By MATTHEW PERRONE

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker raised new concerns about a Food and Drug Administration program designed to drastically shorten the review of certain drugs, including whether senior officials involved in the effort are complying with federal ethics rules.

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In a letter sent Tuesday, Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts took issue with the lack of transparency in FDA’s handling of the program and questioned its legal underpinnings, noting that Congress did not sign off on the plan.

Under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, drugmakers are promised expedited reviews of one to two months for new medicines that support “ national interests.” It’s at the center of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s stated goal of “cutting red tape” at the agency.

But Auchincloss says details about the program have been “shrouded in secrecy,” in part because the FDA has not responded to multiple congressional inquiries.

“The public must have transparency about the ‘voucher’ program, under which drug approvals have been made almost wholly and in an unprecedented manner by the FDA’s political leadership,” states Auchincloss, who is a member of a House subcommittee on health.

The new scrutiny came on the same day that the FDA held an employee town hall on the program, according to three agency staffers who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential agency matters. Much of the debate surrounding the program involves concerns that drug decision-making is being taken away from agency scientists.

But FDA leaders used Tuesday’s event to stress that final approval decisions continue to be made by drug center staffers, not political appointees.

“The approval decision remains with the relevant product center, using the center’s normal processes,” stated a slide presented at the meeting and shared with the AP.

In his letter, Auchincloss asserts that the FDA has failed to publish or release financial disclosure forms for eight senior FDA officials who vote on which drugs should receive priority vouchers. Membership of group, which was first reported by Stat News, is mostly comprised of officials closely aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including Deputy FDA Commissioner Dr. Sara Brenner, Dr. Vinay Prasad, who oversees vaccines, and Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, FDA’s drug center director.

The forms, which are collected annually by the Office of Government Ethics, list investments, outside income and other financial details for senior government officials and their spouses. Such disclosures are considered critical to avoiding potential conflicts of interest at the FDA, where staffers are often involved in regulating multibillion-dollar, publicly traded companies.

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to AP’s questions about the letter.

Elsewhere in his letter, Auchincloss questions whether the FDA had the legal authority to establish the voucher program without action from Congress, which typically legislates such programs into law. His letter states that the FDA’s legal office “was not consulted nor provided findings to support the agency’s claim,” that it could independently establish the program.

Several senior FDA staffers have declined to sign off on drug approvals going through the program due to legal concerns, as previously reported by the AP.

Auchincloss also notes that FDA officials did not respond to two letters he sent last year requesting information. In the new letter, the lawmaker instructs the agency to “affirm or refute,” his findings.

In November, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey sent a letter seeking answers to 15 questions about the FDA’s voucher program. Pallone is the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees health agencies.

The agency did not respond to the letter, according to a committee staffer.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The city received nearly 80,000 calls about lack of residential heat and hot water in January, more than any other month on record. Some tenants say their buildings are falling through the cracks.

Nicole Gallan, a tenant in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with her 10-year-old son. They’ve been without heat in recent weeks, and living and sleeping in layers of clothing. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

During nine straight days of below freezing temperatures, tens of thousands of New Yorkers went without heat at home, complaints made to the city suggest.

Officials have encouraged people without heat to talk to their landlord and call 311 if problems persist—and the city’s housing agency is now fielding more complaints than ever. During the last week of January, 30,000 tenants called in, the most heat complaints ever recorded in a seven-day period, according to city data.

While the department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) tries to respond to as many as possible, some tenants say their buildings are falling through the cracks.

“We’ve been calling, but nothing happens,” said Nicole Gallan, a tenant in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Tenants in her building at 155 Linden Blvd. have called 311 160 times about heat in the past week and a half. Gallan said a repairman was there to fix the boiler last weekend, but the mechanicals are so old they continuously break. The building’s manager, MP Management, declined to comment.

HPD issued at least three heat violations in the building this week (the agency did not immediately comment for this story). When an inspector came to Gallan’s apartment, she said that they measured the temperature at 43 degrees.

Gallan has lived in the apartment for 25 years. Her kids, 10 and 23, sleep in layers. “Two pants, two tops—we’re all bundled up,” said Gallan.

She runs a space heater when she can, but her electricity is inconsistent too. With several tenants trying to run electric heat—which they pay for themselves—the electric circuits are frequently blown, she said.

City inspectors issued at least three heat violations at Gallan’s building in Flatbush this week. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Landlords are required to keep apartments at 62 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 68 degrees at night throughout the city’s “heat season,” which stretches from Oct. 1 to May 31. If you are having trouble getting consistent heat in your apartment, here are some tips for how to get help.

The Mayor’s Office said 16 people have died outdoors in the cold so far.

A spokesperson for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Matt Rauschenbach, said that “safe, healthy, affordable housing isn’t a luxury, it’s a right.” He said that the city wants to hear directly from tenants at upcoming Rental Ripoff Hearings.

