After the White House dispatched squads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement troops to at least 13 airports around the country, thousands of commuters this week are coming face-to-face with the Trump administration’s anti-immigration push. And with the agency’s undefined remit and documented penchant for aggression, its presence is a Rorschach test for attitudes on the regime’s militarized approach to law enforcement.

‘Political, publicity action, not a practical solution’
“Between 100 and 150 ICE officers” have been sent to more than a dozen airports across the country, said The New York Times. But it’s “unclear” if they are “helping or exacerbating long security lines” that have grown during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. 

“I have no idea how they can contribute at an airport unless it was for intimidation purposes,” said Aaron Vazquez, a TSA lead transportation security officer at San Diego International Airport and an airport steward for the local branch of the American Federation of Government Employees union, to KPBS. “What are they going to do, find somebody and shoot them?

ICE’s stationing in American airports, beyond any potential advantage to security enforcement, is “likely a tactical move” designed to “up the pressure on Democrats in Congress” who are blocking Department of Homeland Security funds, in part over ICE’s conduct in Minnesota and Chicago, said New York magazine. Democrats have “condemned” ICE at airports, so it’s not certain that deployment will “move the needle as funding negotiations continue.”

‘Would have been the National Guard’
Congressional Democrats want to use long lines and travel delays to aid in their DHS negotiations, said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on ABC’s “This Week.” The White House’s deployment of immigration forces to airports will “take that leverage away and not make the American people suffer.” If the administration hadn’t sent ICE, “it would have been the National Guard," said Puerto Rico’s Republican Governor Jenniffer González Colón at a press conference.

Still, some White House supporters have expressed anxieties about the plan. The viability of ICE in airports depends on “whether or not logistically you can get these guys into those places," said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) at The Hill, and "get them up to speed."

Artificial intelligence has swept through the tech industry, video games included. While many industry heads are declaring AI the wave of the future, so far, integrating AI into gaming has had a rough start. And it’s getting pushback from both developers and gaming enthusiasts.

‘RAMaggedon,’ job loss and stunted creativity
The video game industry reached unprecedented heights during the pandemic, but then artificial intelligence “crept up behind it,” said Wired. The industry proliferation of AI is “already accelerating job loss and cheapening the work of developers at studios.”

One of the largest problems gaming faces is the global shortage of random-access memory, a dearth referred to as RAMaggedon. Data centers’ need to run AI has “siphoned RAM from the industry,” said Wired. The costs of hardware required for consoles are augmented, leading to higher prices for existing systems and stalled releases of new ones. 

Gaming is the “only mass media entertainment where the creative ceiling is limited by consumer hardware,” Gene Park, a video game critic at The Washington Post, said to Wired. If consumers can't afford or access tech like sufficient RAM, the “innovation will slow down.” 

Mixed feelings
Some gaming executives are pro-AI integration. It’s shocking and “sad” that the industry hasn’t embraced generative AI, said Moritz Baier-Lentz, the head of gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, during the recent Game Developers Conference, per PC Gamer. Anti-AI game developers are “demonizing” a “marvelous new technology.” 

Developers, unlike some executives, do not seem as sure about AI, though many of them are already using it. Overall, 36% of the game developers surveyed for the 2026 State of the Game Industry Report used generative AI, with business professionals and upper management more likely to use it than rank-and-file developers. This year, 52% of developers think generative AI is hurting the game industry, up from 30% last year. And only 7% believe it has a positive impact.

How the video game industry navigates this issue could influence companies in other sectors, said Nicole Greene, an AI industry analyst, to the Post. Gamers are a “passionate consumer group. They don’t want to go in and see cheap AI backgrounds because a company wanted to cut costs.”

A dog in a pet stroller takes in the view at Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin during the city’s National Cherry Blossom Festival. The flowering trees are in the “puffy white” stage that precedes full bloom, expected next week.
Heather Diehl / Getty Images

Spring is one of the year’s stacked seasons for cookbooks. In 2026, new releases include an homage to Southern cooking by way of both Emancipation and China, plus a regional exploration of Lebanese food. Get excited, get curious, just get cooking.

‘Down South + East: A Chinese American Cookbook’
Chef-author Ron Hsu, of Atlanta’s Lazy Betty, “so seamlessly blends Chinese cuisine with classic Southern dishes” in his book that they “seem almost destined to be paired together,” said The Kitchn. Banana pudding wafts with the green vanilla notes of pandan. Soy sauce, Maggi seasoning, daikon and shiitake mushrooms bring the pot roast into new territory, and Chinese eggplant is coated in cornmeal before frying. (out now, $40, Abrams)

‘Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland’
Food-writing legend Anissa Helou was born in Lebanon and focused her first book, “Lebanese Cuisine,” on the dishes her mother cooked. This book reaches across the nation to showcase a variety of regional dishes. Helou “came to look at the food of my own country afresh, realizing that it’s far more fascinating to view a cuisine through a regional rather than a national lens,” she said in her book. (out now, $40, HarperCollins)

‘The Taste of Country Cooking’
“The most beloved Southern cookbook of all time,” said the press materials for this 50th anniversary edition of Edna Lewis’ 1976 classic, and it’s no exaggeration. “Country Cooking” teaches Americans not steeped in the traditions of Black Virginian cooking how to prepare green tomato preserves, pan-fried chicken and her style of biscuits. Those in the know have long cherished their copies. (May 5, $40, Knopf)