2. Support the publication of raw data and code that contributes to research outcomes in publicly accessible repositories where feasible and consistent with applicable security, privacy, and confidentiality requirements and encourage clear, detailed reporting of methodologies. 3. Support practices that enhance the falsifiability of hypotheses, such as pre-registration of study protocols, use of appropriate control groups, and transparent reporting of all results, including null or negative findings. Falsifiable hypotheses are those that can be tested and potentially disproven through empirical evidence.
Highlighted in red: "Political interference is inappropriately shaping or interfering in the conduct, management, communication, or use of science for political advantage or such that it undermines impartiality, nonpartisanship, or professional judgement"
An infinite number of monkeys could not produce this sentence: "While receiving a McDonald’s food delivery to the Oval Office, the president told reporters that he posted a photo that depicted him as a robed, Jesus-like figure because he thought it had depicted him as a physician."
Screen shot of part of an award's event history with sources: 2025-05-26: Award termination date in TAGGS PDF (TAGGS PDF) 2025-05-27: 'TERMINATED' action added (HHS TAGGS) 2025-05-27: End date cut off from 2026-05-31 to 2025-08-31 (USAspending awards) 2025-05-31: Other amendment (USAspending File C) 2025-06-03: Grant marked as terminated (RePORTER website) 2025-06-13: Added to TAGGS PDF of terminations (TAGGS PDF) 2025-06-18: Court-ordered reinstatement (MA v. RFK ) (Court case) 2025-06-18: Court-ordered reinstatement (APHA v. NIH ) (Court case) 2025-06-30: End date extended from 2025-05-31 to 2026-05-31 (USAspending File C) 2025-07-03: Removed from TAGGS PDF of terminations (TAGGS PDF)
Indeed, among roughly two dozen workers and regulars interviewed this week at Rome’s three Waffle House locations, none said they were aware of anyone traveling to the 24-hour restaurants by paranormal means, despite their reputation as powerful magnets for the sort of idiosyncratic characters who tend to surf the psychic fringes of the American South.
Austin Spears, 29, a land surveyor, also found Mr. Phillips’s story to be dubious. But he also acknowledged that all human lives are studded with little mysteries. “I can say I’ve been drunk and ended up in a Waffle House,” Mr. Spears said. “Don’t know how I got there. But I was there.”
Screenshot of a GitHub issue thread demonstrating our review bot listing the most similar packages to a submission
Torso with a black T-shirt reading "Biology is Bigger than Binaries", with pink images of a bee, a flower, and a clown fish.
A progress bar showing that 153 letters have been sent, 47 more to go until a goal of 200
The balance of equities and public interest favor plaintiffs because the public interest is not harmed by temporarily enjoining arbitrary and capricious and unlawful agency action. Therefore, it is ordered that: 1. Defendants, their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and all those in active concert or participation with defendants are temporarily restrained from implementing agency guidance or directives to identify and terminate public-health grants awarded to plaintiffs, including their instrumentalities, subdivisions, and any bona fide fiscal agents of plaintiffs or their instrumentalities and subdivisions, based on undisclosed agency priorities. 2. Defendants, their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and all those in active concert or participation with defendants, shall immediately treat any actions taken to implement or enforce directives to identify and terminate public-health grants awarded to plaintiffs based on undisclosed agency priorities, as null, void, and rescinded. 3. Defendants' counsel shall provide written notice of this Order to defendants, their officers, agents, employees, and any other persons in active concert or participation with them in the award and funding of public-health grants awarded to plaintiffs. 4. No security is necessary to secure this Temporary Restraining Order. 5. This Temporary Restraining Order is entered at 4:45 p.m. on February 12, 2026, and shall remain in effect for 14 days. ENTER: Date: February 12, 2026 Manish S. Shah United States District Judge
Work in Brugge’s lab slowed significantly last year. In April, her $7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health was frozen, along with virtually all other federal money awarded to Harvard researchers. The Trump administration said it was withholding the funds over the university’s handling of antisemitism on campus. Some of Brugge’s lab staff lost federal fellowships that funded their work. Brugge told others funded through the NIH grant that she couldn’t guarantee their salaries. In all, Brugge lost seven of her 18 lab employees. In September, the funding for the NIH grant was restored. But in the intervening months, the Trump administration said Brugge and other Harvard researchers needn’t bother applying for the next round of multiyear grants. A federal judge lifted that ban, but Brugge had missed the deadline to apply for renewal. So her current funding will end in August. Brugge scrambled to secure private funding from foundations and philanthropists. She was then able to reinstate two positions for at least a year — but job applicants are wary. Across the United States, the future of federal funding for cancer research is uncertain.
