Woman sleeping in truck killed in explosion at Tyson Foods plant in Georgia
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(GEORGIA) — A woman sleeping in a truck was killed when a fire caused an explosion at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Georgia overnight, officials said.
The victim, 61-year-old Bajarma Batozhapov of Las Vegas, didn’t work at the plant, nor did her husband, the Mitchell County Coroner’s Office said. Batozhapov’s husband is a truck driver and she was accompanying him at the time of the blast, which burned part of the truck she was in, the coroner’s office said.
Batozhapov’s husband was in the building at the time of the explosion but wasn’t hurt, according to the coroner’s office.
Several others were injured in the incident in Camilla, about 60 miles north of Tallahassee, officials said.
The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, according to a Tyson Foods spokesperson.
“We extend our deepest condolences to their family and friends during this difficult time,” the spokesperson said. “Right now we are still gathering the facts, but ensuring the safety of our team members is our top priority, and we are conducting a full investigation into the cause.”
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, which represents the Tyson workers, described the blast as a boiler explosion and said several employees were burned.
“We are working with the company, and local emergency authorities to ensure that all the workers impacted are taken care of,” he said in a statement.
“It is too early to tell what happened last night but there must be a thorough investigation into this incident, and workers must be able to work safely in the facility,” he added.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem/ Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Immigrant rights groups and immigration law experts are raising concerns after the Department of Homeland Security announced that it is creating an online database designed to keep track of migrants over the age of 14 who are living in the country illegally.
Migrants who are in the United States without authorization must register their information in a database that tracks them in an effort to “compel” self-deportation, the DHS said in a press release on Tuesday. However, the registry had not been set up as of Wednesday. A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services webpage instructed migrants who are required to register to create an online account with the agency.
Vowing to “use every available tool to compel illegal aliens to self-deport,” a DHS statement said people who fail to register and submit fingerprints could face fines and imprisonment.
“President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws—we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce. We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans.”
The DHS said it’s invoking a decades-old section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that requires registration from migrants over the age of 14 who are in the United States, who have not been fingerprinted or registered, and who have been in the country for more than 30 days.
“Historically, we know that we have to sit up and pay attention anytime a government says it’s going to set up a registry on the basis of national origin or race or religion or any other immutable characteristic, because dramatic losses of civil liberties and civil rights are sure to follow and potentially worse,” said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center.
Following the 9/11 attack, President George W. Bush’s administration set up a system known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which required registration from certain noncitizens — mostly from Muslim-majority countries and North Korea.
“Like the registry system that Trump is envisioning here, it was set up under a guise of national security or public safety concerns that, in the end, only served to eviscerate civil rights for the communities that were targeted and to separate communities,” Altman said. “There were about 83,000 people who were forced to register through NSEERS and many thousands of them were put in deportation proceedings.”
Parents and legal guardians of undocumented immigrants who are under 14 years of age and have not previously registered would also have to sign up to the database.
Under the Trump administration’s registry, immigrants over the age of 18 would be issued proof that they’ve registered that they “must carry and keep in their possession at all times,” the USCIS website said.
That requirement is stoking fears that this would be a new “show me your papers” type of law, said Michelle Lapointe, legal director for the American Immigration Council.
“There are some real civil liberties issues here,” Lapointe told ABC News. “It will end up ensnaring people based on law enforcement’s perceptions of their race and assumptions that law enforcement makes about people’s immigration status based on that.”
“So, there’s real opportunity for abuse, because this is essentially setting up a system where people have to produce their papers — show their papers to law enforcement to prove their status,” she continued.
Lapointe said that the DHS is also threatening jail time for failing to register, even though being in the country without authorization isn’t always punishable by imprisonment.
“An alien’s failure to register is a crime that could result in a fine, imprisonment, or both,” Tuesday’s press release said.
In many cases, being in the country without authorization is a civil offense and would typically be punishable by removal instead of incarceration.
As the Trump administration continues to ramp up its deportation efforts, Greg Chen, senior director of Government Relations for American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that few people may choose to register.
“I don’t think many people are going to come forward and register, because they’re going to be too afraid that if they register, they’re simply going to be deported rapidly, given the aggressive mass deportation plan that administration is setting up,” Chen said.
(BOSTON) — As more than two million federal employees face a midnight Thursday deadline to accept the Trump administration’s buyout offer, a federal judge in Massachusetts will consider an eleventh-hour request to block the buyout from moving forward.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. set Thursday afternoon hearing to consider a request by three federal unions to issue a temporary restraining order that would suspend Thursday’s deadline for the buyout and require the Office of Personnel Management to provide a legal basis for the unprecedented offer, which offers to continue to pay federal employees through Sept. 30, 2025, if they resign by Thursday at 11;59 p.m..
