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Nov. 29, 2025, 6:12 PM ESTBy Marlene Lenthang and Samantha CookinhamSeveral protesters were arrested in New York City after they blocked streets and exits in an apparent attempt to prevent federal agents from carrying out an immigration raid, according to police and video footage from the scene.The incident unfolded just before noon on Saturday in the area of Centre Street and Howard Street in lower Manhattan, the New York City Police Department said. Officers responded to a call for a disorderly group and found multiple people “blocking the street and exits at different locations.”Some were seen throwing debris, police said.The protesters were ordered multiple times to disperse, but police said several individuals were taken into custody after they refused to comply.Video from the scene showed dozens of people surrounding a parking garage with Homeland Security vehicles inside. A group of officers was seen blocking the entrance and setting up metal fences to keep the perimeter. Some officers were uniformed NYPD officers and some had face coverings and vests that said “Police Federal Officer.” Several protesters and officers were seen pushing against each other and the metal fences.Some protesters at the parking garage carried signs that said “Stop the Deportations” and “ICE out of New York.”A speaker in the background said: “This is the New York City Police Department. You are unlawfully in the roadway and obstructing vehicular traffic. You are ordered to leave the roadway and utilize the available sidewalk. If you do so voluntarily, no charges will be placed against you.”Other footage showed police officers on foot ahead of a long line of law enforcement vehicles, trying to clear the street of dozens of people. Sirens blared in the background as protesters tried to stand in front of the vehicles to slow them down. Some people were seen kicking over trash cans and recycling bins into the path of officers and police vans. Officers were seen detaining several individuals who refused to get off the road.NBC News did not immediately hear back from the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.Last month, federal immigration officers conducted a raid in the same area, targeting street vendors known for selling jewelry, watches and knockoff bags on Canal Street.Marlene LenthangMarlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.Samantha CookinhamSamantha Cookinham is an NBC News assignment editor.

- Latest News - November 29, 2025

Several protesters were arrested in New York City after they blocked streets and exits in an apparent attempt to prevent federal agents from carrying out an immigration raid, according to.