In all, the city received nearly 80,000 calls about lack of residential heat and hot water in January, more than any other month since the city began recording the data in 2010. The record month broke January 2025’s record high by more than 12,000 calls.

The uptick in calls demonstrates some long-standing complaints with the city’s 311 system and HPD’s responses.

No heat or hot water is considered an immediately hazardous “class C” violation which should trigger an inspection within a few days. But residents don’t know when inspectors will come—and they often come during work hours—meaning tenants may not be home to give them access.

“There’s no way for me to let you into my apartment. So it’d be nice if they had some sort of scheduling system where you could provide your availability and they could do the inspection based on your availability, as opposed to just showing up,” said Kathleen Davis, a supportive housing tenant in the Bronx.

The issue is something new Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged to address when he was running for office. “When a tenant reports a code violation to 311, they get routed to one of many different agencies and, in most cases, have no ability to track when inspectors are coming,” his campaign platform reads. “We will enable tenants to schedule an appointment with an inspector and receive reminders over text.”

Rauschenbach said that the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants is looking closely at how housing codes are enforced by working with HPD and tenant leaders to “fix a system that’s been broken for too long.”

Enforcement can be tricky. Some buildings with inconsistent heat may be warm in the common spaces, but below the legal standard in certain apartments. Sometimes the heat is inconsistent at a particular time of day, and inspectors might miss it.

Nicole Gallan’s building in Flatbush, where residents have called 311 160 times about heat in the past week and a half. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Kenny Burgos, CEO of the landlord group New York Apartment Association, said that older heating systems are inconsistent, sometimes overheating some apartments on upper floors, and leaving others cooler.

Other buildings go years without consistent heat, as former Comptroller Brad Lander reported last year. Lander criticized HPD under former Mayor Eric Adams for not intervening when buildings have persistent problems (the agency will sometimes do repairs directly in emergencies, and then bill the landlord.) 

Burgos said that rent stabilized buildings like 155 Linden are more likely to have heat problems because they are older and in financial distress, without money for heating systems. 

He partly blamed New York’s rent regulations, which state lawmakers strengthened in 2019 and which limit annual rent increases for about 1 million stabilized apartments across the city. Tenant advocates argue regulation is essential for keeping low-income New Yorkers housed in a city of ever-increasing rents, but landlords say it limits their ability to make repairs.

“A boiler can cost you well over $300,000 to replace, and when you have buildings that are being completely defunded by an increase in cost pushed on by the city and state through property taxes, through water bills, through underfunded rent guidelines board adjustments, and capped revenues, as well as 2019 rent laws,” said Burgos.

Davis says inspectors came to her building earlier this week, but since she was at work, she couldn’t let them into her apartment to measure the temperature, which she says is consistently below the legal limit.

“I’m on the verge of getting sick from the lack of heat,” she said.

Inspectors did not issue a heat violation at the building. HPD contacted building management and some tenants by phone and closed out several building-wide complaints earlier this week, according to complaint records.

Burgos suggested that many landlords are replacing older heating systems to comply with new energy-efficiency rules that may result in apartments being cooler than tenants expect, but not rising to the level of a violation.

Heat and hot water complaints had already been on the rise in New York City. They jumped 12 percent last year and 60 percent since 2016, according to City Limits’ prior reporting.

HPD previously told City Limits that some of the increase could be due to successful education and outreach efforts that encourage tenants to call and use the resources available to them. The agency said it’s also stepped up enforcement. New Yorkers aren’t just calling more, HPD is issuing more violations—over 9,000 in each of the past two years, double what it issued in the past.

The cold in New York City is expected to persist through mid-February.

Are you having trouble getting heat in your apartment? Have you been able to get the city to come for an inspection? Send tips to patrick@citylimits.org

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org. Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Amid NYC Cold Snap, Tenants Report Most ‘No Heat’ Complaints on Record appeared first on City Limits.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of a sitting U.S. senator who joined a videotaped plea for troops to resist unlawful orders from the Trump administration.

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Sen. Mark Kelly had a front-row seat in a courtroom as his attorneys urged U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to block the Pentagon from punishing the Arizona Democrat, a retired U.S. Navy pilot. Leon didn’t immediately rule from the bench on Kelly’s claims that Pentagon officials violated his First Amendment free speech rights.

But the judge appeared to be skeptical of key arguments that a government attorney made in defense of Kelly’s Jan. 5 censure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“You’re asking me to do something the Supreme Court has never done,” the judge told Justice Department attorney John Bailey. “Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”

Bailey argued that Congress decided that retired military service members are subject to the same Uniform Code of Military Justice that applies to active-duty troops.

“Retirees are part of the armed forces,” Bailey said. “They are not separated from the services.”

Benjamin Mizer, one of Kelly’s lawyers, said they aren’t aware of any ruling to support the notion that military retirees have “diminished speech rights.” And he argued that the First Amendment clearly protects Kelly’s speech in this case.