Three unions representing a combined 800,000 federal civil servants argue that the “deferred resignation” offer is unlawful, arbitrary, and would result in a “dangerous one-two punch” to the federal government.
“First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress has, by statute, directed the Executive to faithfully implement,” the lawsuit said. “And second, when vacant positions become politicized, as this Administration seeks to do, partisanship is elevated over ability and truth, to the detriment of agency missions and the American people.”
The lawsuit comes as at least 40,000 federal workers — roughly 2% of the civilian federal workforce — have accepted the deferred resignation offer to leave the federal government since last week, ABC News has reported.
The three unions — the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — argue that the OPM violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide a legal basis for the buyout offer and leaving open the possibility that the government might not follow through with the buyout once federal employees agree to resign.
The lawsuit added that the buyout’s promise of payments through September violates the law because the current appropriation for federal agencies expires in March. Moreover, the buyout is unfair because it was made alongside a threat of future layoffs, the lawsuit said.
The buyout offer, part of DOGE head Elon Musk’s effort to trim the size of government under President Donald Trump, was sent out under the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.
“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the unions’ lawsuit says.
Overall, the lawsuit alleges that the OPM rushed the offer with a questionable legal basis, largely mimicking Elon Musk’s management style following his takeover of Twitter.
“OPM’s rapid adoption of Musk’s private-sector program confirms that the agency took very little time to consider the suitability of applying an approach used with questionable success in a single for-profit entity to the entirety of the federal workforce,” says the lawsuit.
(NEW YORK) — As bird flu continues to spread across the U.S., stores around the country are reporting a shortage of eggs amid soaring prices, high demand and supply limits.
More than 150 million poultry birds have been killed across all 50 states in an attempt to combat bird flu since 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The number of birds affected by the virus has been rising in recent months, with roughly 7 million affected in November, 18 million in December and 23 million in January, according to the latest figures from the USDA.
Over the last 30 days, 150 flocks were confirmed to test positive for bird flu, according to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Once a bird is infected, the only way to stop the virus from spreading further is to depopulate or cull the entire flock. It can take time for a flock to repopulate to lay eggs, affecting their price.
The Consumer Price Index, published Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed prices were 3% higher in January compared to a year ago. Prices for eggs increased 15.2% — the largest increase in egg prices since June 2015, according to the bureau.
As grocery stores and supermarkets limit the number of cartons of eggs that can be purchased, some people have resorted to stealing in order to get their hands on eggs.
Stores enforce purchase limits
Chains across the country have enforced limits on how many eggs customers can buy due to the high demand and shrinking supply.
“Due to ongoing issues with the supply of eggs, we are currently limiting egg purchases to one dozen per customer, per day, in all Trader Joe’s stores across the country,” a representative for Trader Joe’s confirmed to “Good Morning America” on Monday.
Other retailers, including Sprouts Farmers Market and Costco, have also implemented purchase limits on fresh eggs. Photos taken at Costco showed the warehouse giant limiting egg purchases to three per member.
This week, Lidl US announced it would also limit egg purchases to two per customer across all its stores.
“The following egg brands sold at Lidl US stores are currently limited to 2 per customer to ensure fair distribution: Green Valley, Simpson’s Eggs, and Puglisi’s Farm,” a Lidl US spokesperson said. “Specialty egg brands, including cage free, free range and organic, do not have limitations at this time at Lidl US.”
Despite concerns about the safety of eggs available in stores, experts say it’s highly unlikely to contract bird flu from commercially sold eggs.
Some turn to egg heists
Earlier this month, 100,000 organic eggs worth an estimated $40,000 were stolen from a facility in Green Castle, Pennsylvania.
Tom Flocco, CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Eggs, told “Good Morning America” in an exclusive interview last week that the company was going to boost security.
“I’ve worked in other industries before where things get stolen from factories,” Flocco said. “It happens. It’s terrible. I’m not happy about it, but it does happen. It could happen once; it could happen again. We are putting additional measures in place.”
Additionally, at Luna Park Café in Seattle, hundreds of dollars worth of eggs and other breakfast foods were stolen, according to the Seattle Police Department.
In the early morning hours on Feb. 5, two male suspects were caught on surveillance video entering a refrigerated shed at the restaurant, police said. The men stole 540 eggs worth $387, as well as bacon, ground beef, blueberries and liquid egg products, the SPD said.
A café employee said they saw one of the suspects return to the property, but he got back in the van and fled when he realized he’d been spotted, police said.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud, Kelly McCarthy, Joshua Richardson and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
