FILE – A carton of eggs in Farmers Branch, Texas, on Oct. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
8 ON YOUR SIDE (WAKA) – U.S. egg prices have fallen 60% from last year’s record highs, making it easier for you to fill your Easter baskets or Passover Seder plates.
Bird flu was to blame for higher egg prices during the first five months of 2025. The outbreak forced farmers and commercial producers to slaughter entire broods of egg-laying hens, but fewer cases in the second half of last year helped restore egg supplies, said Mark Jordan, the executive director of agricultural research firm LEAP Market Analytics.
The stubborn outbreak is still affecting U.S. poultry flocks, with the number of infected commercial flocks rising in March. But farmers have been rapidly replenishing flocks that died or had to be destroyed. Between July 2024 and July 2025 the number of egg-type chicks hatched in the U.S. rose 8%. It was the first sustained and substantial increase in the availability of specially-bred layer chicks since the bird flu outbreak began in 2022, Jordan said.
The Trump administration’s decision to import nearly 1 billion eggs last year also helped lower prices, Jordan said, although imports have since returned to more normal levels. The U.S. also exported fewer eggs last year to help boost domestic supplies.
But what’s good for consumers isn’t necessarily good for farmers, who are finding it difficult to recoup their costs as egg prices plummet. They also may have to pay more for feed, including corn and soybean meal, because of the Iran war.
“Farmers are no strangers to volatility. It’s part of the business. But in recent months, many have been selling eggs at or below the cost of production,” said Emily Metz, the president and CEO of the America Egg Board, a trade group.
Here’s a look at U.S. egg prices by the numbers, according to government figures:
— $2.50 per dozen: Average U.S. price for a dozen eggs in February.
— $6.23 per dozen: Average U.S. price for a dozen eggs in March 2025, which was an all-time high.
— 315.8 million: Number of egg-laying hens in the U.S. as of March 1. That’s 8% higher than last year.
— 45 million: Number of egg-laying hens in Iowa, the top U.S. state for egg production.
— 205.7 million: Number of chickens and other birds in commercial and backyard flocks that died or were culled due to bird flu since February 2022.
— 5.22 million: Number of chickens and other birds that died or were culled because of bird flu in March 2026. That is more than double the number affected in March 2025.
— 657%: The percentage increase in U.S. imports of shell eggs in 2025 compared to the year before.
— $1.05: Average cost for farmers to produce a dozen eggs, not including labor and transportation, according to the American Egg Board. In late March, the national average wholesale price of eggs was $1.17 per dozen.
— 40,000: Number of real eggs that will be used for this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll,
(Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
WHAT’S HAPPENING (WAKA) – If you’re ready to celebrate Easter, you have plenty of ways to do it throughout the River Region this weekend!
The Bell Road YMCA in Montgomery is having an Easter egg hunt — in the pool.
If you’d rather stay dry, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office is holding its own Easter egg hunt at AUM.
Southside Church of Christ in Montgomery is having a lot of activities on Saturday, leading up to its worship service Easter morning.
You can have pancakes with Peter Cottontail in Millbrook.
Also in Millbrook, Grace United Methodist Church is holding an Easter egg hunt.
Froggy Bottom in Pike Road is offering a lot of Easter activities.
The Alabama Safari Park lets you meet the animals as you celebrate Easter.
There’s a Bunny Hop 5K in Montgomery.
And don’t forget to get your photo made with the Easter Bunny at the Shoppes at EastChase.
Watch the video above for details from Action 8’s Savanna Sabb!
We continue to be under the influence of high pressure centered east of us. The flow around the high is transporting gulf moisture into the area and that fuels isolated showers and t-storms. Temps are managing the mid to upper 80s for highs. We see this setup lasting through Saturday.
A frontal boundary moves through the state Sunday. Looks like rain will be around for your Easter Sunday. Rainfall potential will range between .50 to 1.50 inch. At this point, we don’t see anything other than a few strong storms. Although, it is the spring storm season so we will monitor this closely.
We’re on the backside of the frontal boundary Monday. All indications are we trend a bit cooler through the midweek. Daytime highs will top out in the lower to mid 70s while overnight lows will be in the mid to upper 40s.
Libobbie Johnson/Source: Montgomery County Detention Facility
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WAKA) – Montgomery police have charged a man in a fatal shooting that happened last month.
It happened around 1:25 a.m. on Sunday, March 1 in the 5100 block of Carmichael Road.
Once officers arrived, they found 30-year-old Deanthony Payne, of Montgomery, with fatal injuries from a gunshot wound. Payne was pronounced dead on the scene.
Police say a preliminary investigation determined it to be a domestic incident.
25-year-old Libobbie Johnson was taken into custody and charged with murder.
He is currently being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility.
Photo from the Office of Gov. Kay Ivey
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WAKA) – Gov. Kay Ivey has returned back to the Governor’s Mansion following her successful medical procedure at Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery.
The Governor’s Office has announced that the fluid that had pressed against her lung has been removed and cleared, and she will have no short or long-term challenges related to this issue.