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Nov. 29, 2025, 7:00 AM ESTBy Mirna Alsharif and Doha MadaniThe day after Morgan Geyser cut off her ankle monitor and fled her group home, Illinois police unknowingly found her crouched against a wall at a truck stop two hours away Sunday night.Huddled next to her friend, Geyser told officers that she was worried about being separated from 43-year-old Chad Mecca, who was shaking from the cold and occasionally struggling to speak. The pair evaded questions about their identity as Geyser told officers that she had done “something really wrong.”Geyser, 23, later “suggested that officers could ‘just Google’ her name” to find out who she is, according to the Posen Police Department incident report.An internet search would reveal that 11 years prior, Geyser stabbed her sixth-grade classmate, Payton Leutner, more than a dozen times with a kitchen knife to appease the fictional horror character “Slender Man” while their other friend, Anissa Weier, watched. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.The case spent years making national headlines and spawning documentaries as Geyser endured a prolonged court battle. A jury found that Geyser was mentally ill after her attorneys presented expert testimony that the girl was suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the stabbing. In an effort to avoid prison, Geyser agreed to a plea deal in 2017 that would have her institutionalized instead.Though she had been sentenced to a maximum of 40 years in a mental institution, Geyser had just been granted conditional release in January after spending seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin. She fled the group home she’d been placed in over fears of being separated from her friend, Mecca, according to body camera footage and police reports.Carrying a backpack and a pink journal with the words “homeless couple’s guidebook” written in it, police allege, the two took a Greyhound bus from Wisconsin on Saturday night. They were eventually found more than 165 miles away in Illinois and arrested Sunday evening. Mecca was later released on a citation and is due to appear in court Jan. 15. NBC News was unable to reach Mecca; it is unclear whether Mecca has retained an attorney. Urgent search underway for ‘Slender Man’ stabbing attacker01:26At her extradition hearing Tuesday, Geyser was brought out in a blue jumpsuit and dark glasses. She waived her extradition and will be held in Cook County without bail.Wisconsin has a month to take Geyser back to the state. Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese told reporters Monday that the state would have to decide whether to file a petition to revoke Geyser’s conditional release, a move they would support, she said.The Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said on Monday that they had not received a referral regarding Geyser’s case, but may receive one from the Madison Police Department “at some point.”An attorney for Geyser did not immediately respond to a request for comment.An attack ordered by ‘Slender Man’The May 31, 2014, attack on Leutner began as a Saturday morning game of hide-and-seek in the woods of a suburban Milwaukee park.Then, prosecutors say, Geyser and Weier pinned down Leutner before Geyser stabbed her 19 times. The knife barely missed an artery near her heart, coming “one millimeter away from certain death,” the criminal complaint said. After the attack, Geyser and Weier fled the scene, leaving Leutner to die. The middle schooler managed to crawl out of the woods and find a bicyclist on a sidewalk. Geyser and Weier were arrested five hours after the attack, still armed with the knife.During the trial, Geyser’s attorneys told the court that the girl had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is why she believed the fictional horror character “Slender Man” was speaking to her. Geyser believed the boogeyman would harm their families if they didn’t stab Leutner.Anissa Weier listens as her attorney Maura McMahon questions a witness in Waukesha County, Wis., in September 2017. Michael Sears / Pool via APWeier, who did not stab Leutner but was accused of “egging” Geyser on, pleaded guilty in 2017 to being a party to attempted second-degree homicide and was sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital. She was released in 2021.Geyser was 15 when she was sentenced to decades in a mental institution, spending nearly seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. In January, a judge ruled that she should be released to a group home.Three experts testified at the time that Geyser was no longer a threat to the public and had made considerable progress in her treatment.Wisconsin judge orders release of ‘Slender Man’ attacker02:08Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren upheld the conditional release plan in March after some objection from the district attorney’s office, which had concerns that Geyser had sent violent artwork to a man. It appeared that Geyser had stopped contact with that individual, Bohren said in his decision.“I don’t find that in and of itself a reason to find she’s at risk for herself or at risk to harm the community in a conditional release plan,” he said, adding that just because she participated in the contact “doesn’t mean she encouraged it.”Bohren also said that the group home would, in some ways, be “more strict” than being institutionalized, given the “substantial supervision” Geyser would be under.Details of Geyser’s conditional release are sealed, but her attorney, Tony Cotton, had previously told the court that there was difficulty finding Geyser a place to land. A letter filed by Cotton in August said that a home in Sun Prairie declined to take Geyser due to the “publicity surrounding the placement.”Disappearance from the group homePolice say Geyser was last seen around Kroncke Drive at 8 p.m. Nov. 22 with another adult. A little over an hour later, the Department of Corrections became aware that Geyser had tampered with her monitoring bracelet. By 11:30 p.m., authorities learned that Geyser had removed the ankle bracelet and was not at the group home. By around 9 p.m. the next day, she was found at the truck stop more than 165 miles away in Illinois with Mecca, who was also arrested and charged with criminal trespass and obstructing identification, according to the Posen Police Department. Geyser told officers that she met Mecca at a Wisconsin church a couple of months ago and that she was upset Mecca was unable to visit her at the group home, according to the Posen police incident report. Geyser alleged that she was treated poorly at the home, and that Mecca visited her there on multiple occasions by “climbing her window and sneaking in.”The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said it could not comment on Geyser, who is being treated at one of its facilities, because of patient privacy protections. The Department of Corrections is similarly limited when it has been contracted by health services for supervision and monitoring activities, it added.Geyser said Saturday that she and Mecca had taken the Greyhound bus from Wisconsin to Illinois and had discussed heading to Nashville, Tennessee, according to the incident report. It is not immediately clear what specifically motivated the two to leave Saturday. Body camera footage from Sunday night showed Geyser pleading with officers not to separate her from Mecca, asking if they would at least promise to let her say goodbye to Mecca “no matter what I did.”Geyser told officers in the footage that Mecca is transgender and repeatedly refers to Mecca using “she” and “her” pronouns. During the search, officers found the pink notebook in the backpack, according to the footage. One officer flipped through the journal and read out the words “homeless couple’s guidebook.”Mecca told ABC affiliate WKOW that they prefer to go by the name “Charly” and that Geyser ran away because of the visitation restrictions. The two had developed a strong friendship after meeting at church months ago, Mecca told the news station.After their Sunday truck stop arrest, body camera footage showed Geyser and Mecca being transported through the interior cameras of separate patrol cars. Geyser remained silent throughout her ride and looked out the window quietly.An officer talked with Mecca during their ride, saying that his colleagues would get them meals. Mecca thanked the officer and appeared to be dejected.“We really do just wanna be on our way, we’re sorry to have caused trouble,” Mecca said.The officer then told Mecca they would send the pair on their way once they find out who they are. Mecca simply responded, “That’s not gonna happen.” Mirna AlsharifMirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.Doha MadaniDoha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Pronouns: she/her.Emilie Ikeda contributed.