“And any other approach would be to make new law,” Mizer added.

Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said the Pentagon’s actions against Kelly could have a chilling effect on “many, many other retirees who wish to voice their opinion.”

The judge said he hopes to issue a ruling by next Wednesday. Kelly shook hands with two government attorneys after the hearing.

In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration.

Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later. Hegseth said Kelly’s censure was “a necessary process step” to proceedings that could result in a demotion from the senator’s retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.

The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Sen. Elissa Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan also appeared in the video. All of the participants are veterans of the armed services or intelligence communities.

The Pentagon began investigating Kelly in late November, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment.

Hegseth has said Kelly was the only one of the six lawmakers to be investigated because he is the only one who formally retired from the military and still falls under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.

“While legal expertise is invaluable, evaluating judicial candidates also requires understanding the real-world context in which judges serve. Fathers who have navigated Family Court can provide firsthand knowledge of how the system affects families—perspective that no resume alone can capture.”

Family court in lower Manhattan. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

In early January, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced via a press release the appointment of Ali Najmi, Esq. as chair of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary (MACJ), a little-known judicial body responsible for recruiting, screening, evaluating, and recommending candidates to the mayor for city court appointments, including child support judges.

The press release highlighted Mr. Najmi’s commitment to making the judicial selection process more inclusive. This includes engaging a broader segment of the legal community, such as public defenders, attorneys representing parents and children in Family Court, and those working in indigent legal services. While encouraging, true inclusivity presents an opportunity to strengthen the commission further by including parents—particularly fathers—whose lives are directly shaped by child support court decisions.

The MACJ currently has 19 members: nine are directly selected by the mayor, including the committee chair, and 10 are appointed from nominations by other entities—four by the chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, four by the presiding justices of the First and Second Judicial Departments (two each), and two by law school deans.

Mamdani’s Executive Order No. 6, which revitalized the MACJ, allows appointees to be New York City residents, individuals who work in the city, or those with strong ties to the city’s legal community. The order also says committee membership “shall reflect the full breadth of the legal profession” and include experience in areas such as criminal defense, family law, representation of parents and children in Family Court, civil rights, indigent legal services, and complex civil litigation.

While legal expertise is invaluable, evaluating judicial candidates also requires understanding the real-world context in which judges serve. Fathers who have navigated Family Court can provide firsthand knowledge of how the system affects families—perspective that no resume alone can capture. Notably, the executive order says committee membership “shall reflect the full breadth of the legal profession,” not that it must be limited to it. This distinction allows the mayor to include nontraditional but highly relevant voices—such as representatives from fatherhood and shared parental rights organizations—especially as the administration commits to broader outreach and inclusion.

Fatherhood organizations bring community-based insight into how families experience judicial decisions in Family Court. This perspective is a legitimate and necessary qualification for advisory work. Advisory bodies benefit from multiple viewpoints, especially when court decisions affect everyday people. One non-judicial example is the inclusion of community councils in selecting precinct commanders for local police stations. Each council, mostly made up of non-law enforcement members, uses civilian experience to evaluate candidates and ensure the public is treated with courtesy and respect.

Similarly, judicial temperament and fairness cannot be judged by legal credentials alone. People with lived experience can see how judges treat parents, people representing themselves in court, and other vulnerable populations. Someone who works daily with fathers navigating Family Court can spot red flags or strengths not visible on a resume—hidden ideas about parental roles, intolerance toward people representing themselves, or a lack of understanding of working parents’ economic realities.

Fatherhood representatives can also notice strengths in candidates: patience and clarity when addressing parents representing themselves, encouraging cooperative co-parenting, and distinguishing high-conflict disputes from real risks to children. These insights complement legal expertise, helping MACJ recommend judges who are both legally competent and aware of families’ real-world needs.

So how could fatherhood representatives be included in the MACJ? As mayor, Mamdani controls the nine direct appointments. He could invite organizations that advocate for shared parental rights to recommend candidates for some of these seats—groups such as Real Dads Network in East Harlem, The Dad Gang in the Bronx, and other fatherhood organizations doing vital work citywide. Law school deans, who nominate two members, could also consider recommending paralegals who work with families in court. While not licensed attorneys, paralegals bring practical legal knowledge and firsthand insight into how judges interact with parents and vulnerable populations, ensuring real-world perspectives are included.

Including fatherhood and shared parental rights representatives alongside legal professionals would help the MACJ recommend judges who are not only legally qualified but also fair, balanced, and aware of the realities families face daily. True inclusivity in judicial selection is more than a policy goal—it is an opportunity to strengthen fairness, equity, and public trust in our city’s courts.

Leon Tulton is a member of Real Dads Network, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to strengthen the institution of the family by empowering fathers through support, resources, and advocacy.

The post Opinion: Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary Needs More Than Lawyers appeared first on City Limits.