Throughout her two-night hospital stay, Gov. she remained engaged in the ongoing legislative process, as well as other regular business and current events, the Governor’s Office said.
Gov. Ivey thanked the doctors, nurses and staff at Baptist South for their capable, efficient and professional work. The governor is also extremely grateful to the people of Alabama for their outpouring of support. She is thankful for their prayers and enjoyed their many messages of well-wishes.
She plans to work from the Mansion through the weekend and looks forward to being back at the Capitol next week.
— Information from the Office of Gov. Kay Ivey
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Kirk Cousins agreed to a deal with the Las Vegas Raiders, his agent Mike McCartney announced Thursday morning, giving them a veteran quarterback to help ease the expected selection of Fernando Mendoza with the top draft pick.
Cousins’ most recent team, Atlanta, will pay $8.7 million this season and Las Vegas will handle the remaining $1.3 million. Another $10 million in guaranteed money will come next March. The Raiders also have a two-year, $80 million option.
Cousins later posted “The Autumn Wind…” in a nod to the Raiders’ theme that is played before every home game and was made famous by NFL Films.
Raiders coach Klint Kubiak and general manager John Spytek telegraphed this kind of move, saying they wouldn’t want to throw a rookie quarterback into the starting lineup. It’s been a poorly kept secret that rookie likely will be Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy en route to leading Indiana to its first and highly unlikely national championship.
“Ideally, you don’t want him to start from Day One,” Kubiak said Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings. “You’d love him to be able to learn behind somebody. That’s in a perfect world. It doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes they have to play from Day One and it’s our job as coaches to get them ready to go. I think it does help the player if they can sit behind a mature adult and watch how they run the show.”
Cousins, 37, has played 14 seasons in the league, including the past two in Atlanta. The Falcons signed him to a four-year, $180 million deal only to draft Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick just six weeks later.
Cousins went 12-10 in starting 22 of 34 games. His 16 interceptions in 2024 led the league despite playing in just 14 games. The Falcons released him heading into free agency.
He is 88-77-2 as a starter with Washington, Minnesota and Atlanta. His greatest success came in 2022 when Cousins quarterbacked the Vikings to a 13-4 record.
Mendoza had his pro day on Wednesday at the Indiana facility in front of all 32 teams.
Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives before President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump said today that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries or yet to produce charges.
Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
She ushered in a period of intense turmoil at the department that included the firings of career prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump and the resignations of hundreds of other employees. Her departure continues a trend of Justice Department upheaval that has defined Trump’s presidency as multiple attorneys general across his two terms have either been pushed out or resigned after proving unwilling or unable to meet his demands for the position.
Bondi rejected accusations that she politicized the Justice Department and said her mission was to restore the institution’s credibility after overreach by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration with two federal criminal cases against Trump. Bondi’s defenders have said she worked to refocus the department to better tackle illegal immigration and violent crime and brought much-needed change to an agency they believe unfairly targeted conservatives.
Embracing, supporting and protecting the president
Bondi’s public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions. Bondi postured herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
She called for an end to the “weaponization” of law enforcement she said occurred under the Biden administration, even though Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who produced two cases against Trump, have said they followed the facts, the evidence and the law in their decision-making. Bondi’s critics, meanwhile, said she was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president’s bidding.
“You’ve turned the People’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary committee, said at a February hearing.
Bondi delivered a combative performance but few substantive answers at that hearing as she angrily insulted her Democratic questioners with name-calling, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market — “The Dow is up over 50,000 right now” —- and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.
Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a closed-door interview about the Epstein files.
Under Bondi’s leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were short-lived as they were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed.
Trump repeatedly publicly praised and defended Bondi but also showed flashes of impatience with his attorney general’s efforts to meet his demands to prosecute his rivals. In one extraordinary social media post last year, Trump called on Bondi to move quickly to prosecute his foes, including James and Comey, telling her: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
Bondi oversaw the exodus of thousands of career employees — both through firings and voluntary departures — including lawyers who prosecuted violent attacks on police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; environmental, civil rights and ethics enforcers; counterterrorism prosecutors; and others.
Fumbling the Epstein files
She struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case, which has long fascinated conspiracy theorists. She herself had fed the conspiracy theory machine with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel interview that Epstein’s “client list” was sitting on her desk for review. The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.
Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House only for it to be later revealed that the documents included no new revelations. And despite promises that more files were going to become public, the Justice Department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to pass a bill to force the agency to do so.
The Epstein files fumbles led to a stunning public criticism from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bondi’s, who told Vanity Fair that the attorney general “completely whiffed.” The Justice Department’s release of millions of pages of Epstein files did little to tamp down criticism, prompting a House committee with the support of five Republicans to subpoena Bondi to answer questions under oath.
Bondi, who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, was his second choice to lead the Justice Department, picked for the role after former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
(Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Thursday morning was rather sunny across central and south Alabama. The sky ultimately becomes partly to mostly sunny Thursday afternoon, while temperatures surge into the mid to perhaps upper 80s. A handful of stray showers appear possible, but most locations remain dry. Thursday night looks partly cloudy with lows in the low 60s.