Figure 1: Declines in Awards for New Research Projects A line graph titled "New and Competitive Renewal Grants Issued by NIH, January-December, 2015-2025." The y-axis represents the number of grants ranging from 0 to 2,500, and the x-axis represents the years from 2015 to 2025. The graph tracks four categories of medical research: Cancer (Orange): Remains the highest funded category, generally fluctuating between 2,100 and 2,300 grants until 2024, followed by a sharp decline to just under 2,000 in 2025. Heart Disease (Yellow): Stays relatively stable between 1,400 and 1,600 grants for most of the decade but shows a noticeable downward trend starting in 2023, ending near 1,300 in 2025. Diabetes (Grey): Maintains a steady range between 1,000 and 1,250 grants, showing a slight peak in 2022 before declining to approximately 1,000 by 2025. Alzheimer's (Blue): Shows the most significant change, starting as the lowest at 500 grants in 2015, steadily climbing to a peak of nearly 1,200 in 2022, and then experiencing a sharp drop to roughly 750 by 2025.
Part 1 of full text of letter at https://grant-witness.us/grfp-letter
A word cloud of terms from cancelled SAMHSA grants, with the largest terms being training, capacity, prescription, prevention, and disorder
Child and family well-being for all families, including families most impacted by racial disparities, is the responsibility of equitable, diverse, and culturally competent systems and the community. The purpose of this NOFO is to fund grants that support the development, implementation, and evaluation of field-initiated approaches to addressing racial bias and inequity in child welfare; and improving the safety, stability, and well-being of families in traditionally underserved communities. As a field-based initiative, this funding opportunity will enable communities to design and lead targeted solutions to local issues of systemic disproportionality and inequitable access to services experienced by traditionally underserved communities at varying points across the child welfare continuum. Grant recipients will utilize supporting data, and any pre-analysis if available, from their respective states or communities that describes the problem of inequity and racial bias as it exists in their community. The Children’s Bureau (CB) is open to the type of data submitted and encourages applicants to use the best information or evidence available. Recipients are encouraged to either establish partnerships to access needed data or to consider other publicly available data sources (i.e., Census, community organization data dashboards, etc.). Upon award, grant recipients will complete a thorough exploration or assessment that, at a minimum, involves a review of current practices, policies, and service delivery to the target population with input from community members and families with lived child welfare experience. Ultimately, applicants will demonstrate readiness and a commitment to inclusive, co-designed solutions to address issues of racial bias and inequity in child welfare and reflect what communities say they need to thrive.
Screenshot showing a grid of terminated grants from the linked PDF
Meme from "The Big Short": "I don't get it. Why are they confessing?", "They're not confessing, they're bragging."
A screen shot of the metrics on the R-Universe page for the 'curl' package, showing metrics such as GitHub stars, package dependencies, number of GitHub scripts, package downloads, and academic citations.
Screenshot of spreadsheet with the word "Squirrel" spelled eight different ways.
Quote from the linked document in the quoted post: "15. To ensure its ongoing compliance with Title VI and Section 1557, Cornell will continue to conduct annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for Cornell students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry. The surveys shall, among other questions deemed appropriate by Cornell, ask students whether they feel welcome al Cornell; whether they feel safe reporting antisemitism at Cornell; and whether they believe the changes Cornell has made since October of 2023, including changes to policies and standard operating procedures, changes to nondiscrimination training, and previous climate surveys, have benefited the Cornell community."
Photo of a sticker on my chest reading "Brooklyn votes early," with a drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge on it.
Defendants are hereby enjoined and/or stayed, until further order of the Court, from: 1) taking any action to issue any Reduction in Force ("RIF") notices to federal employees in any PPA (program, project, or activity) that includes any bargaining unit or member represented by any Plaintiff during or because of the federal government shutdown, including but not limited to by taking any action to implement or enforce the OMB Lapse Memorandum (dated September 24, 2025), the portions of the related OPM Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs (as revised September 28, 2025), the related OPM "Special Instructions for Agencies Affected by a Possible Lapse in Appropriations Starting on October 1, 2025" (dated September 28, 2025), or any other decision or directive that purports to authorize or require issuance of RIF notices during a shutdown; 2) taking any further action to administer or implement any RIF notices already issued beginning on October 10, 2025 to federal employees in any PPA (program, project, or activity) that includes any bargaining unit or member represented by any Plaintiff, including but not limited to by requiring federal employees to perform work to further administer or implement RIF notices and by enforcing or counting any days towards any period of notice with respect to those notices (i.e., the effective date of the RIF shall be stayed and Defendants shall therefore toll the running of all RIF notice periods).
A candle with the words "Smells like Data Chaos" with a picture of a burning file cabinet.
