Mass Federal Layoffs Deepen Shutdown Standoff
Senators will vote on a failed stopgap funding bill for the 11th time today as the government shutdown enters its fourth week. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has begun issuing reduction-in-force (RIF) notices across multiple agencies, escalating tensions with Congress and federal employee unions.
Court filings indicate that more than 4,000 federal employees have received layoff notices so far, including over 1,000 at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and several hundred at the Departments of Energy and Commerce. While no National Institutes of Health staff were reportedly affected, hundreds of employees from other parts of HHS received notices--some of which were later rescinded, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. White House Budget Director Russell Vought said the total could climb "north of 10,000."
A federal judge temporarily halted some of the firings last week after unions sued, arguing that RIFs are illegal during a lapse in funding. The judge has since expanded protections to cover more executive branch employees and ordered the Administration to provide additional details on its planned RIFs.
Democratic leaders have condemned the move as politically motivated and are weighing whether to make reversing the RIFs a condition for reopening the government. House Science Committee Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said the RIFs are "illegal" and "cannot stand," asking federal scientists who have received RIF notices to fill out the science committee Democrats' whistleblower form.
Adding to the turmoil, a White House memo asserted that furloughed employees are not guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends--a sharp break from past practice that has deepened anxiety among the federal workforce. In response, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski (AK) joined more than 150 Democrats to demand that Vought commit to providing back pay to furloughed federal workers. "The law is clear: all impacted government employees, regardless of excepted or furloughed status, are entitled to back pay after a government shutdown ends, which is consistent with the guidance currently provided by federal agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management," the lawmakers asserted.
In Congress, the Senate has repeatedly failed to pass a Republican-backed stopgap funding bill, while the House remains on recess. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has indicated that members will not reconvene until the Senate passes a stopgap measure, leaving tens of thousands of federal workers in limbo.
Trump Order Extends Tight Control Over Federal Hiring
President Trump has issued a new Executive Order, Ensuring Continued Accountability in Federal Hiring, tightening his Administration's control over the civil service as a months-long federal hiring freeze expires amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The order requires agencies to establish Strategic Hiring Committees--comprised of senior political appointees--to oversee all hiring decisions and ensure they align with Administration priorities and agency mission needs. Agencies must also prepare annual staffing plans, approved by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to direct new hires toward "essential functions" and priorities such as national security, immigration enforcement, and public safety.
The move follows steep workforce reductions under Trump's second term--more than 200,000 federal employees have left government service--and could further shrink the civil service as attrition continues. A White House fact sheet framed the order as part of the President's effort to "drain the swamp" and eliminate "ineffective government programs that waste taxpayer dollars."
The Executive Order replaces the hiring freeze first imposed in January 2025 and extended three times, signaling a shift from an outright freeze to tightly managed, politically directed hiring across federal agencies.
White House Offers Funding Advantage Compact to Universities
Earlier this month, the Trump Administration offered a select group of nine universities a "compact" promising priority federal grants, looser overhead restrictions, and access to White House events and officials in exchange for adopting conservative policies.
The agreement would require schools to maintain "institutional neutrality," limit political speech, and acknowledge that "academic freedom is not absolute." Signatories would also conduct surveys of faculty, staff, and student viewpoints and publicly share the results, cap international undergraduate enrollment at 15% (with no more than 5% from any single country), and freeze tuition for five years, offering free tuition for students in "hard science" programs at institutions with large endowments.
The compact further prohibits considering gender, race, or political ideology in admissions, mandates single-sex spaces for women, and defines sex and gender strictly according to "reproductive function and biological processes."
Letters were initially sent to Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California (USC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, Brown University, and University of Virginia (UVA). Six of those schools--MIT, USC, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, and UVA--have rejected the proposal. The other three schools have not publicly responded, though Kevin Eltife, chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, reportedly said it was "an honor" that the system's flagship school was selected.
Last week the Administration opened the compact to more institutions via a Truth Social post from the President. California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the proposal as a threat to academic freedom, warning state funding could be withheld from signatories.
Nobel Prizes Highlight the Power of Immigration and Public Investment in Science
This year's Nobel Prizes underscore how immigration and federal research funding fuel scientific and economic breakthroughs.
In medicine, Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi were recognized for discovering regulatory T cells--the body's immune "peacekeepers" that prevent autoimmune attacks. "The majority of the work we do here is supported by federal funding," said Brunkow of Seattle's Institute for Systems Biology. "Any loss in that hurts. It's vital to progress in medicine and basic science."
The Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis, whose creation of an electrical circuit demonstrating quantum tunneling advanced the field of quantum computing. Meanwhile, Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi received the Chemistry Prize for pioneering metal-organic frameworks--materials that can capture carbon or harvest water from desert air. The Economics Prize honored Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt, whose research explains how innovation drives long-term economic growth through a process of "creative destruction," the process by which new technologies displace the old.
More than 30% of this century's Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine were immigrants, with the United States serving as the most common destination, according to a Nature analysis. Of the 202 laureates awarded since 2000, 63 lived outside their birth countries when they received their prizes--41 of them residing in the U.S. Researchers cite the country's world-class universities and robust federal funding as key draws, though tightening immigration rules and funding cuts under the Trump Administration could threaten this long-standing scientific advantage.
Experts note that mobility has always fueled scientific discovery: physicists Michel Devoret and John Clarke, and chemist Omar Yaghi--winners this year--are all immigrants whose careers thrived after moving abroad. As physicist and 2010 laureate Andre Geim stated, "Mobility benefits everyone. Countries that welcome this mixing stay sharp."
