Manhattan streets begin to reopen as crews stabilize compromised high-rise building
Workers gather outside of the former Pfizer headquarters building on July 08, 2026, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City officials began reopening some streets and buildings in Midtown Manhattan Wednesday, after engineering crews stabilized a building that was at risk of a partial collapse due to buckling beams.
Engineers worked throughout Tuesday night and the following morning to shore up the compromised floors at 235 E. 42nd St., the former Pfizer corporate building that is currently being converted into residential apartments.
“Right now, we have been in a consistent and stable and safe situation. We have been able to bring in a plan and materials to stabilize the impact,” New York City Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said Wednesday.
The building was evacuated Tuesday morning after construction crews discovered buckling beams on the 21st floor of the 37-story building. The 21st through 26th floors began caving as a result, according to DOB.
A five-by-three-block frozen zone was established to prohibit pedestrians and vehicles around the site. Nine buildings were evacuated as crews carefully made their way into the compromised building and worked to secure it.
Emergency shoring was installed from the 18th through 23rd floors, including structural steel shoring columns on the 21st and 22nd floors, and light-duty shoring posts on four other floors, the DOB said on Wednesday.
No additional movement has been detected as of Tuesday morning, according to DOB officials.
As of Wednesday afternoon, three nearby buildings remained vacated, along with one restaurant located near the site, DOB said.
The frozen zone was also scaled back. Vehicles are prohibited from entering 42nd and 43rd streets between 2nd and 3rd avenues, the city said.
The DOB is currently conducting an investigation of the incident, which it said “will include a detailed review of all associated plans and construction documents, interviews with witnesses and responsible parties, a full inspection sweep of the entire construction site, and review of available video and photo evidence.”
MetroLoft, the developer of the conversion project, said Wednesday that it will fully rebuild the impacted areas of the building and that the building was never at risk of collapse.
“We have been working closely with the Department of Buildings to rectify the situation. Our team worked through the night stabilizing the affected columns, and the DOB has confirmed the structure is now stable,” MetroLoft said in a statement on Wednesday. “We have identified the issue and developed a clear plan to fix it. This is a localized situation affecting less than 30 apartments out of over 1,600. At no time was the building, or any portion of it, at risk of collapse.”
“We are in the process of addressing the issue and will fully rebuild this portion of the building in tandem with ongoing construction,” the statement continued. “We remain on schedule, and this work will not delay delivery of the building as it is such a small portion of the project. We are working around the clock so that operations can resume and life in the area can return to normal.”
DOB said that it ordered the building’s owner to retain a third-party engineer to conduct a forensic evaluation.
The construction project is one of the city’s largest commercial-to-residential conversions in city history, officials said.
The Transportation Security Administration building is seen on February 13, 2026, in Springfield, Virginia. The Department of Homeland Security is on the verge of a shutdown as lawmakers have been unable to reach an agreement on federal immigration enforcement funding ahead of Saturday. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Transportation Security Administration officers received their first paychecks in more than a month on Monday, TSA workers told ABC News.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA, told ABC News in a statement on Monday that most employees will receive at least two full paychecks for the past two pay periods.
DHS also said there might be slight delays in some receiving their paychecks due to “financial institution processing times or issues with their direct deposit.”
It remains unclear if TSA employees will receive any pay going forward and there have been reports of some not getting paid if they called out.
Payments came after President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Friday asking for DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to work with the Office of Management and Budget to use funds “that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” to pay the agency’s workforce. The TSA employees will be paid through funds allocated by Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill signed last summer, according to a senior administration official.
TSA employees have been required to work the entire 45 days of the partial shutdown, which began Feb. 14. TSA officers told ABC News that they missed bill payments and got second jobs to pay ends meet. Union representatives described to ABC News stories of officers having to pull their children out of day care and, in some cases, getting eviction notices because they can’t pay their rent.
“It was a partial pay with ample deductions taken out along with taxes,” Yolanda Keaton, a TSA officer at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, told ABC News on Monday. “We did not receive all of our backpay … A lot of officers paychecks are very very short and not everyone received their pay today.”
Addressing reports from some TSA officers about missing portions of their paychecks, Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement to ABC, “We are working aggressively with USDA’s [United States Department of Agriculture] National Finance Center to complete processing for the half paycheck they are owed from pay period 3 as soon as possible.”
According to a government website, the USDA helps to manage payroll for more than 590,000 federal employees.
It is unclear what legal authority Trump issued Friday’s order under, and the White House hasn’t responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Speaking prior to Trump’s move, Paul Uecker, a TSA officer at Duluth International Airport and Vice President of Greater Minnesota American Federation of Government Employees Local 899, told ABC News about the hardship people at the agency have endured.
“I know of at least one officer at MSP (Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport) who quit because they were having eviction processes started against them,” Uecker said on Friday. “They needed to find a way to get some money so that they could hopefully avoid that.”