- Latest News - November 29, 2025

The day after Morgan Geyser cut off her ankle monitor and fled her group home, Illinois police unknowingly found her crouched against a wall at a truck stop two hours.

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Nov. 29, 2025, 1:30 PM ESTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.The director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division told agency staff in a memo that an internal review found that at least 10 children died “after and because of receiving” the Covid vaccine.The 3,000-word memo, obtained by NBC News, was written by Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. In it, Prasad claims that agency staff determined that “no fewer than 10” of 96 child deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, between 2021 and 2024 were “related” to Covid vaccination. He said the true numbers could be higher, accusing the agency of ignoring the safety concerns for years.The memo, sent Friday, did not include the children’s ages or medical histories, timelines or documentation for the deaths he references and does not identify the manufacturer of the vaccine. The FDA’s findings have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.Experts push backExperts who reviewed the memo say it is misusing information from VAERS, an unverified reporting system that allows anyone, including doctors, patients and caregivers, to submit entries about adverse events they believe are linked to vaccines. The system’s own website warns that submissions can contain inaccurate, incomplete or biased information.“This is sort of science by press release,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, calling the memo “irresponsible” and “dangerous.”“This is a profound revelation,” Prasad wrote in the memo. “For the first time, the U.S. FDA will acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines have killed American children.”Prasad suggests that the child deaths were tied to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, but doesn’t include evidence to support the claim.The FDA directed all media inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services. An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s former vaccine chief who was ousted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year, said the agency is misusing the database and the claims are right out of what he calls the “anti-vaccine playbook.”The FDA uses the database to look for early “signals” — patterns that might suggest a possible safety issue, Marks told NBC News. It was one of the tools the agency used to identify a rare blood clotting condition linked to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine, he said.The mRNA Covid vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, have also been linked to a small but increased risk of myocarditis in young men. Most cases have been found to be mild and resolve within a few days.Marks said the FDA is not reviewing new safety reports but instead re-examining older ones and appears to be classifying some of them as vaccine-related. He added that Covid infection is also associated with myocarditis — and is often more severe than cases seen after vaccination.“This memo conveys a very troubling mixture of misrepresentation and lies,” Marks said. “The climate within the agency is incredibly toxic right now.”Proposed changesThe memo uses highly ideological language, repeatedly characterizing Covid vaccine requirements for schools and employers as “coercive,” calling past agency decisions “dishonest,” and arguing that vaccine regulation “may have harmed more children than we saved.” At one point, Prasad instructs staff who disagree with his conclusions to resign.He outlined a series of proposed changes to how the FDA evaluates vaccines. He said the agency would revisit how annual flu shots are evaluated, calling the current process an “evidence-based catastrophe of low quality evidence.”He also said pneumonia vaccine makers “will have to show their products reduce pneumonia (at least in the post-market setting), and not merely generate antibody titers.”He also claimed the Biden administration dismissed early safety concerns, and criticized former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky for what he described as “dishonest and manipulative” public comments.The memo comes ahead of a two-day CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting next week, when officials are scheduled to discuss the childhood vaccine schedule and the hepatitis B shot.Earlier this year, the FDA and CDC limited who is eligible to get a Covid vaccine this fall and winter, focusing on people 65 and older and those with medical conditions that put them at increased risk of severe illness.Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, has downplayed the benefits of vaccines and has singled out vaccines made with mRNA as particularly dangerous, calling the mRNA Covid vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”In September, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told CNN that the agency was looking into the deaths of healthy children from the Covid shots.Extensive research has found that the Covid vaccines are safe for children and protect against severe illness.A 2023 analysis in JAMA Pediatrics reviewed 17 studies covering more than 10 million children ages 5 to 11 who got Pfizer’s or Moderna’s Covid vaccines. Vaccinated kids had a lower risk of infection and hospitalization compared to those who weren’t vaccinated.A 2024 study in Nature Communications also found no increased risk of serious adverse events in young kids after Covid vaccination. It did identify a small increased risk of myocarditis in teen boys after the first two days.Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.

- Latest News - November 29, 2025

The director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division told agency staff in a memo that an internal review found that at least 10 children died “after and because.

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