Friday looks partly cloudy and very warm with highs in the mid 80s and just stray afternoon showers. Rain chances rise again this weekend. Isolated showers or storms form Saturday afternoon, but some locations remain rain-free. For the rain-free locations, the sky remains partly cloudy. Otherwise, afternoon temperatures warm into the mid 80s.
Rain looks likely Easter along a cold front as it pushes through central and south Alabama. However, all-day rain across our entire area looks unlikely. Rain may affect mainly west Alabama during the morning, then areas east of I-65 during the afternoon. Rain departs along with the cold front Sunday evening. Next week looks mainly dry and cooler (seasonable actually) with high temperatures in the mid to upper 70s, and lows in the upper 40s to low 50s.
WHAT THE TECH (WAKA) By Jamie Tucker – There may be no better target for a prank than a scammer. That’s exactly what Rosie Okomura does.
Known online as IRL Rosie, she’s part of a growing group of creators who spend their time calling scammers, wasting their time, and exposing how these schemes work. But what started as entertainment came from something much more personal.
“I started scam baiting because my mom was scammed,” Okomura told me.
Her mother fell for a common pop-up scam that claimed her computer had a virus and needed to be fixed. She paid hundreds of dollars before realizing it was fake.
“So I called the number… just to mess with them and waste their time so they couldn’t call anyone else’s mom.”
What Is “Scam Baiting”?
Instead of waiting for scam calls, Okomura goes looking for them. She works with a network of scam baiters who share phone numbers and information about new scams. They call in pretending to be victims.
“We all call saying, ‘I just got disconnected,’ or ‘I had a missed call from this number.’” The goal is simple. Keep scammers busy so they’re not targeting someone else. And she’s very good at it.
The Voices That Keep Scammers Hooked
Okomura is a voice actor, and it shows. She uses multiple characters to confuse and frustrate scammers, sometimes keeping them on the phone for over an hour.
“Mostly the old lady voice… sometimes an automated voice… a Karen… a valley girl.”
Here are a few moments from her calls:
“Do not tell anyone about your winnings…”
“Hi, my name is Courtney and I’m calling to upgrade…”
“Siri, shut up… would you like me to search the web for the lyrics to ‘shut up’?”
“Why are you typing ‘u u’? You said double-u…”
“This is Roger McRobbit, I’m the floor manager.”
“Oh… you manage floors?”
It’s funny. That’s why people watch.
But there’s a bigger reason her videos have millions of views. “It feels like a little bit of justice,” she said.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Behind the humor is a serious warning. Scams are evolving fast, and they’re not just targeting older adults anymore. “Millennials are actually one of the biggest targets depending on the scam.” Job scams. Rental scams. Fake purchase alerts. Text messages pretending to be from Amazon or your bank.
And now, artificial intelligence is making scams even harder to detect. “Voice cloning… deepfake videos… it’s getting better every day.” Scammers are also getting better at something else: manipulating emotions.
“They create urgency. Fear. Or even loneliness.”
That’s especially true in romance scams and fake emergency calls involving family members. Even Experts Almost Fall for It
Okomura admits she’s come close to being fooled herself.
One of the most convincing scams she encountered didn’t come through a phone call or email. It came in the mail.
“It looked completely real. Same fonts, same layout. I almost paid it.”
That’s a reminder that scams aren’t just digital anymore. Some of the most convincing ones are old school.
How to Protect Yourself
Okomura says the best defense is simple, but it requires discipline. Slow down. Verify everything. And don’t act on emotion.
She also recommends something more that families are starting to adopt: A family password.
With AI voice cloning on the rise, scammers can now mimic a loved one’s voice. A shared password can help verify whether a call or message is real.
Why People Love Watching
There’s another reason scam baiting videos are exploding in popularity. “I think it just feels good to watch someone… get ‘em.”
Scams are everywhere. And chances are, you or someone you know has been targeted. Watching someone turn the tables gives people a sense of control in a space where most feel powerless.
Where to Find Her
If you want to see how it works, Okomura posts regularly as @IRLRosie on YouTube and social media.
Just know this going in: She’s not answering scam calls. She’s calling them. And keeping them busy long enough to protect someone else from picking up.
8 ON YOUR SIDE CONSUMER ALERT (WAKA) – A health alert has been issued for some frozen chicken nuggets sold at Walmart stores nationwide.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the health alert involves some packages of Great Value dinosaur-shaped nuggets, which could contain lead.
The health alert is for 29-ounce bags containing about 36 nuggets, with a production date of February 10 and a ‘best buy” date of February 10, 2027.
Look for a Lot Code of 0416DPO1215 and Establishment Number of P44164 printed on the back of the bag.
The USDA says the bags of nuggets are no longer on Walmart store shelves, which is why a recall wasn’t issued, but they could be in home freezers.
Lead is especially harmful to pregnant women, babies and young children.
CLICK HERE for more information on this chicken nugget health alert.