Federal employees experienced the longest full shutdown in the nation’s history — 43 days — last fall. TSA officers told ABC News that they had depleted their savings after the last shutdown and were not fully recovered when the partial shutdown began in February.
Senate Democrats vowed to block funding for DHS until reforms are made to Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal law enforcement.
The Senate came to a deal on Friday morning to fund DHS, excluding appropriations for immigration enforcement, but the House Republicans rejected it. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said his party will instead push for a short-term bill to fund the entire department for 60 days.
The House passed the 60-day short-term bill, but the Senate didn’t. Congress is now on a two-week spring recess and will not return for a vote until April 13.
“I feel like they’re playing with our lives,” Oksana Kelly, a TSA officer at Orlando International Airport and mother of two, told ABC News on Thursday. “We all have children. We all have parents that, you know, people [to] take care of. It’s not just some random officers. It’s real people.”
Also speaking before Trump’s memo, Kelly and her husband Deron are both TSA officers who have been working without pay during the shutdown and said they have depleted their savings because of both shutdowns. Deron had to take a second job as a DoorDash driver, according to Kelly.
She was tearful when she described her inability to give their 7-year-old son the birthday party that he wanted at a trampoline park.
“This is probably the hardest thing I have to do,” Oksana Kelly told ABC News as she wiped away tears. “He’s like, ‘Is this something we’re doing?’ And we’re like, ‘Sorry buddy, you know this birthday is going to be at the community park because Mommy and Daddy can’t afford the trampoline park.'”
Trump deployed ICE agents to airports around the country last Monday to assist TSA officers with long lines at security checkpoints. Some officers told ABC News that the ICE personnel were not doing anything to address those lines because they aren’t trained in screening passengers and baggage. TSA officers get about six months of training to do their jobs, according to employees who spoke to ABC News.
“They’re outside the security area, watching as people are coming in, watching as people are coming out. We were told that they were supposed to be there to offer us assistance, and there’s been no assistance,” Maggie Sabatino, a TSA employee at Philadelphia International Airport, told ABC News on Wednesday. “Standing around and just watching, it’s not helping us. It’s putting us on edge, like we’re waiting for something to happen. We’re afraid of something happening.”
TSA saw the highest call-out rates of the shutdown on Thursday with more than 3,450 officers out, according to newly released numbers from TSA. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston was the worst, with a callout rate of 44.4%. The second worst was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where Keaton works.
Keaton, who is also a steward for AFGE Local 554, told ABC News last Monday about a colleague of hers who is a single mother.
“She has a child that she has to face every day. It’s hard for her to smile with her child when she doesn’t know where their next meal is going to come from,” Keaton told ABC News. “She doesn’t know if she’s going to keep her apartment because she’s had eviction notices.”
ABC News’ Sam Sweeney, Luke Barr, Emily Chang, Nicholas Kerr, John Parkinson, Isabella Murray and Jeana Fermi contributed to this report.
Logan Keith Chewning is seen in a booking photo. (Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office)
(BROOKWOOD, Ala.) — An Alabama man has been charged with manslaughter after his 1-year-old child was found dead in a vehicle, still strapped into a car seat, after the father had allegedly been drinking throughout the day while the infant was in his sole care, authorities said.
Multiple agencies responded to a home in Brookwood, in Tuscaloosa County, Wednesday evening after the child’s family reported that the infant was found dead in the vehicle, authorities said.
“Initial investigation shows that the child was in the vehicle for an extended [amount] of time,” Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Unit Capt. Jack Kennedy said in a statement, noting that the temperatures that afternoon were in the mid-90s.
The child, whose name was not released, had been in the “sole care of its father all day,” Kennedy said.
The father, identified by the sheriff’s office as 30-year-old Logan Keith Chewning, allegedly admitted to drinking at different points throughout the day and leaving the residence at one point to buy more alcohol, authorities said.
“The father reported that he believed that the child had been sleeping in its crib but must have been left behind in the vehicle,” Kennedy said.
Chewning was charged with manslaughter following consultation with the Tuscaloosa County District Attorney’s Office, the sheriff’s office said.
He is being held in jail, with a bond to be set by a judge at a later date. It is unclear if he has an attorney at this time.
The child’s exact cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner, authorities said.
Immigrant woman and children walk across a field as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Enforcement and Removal Operations hosts a media tour at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, TX. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(DILLEY, Texas) — Olivia Mabiala Andre made her youngest brother, Manuel, a promise.
“We’re going to go to the United States and we’re going to get you a bike,” the 19-year-old said she told him.
The promise of the bike for her brother and stability for her entire family of five, Andre said, kept them focused on their plan to travel from their home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through South America and toward the United States. But three days into their journey, Manuel drowned while crossing a river in Colombia.