HHS Expands AI Initiative to Fight Pediatric Cancer
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it will double funding for the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI)--from $50 million to $100 million--under a new Executive Order by President Trump aimed at accelerating cures through artificial intelligence (AI). The initiative will expand efforts to collect, analyze, and share pediatric cancer data while engaging private-sector partners to apply AI tools for faster breakthroughs in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
The effort supports the broader Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission strategy to leverage AI in identifying cancer risks early and improving patient outcomes. Pediatric cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related death among U.S. children, with incidence rates up more than 40% since 1975.
"I cannot think of a better way to begin my tenure at NCI than to redouble our efforts to support our youngest patients and their families facing rare leukemias and other cancers. We will not stop until childhood cancer is a thing of the past," said newly sworn in National Cancer Institute Director Anthony Letai.
AIBS Signs Letter to Congress in Support of FAIR Model for Indirect Costs
AIBS joined over 250 organizations in signing a community letter urging congressional appropriators to support the Joint Associations Group on Indirect Costs (JAG) and its work to create a more transparent system for funding essential research expenses. The groups back the proposed Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model, which aims to modernize how "indirect" or facilities and administrative (F&A) costs--such as lab operations, utilities, security, and compliance--are funded without reducing overall research support.
The letter asks Congress to include language in fiscal year 2026 spending bills endorsing the JAG effort and the FAIR model; prevent the Office of Management and Budget from imposing arbitrary caps or changes to negotiated F&A rates; provide at least a two-year transition period for implementation; and maintain current funding levels until the new model is fully in place.
The letter emphasizes that underfunding these essential costs would weaken U.S. research capacity and global leadership in science, while the FAIR model would improve accountability and sustainability across all research institutions.
New Publication & Podcast Outline BIOFAIR Roadmap for an Integrated Biological and Environmental Data Network
The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), in partnership with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), has released a new roadmap for developing an integrated biological and environmental data network. The Building an Integrated, Open, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (BIOFAIR) Data Network project aims to connect fragmented data across biodiversity collections and other biological and environmental data repositories to address urgent global challenges--ranging from biodiversity loss and climate change to invasive species and emerging diseases.
Outlined in a new BioScience article, the roadmap reflects extensive community engagement, including six listening sessions and a follow-up workshop with experts from more than 140 organizations and initiatives. The resulting framework identifies five key priorities: gap analysis, technological capacity, best practices, education and training, and community building. With over a billion specimens housed in U.S. biodiversity collections, integrating these data with ecological, genetic, and environmental datasets could unlock transformative research across biology, ecology, public health, and environmental science. Achieving this vision will require both robust technical infrastructure and a collaborative, inclusive community. Read the press release.
Members of the BIOFAIR Data Network steering committee also discussed project outcomes in a recent episode of the BioScience Talks podcast. Funded by the National Science Foundation (DBI award no. 2303588), more information about the BIOFAIR project is available at bcon.aibs.org/biofair.
The culminating event of the project, Open Mic for Data!, scheduled for October 30, 2025, will feature lightning presentations about ongoing data integration work and provide a forum for sharing new ideas and connecting with potential collaborators. Learn more and register to attend.
Webinar Announcement: Natural History Collections and Repatriation - Beyond NAGPRA
Please join NSC Alliance, American Institute of Biological Sciences, and Society for the preservation of Natural History Collections for an information session about repatriation and how it relates to natural history collections held at museums, herbaria, and other institutions. We will be joined by a wide array of speakers who will share their perspectives on and experiences with repatriation, including cases for voluntary return. The program will delve into a zoological and a botanical case study of ethical return.
Date: December 8, 2025
Time: 2:00-3:00 PM Eastern Time / 12:00-1:00 PM Mountain Time / 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Pacific Time
A previous webinar we organized covered repatriation under Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in the context of natural history collections. The December webinar will focus on repatriation issues outside NAGPRA's scope and will be recorded.
Intended audience:
- Collections and curatorial staff across natural history disciplines (e.g., zoology, botany, geology, paleontology)
- Tribal, Native Hawaiian, and institutional representatives engaged in repatriation and dispersed cultural legacies
- Researchers, students, and everyone else working with or interested in issues of repatriation and dispersed cultural legacies
Register Now.
Short Takes
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The Department of Energy (DOE) has replaced six discipline-specific advisory committees advising the Office of Science with a single advisory body called the Office of Science Advisory Committee (SCAC). "The new committee will allow Office of Science to adapt to the changing scientific landscape and will address cross-cutting, cross-disciplinary research in a streamlined and flexible way," said DOE's Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil. Members of SCAC will cover expertise on all aspects of Office of Science research and will be appointed by Under Secretary Gil.
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NIH has rescinded its research security policies announced last month as part of efforts to "harmonize with other federal agencies." NIH will continue to work with other research agencies to finalize its guidance on research security and to develop a centralized process for recipients to certify compliance. The agency said it would issue updated guidance in the coming months.
- A New York Times analysis found that the number of international students arriving in the United States this August fell by 19% compared with the same month in 2024. The decline is attributed to visa processing delays, ongoing travel restrictions, and growing uncertainty surrounding U.S. study conditions.
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Join the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on December 2-3, 2025 for a hybrid two-day workshop focused on the future directions for Earth observations and data stewardship. This workshop will bring together leaders from across sectors, including government, academia, the private sector, and philanthropy, to explore strategies for building a resilient and collaborative Earth observations ecosystem. Participants will discuss how to enhance governance structures, support innovation, and promote better coordination across the growing network of Earth observation providers and users. Register here.
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Six former U.S. Surgeons General, appointed by every President since George H.W. Bush, have jointly issued a warning that "actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are endangering the health of the nation." They argue that "science and expertise have taken a back seat to ideology and misinformation," adding that the country deserves an HHS Secretary "who is committed to scientific integrity and can restore morale and trust in our public health agencies."