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF STUDY TERMINATIONS As of July 2025, the National Institutes of Health has terminated approx- imately 4700 of the grants it awarded for scientific research, training, and infrastructure.1 Very little of the public discourse regarding the grant ter- minations has focused on their implications for research participants who were or would have been enrolled in the trials the grants supported. The terminated awards are linked to 200 active registered clinical trials, which had a total planned enrollment of more than 689 000 human subjects, approximately 20% of whom are infants, children, and adolescents.1 Nearly all the affected trials that included children and adolescents focused on stigmatized health issues (eg, HIV, substance use, depression), and/or persons with marginalized identities (eg, sexual and gender minor- ity; Black or African American and Latiné). Individuals with marginalized identities are underrepresented in clinical research,2 even when they are at greater risk for the illness under study. The issue of underrepresenta- tion in research is especially relevant for minor adolescents (those youn- ger than 18 years old) because of ethical and legal barriers to their participation. Barriers include concerns about minors’ capacity to consent, confidentiality of sensitive information (sexual behavior, substance use) when parental consent is required, and researcher and institutional con- cerns about liability when waivers of parental consent are granted for minors’ enrollment.3 As adolescent health researchers, we have each invested over a decade of work to address the complex ethical and legal issues that prevent ado- lescents from participating in research, especially on sensitive or stigma- tized health issues. Through meticulous efforts to engage and build trust with adolescents, parents or guardians, and regulatory personnel, we have enrolled thousands of adolescents in our studies...
loaded <- setdiff(search(), c(".GlobalEnv", "tools:rstudio", "tools:positron", "package:stats", "package:graphics", "package:grDevices", "package:utils", "package:datasets", "package:methods", "Autoloads", "package:base")) if (length(loaded)) { stop(paste("Not a clean environment! The following packages are loaded:", paste(loaded, collapse = ", ")), call. = FALSE) }
Figure: A spectrum of RVFV dynamics. The left side represents epidemic dynamics (red) and right side represents hyperendemic dynamics (blue). The central boxes represent the proposed spectrum of RVFV transmission dynamics, from an epidemic system (left) with large outbreaks and intervening interepidemic periods during which the susceptibility of the host population increases, to a hyperendemic system (right) in which RVFV infections occur frequently, maintaining constant levels of infected, recovered, and susceptible hosts, and outbreaks are smaller or absent. All systems along this spectrum are considered endemic, except for those on the extreme epidemic (left) end of the spectrum, in which conditions do not permit long-term persistence of RVFV. Below the boxes are shown the hypothesised environmental factors that together drive RVFV dynamics and identify the point along the spectrum at which the system will be. These factors include well known ones related to vector communities, climate and rainfall patterns, in addition to others that are most likely to influence RVFV dynamics and whose effects are less well known or predictable. Outbreaks in livestock and people could result in systems anywhere along the spectrum, although the size of the outbreaks are larger on the epidemic side; above the boxes are summarised the factors that modify the risk and extent of such outbreaks. In large epidemics, people are infected after RVFV is amplified through livestock outbreaks. Under hyperendemic dynamics, people could be infected either following small livestock outbreaks or directly by infected mosquitoes in the absence of an outbreak. At the top, plots of RVFV dynamics in individual ruminant hosts over time in years have been shown. On the left, we simulate the epidemic system with large outbreaks and low-level transmission during the interepidemic period. On the right, we hypothesise hyperendemic dynamics. 
Rift Valley fever epidemiology: shifting the paradigm and rethinking research priorities Rift Valley fever (RVF), a zoonotic mosquito-borne viral disease with erratic occurrence and complex epidemiology, results in substantial costs to veterinary and public health and national economies. Since 1985, RVF virus (RVFV) epidemiology has focused on epidemics triggered by flood-induced emergence of transovarially infected mosquitoes, following an interepidemic period during which RVFV persists primarily in floodwater Aedes spp mosquito eggs, with potential for low-level interepidemic circulation. In this Personal View, we challenge this classic framework of RVFV epidemiology, presenting instead a spectrum of RVFV dynamics ranging from epidemic to hyperendemic. We present the case for RVFV being maintained in a variable reservoir system of livestock, wildlife, and mosquitoes, with or without transovarial transmission. We highlight that sufficient evidence supports a shift in the paradigm of RVF epidemiology to embrace a more nuanced understanding of the spectrum of RVFV dynamics and call for more research into understanding the drivers of RVFV dynamics in hyperendemic areas.
A 4-panel comic strip featuring Calvin and Hobbes playing Calvinball. Panel 1: Calvin, a young boy with spiky blonde hair, runs forward, shouting, "I'M FREE! I GET FREE PASSAGE TO WICKET FIVE!" Hobbes, a tiger, holds up a hand to stop him, saying, "NO, THAT'S WHAT WE DID LAST TIME, REMEMBER?" Panel 2: Calvin looks thoughtful and says, "OH YEAH. HMM." Hobbes, now wearing a black mask over his eyes, stands with a hand on his hip, also thinking. Panel 3: Calvin, now also wearing a black mask, points a finger in the air with a new idea. He exclaims, "OK, THE NEW RULE IS WE HAVE TO JUMP EVERYWHERE UNTIL SOMEONE FINDS THE BONUS BOX!" Hobbes smiles and says, "THAT'S GOOD!" Panel 4: Calvin and Hobbes are joyfully jumping through the air. A caption reads: "THE ONLY PERMANENT RULE IN CALVINBALL IS THAT YOU CAN'T PLAY IT THE SAME WAY TWICE!" Hobbes adds, "THE SCORE IS STILL Q TO 12!"
A screenshot of a phone app showing recent outgoing calls to the offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and representative Goldman of NY