“He was the happiness of my house. He was the cutest boy you can imagine, he was our sunshine,” Andre said, speaking to ABC News from detention at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
Now more than three years after reaching the U.S., Andre and her family are facing deportation to their home country after the U.S. federal government denied their asylum request.
Andre, who was studying to be a nurse, has been detained since November 2025 and was only briefly reunited with her family. She says it is taking a toll.
According to a habeas petition, an independent expert confirmed Andrew “meets the diagnostic criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and “has repeatedly expressed suicidal ideation.” Andre also displayed depression symptoms, the court filing claimed.
Their case is receiving national attention, with lawmakers and prominent figures like children’s educator and YouTube star Ms. Rachel calling for Andre’s release.
“It doesn’t make sense to hold this caring, wonderful person who wants to be a nurse who’s been through so much trauma. It’s just cruel to hold her there, especially while she’s having a mental health crisis, and she’s having suicidal thoughts,” said Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Anne Accurso, in an interview Thursday with ABC’s Diane Macedo.
Accurso says she has been keeping in touch with Andre while she remains detained.
“She’s overflowing compassion and faith and strength and it was a privilege to talk with her. I was so in awe of her,” Accurso said.
Attorneys representing the Andre family tell ABC News they fled their home country after Andre’s mother says she faced direct threats by high-level government officials.
“Her mother has suffered brutal abuse and torture, which led both her mother and her family to need to flee for their lives. They took a difficult journey to the United States, and along the way, Olivia witnessed her eight year old brother who she loved so much, drown on the journey, and it has caused devastating sadness for Olivia, her mother and her two siblings,” their attorney Elora Mukherjee said.
According to court documents, the Andre family entered the U.S. in December 2022 and applied for asylum, settling in Portland, Maine. An immigration judge denied their asylum petition, in part, because they believed they couldn’t provide enough corroborating evidence to support their claim and ordered them deported in February 2025.
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) later affirmed the immigration judge’s decision, finding that her mother could not provide enough corroborating evidence to support her petition, the documents state.
Todd Pomerleau, who is now representing the family’s asylum case in immigration court, says a language barrier and interpretation issues contributed to the asylum claim being denied.
Days after the BIA denied the family’s appeal, Mukherjee said they attempted to cross into Canada to seek asylum there, but were prevented from doing so, because of a treaty between the two countries called the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. The treaty prevents some immigrants from seeking asylum in Canada if they’ve been denied a U.S. claim.
“Olivia and her family were desperate in their search for safety, because they know they cannot return to the Democratic Republic of Congo, they’re going to be killed there,” Mukherjee said.
Transfer to Dilley Detention Center
After being transferred to the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Nov. 12, 2025, Andre said she was detained apart from the rest of her family, the habeas petition says.
“They just took them away and put me on a different plane,” Andre said.
According to Andre, she was sent to four different facilities over the course of the following two weeks. She said she would ask personnel at the facility where her family was, but claims she never received an answer.
Andre was then sent to the immigration facility in Dilley, but said she did not know where the rest of her family was being held.
Two weeks later, Andre said she and a friend she made at the detention center were walking to the library when she heard her name being called. Her friend encouraged her to see a counselor at the facility who later determined that the rest of the family was also being held there. They were finally reunited, but held in different sections of the facility, according to her attorneys.
Andre’s mother and two siblings were held in areas reserved for family units, while Andre was held with other single adult women, the attorneys said.
Andre said she later found out that her sister would yell her name out into the yard of the facility every day since being detained in hopes that she would end up at the same facility and hear her.
Andre and her family are now challenging their asylum claim denial. In February, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals barred the Trump administration from deporting the family until they rule on the case, which could take several months.
Mukherjee filed a request to temporarily release the family while the court case continues. In March, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released Andre’s mother and siblings, but she remains in detention.
Spotlight on the family’s case
Andre’s supporters highlight her accomplishments in the more than three years since coming to the U.S.
According to court documents, Andre graduated from high school in one and a half years. She completed a rigorous training program to become a certified nursing assistant and was in college studying to become a nurse at the time she was detained. She knows multiple languages, which she says can help her treat people from all over the world.
The loss of her brother inspired her to get into the medical field, Andre said.
“When I lost my brother, I was, like, I have to work and do something to help people,” she said.
To date, her attorneys say they have not received a formal reason for why she remains detained despite the government being prohibited from deporting her while her case unfolds in court.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC News the Andre family has “received full due process” and the government will continue trying to deport the family.
“The facts are Olivia Mabiala Andre is an adult illegal alien with a final order of removal and no right to remain in the U.S. If we encounter illegal aliens who should have been detained but were instead released into the country by the Biden administration, we will detain them. The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law,” the spokesperson said.
At times, Andre worries that she’ll be deported back to the Congo and what that would do to her mother.
“She already lost one child, she cannot lose another one,” she said.
