Morning, y’all! I only have one gripe with farmers markets: It’s choice paralysis overload. I roll up to a farmers market, black out and when I come to, I have little containers of artisan cheese, locally-grown kohlrabi, peppers I can’t identify, two jars of fancy preserves and no plan for how to use them all.
Will that stop me? Absolutely not. Here’s your 2026 guide to farmers markets around Atlanta so you can get cookin’.
Let’s get to it.
ICE IS COMING TO THE AIRPORT TODAY
Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees will report to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport starting today to fill in for Transportation Security Administration officers as the partial government shutdown continues.
They’re not supposed to apprehend immigrants, but ...
- Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said federal officials told him ICE agents would support operational needs, like line management and crowd control in the domestic terminals.
- That’s not what President Donald Trump said this weekend when he threatened to deploy ICE to airports if Democrats didn’t agree on a bill to end the shutdown.
- He promised ICE agents would arrest “all Illegal Immigrants,” and specifically mentioned Somali immigrants, a group he has lately tried to demonize.
- White House border czar Tom Homan said the agents are “simply there to help TSA do their job.”
🔎 READ MORE: Details from Mayor Andre Dickens
Another nightmare weekend at the airport
- Airports around the country are working with severely depleted numbers of TSA agents because agents are working without pay.
- Security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson snaked around so many baggage claim carousels even airport employees didn’t know where the lines began. At one point, they considered shifting the lines outside.
Will ICE agents help alleviate hourslong waits, or will their presence cause more chaos? The AJC is covering the situation from every angle. Keep up to date here.
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FULTON’S MISSING ELECTION BOXES WEREN’T ACTUALLY MISSING
When the FBI raided Fulton County’s elections offices earlier this year, FBI officials said they grabbed 653 boxes.
- That number sent some conservative conspiracy theorists (and public officials) into a tizzy because it was about 50 boxes less than what county officials previously estimated they had of “2020 election materials.”
- Election skeptics like State Election Board Vice Chair Janice Johnston implied that meant Fulton had obstructed authorities from accessing some records.
Nope, the FBI just didn’t pick them up.
- The boxes are still at the Fulton election offices, where FBI agents could have taken them if they wanted. Fulton officials said they were available, but apparently, the agents didn’t want all the records.
- That could be because they were only looking for records from November 2020, not other election records from that year.
🔎 READ MORE: The latest in a long line of GA election conspiracies
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💵 Why do Georgia politicians keep sending citizens money? Not that we’re complaining, but the yearslong drive to return money to taxpayers has reached a new level for two reasons: One, affordability is a huge political issue as everything gets more expensive. Two, it’s an election year.
🍎 A Georgia food pantry extended its services to TSA agents this weekend. The King’s Table at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church hosted a free food distribution event featuring fresh produce, meat and shelf-stable items, welcoming officers and their families who may need extra support during the shutdown.
CHEF JOSE ANDRES GETS GA TECH HONOR
Famous chef and humanitarian Jose Andres was honored by Georgia Tech this week with the institute’s Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage.
- The prize is named after Atlanta’s 51st mayor, a businessman who argued that Atlanta could not be economically successful under racial segregation. Allen, a white man, faced death threats for his advocacy during the Civil Rights Movement.
- Andres founded the humanitarian aid organization World Central Kitchen in 2010. The nonprofit specializes in rapidly providing hot meals to people in areas affected by war and natural disasters.
🔎 READ MORE: More news from the Atlanta food scene
HBCU AWAREFEST ADDRESSES STUDENT DEBT
This week, entertainers, entrepreneurs, educators and other leaders will gather in Atlanta for an event addressing student loans and the affordability crisis at historically Black colleges and universities.
- The main event is a benefit concert at State Farm Arena this Thursday featuring Jill Scott, Earth, Wind & Fire, GloRilla, Kirk Franklin, Coco Jones, Jeezy, Mickey Guyton and more.
- Did you know? HBCU graduates have a debt load 19% higher than peers at non-HBCUs, according to a 2022 study.
🔎 READ MORE: Who’s involved, how to get involved yourself
NEWS BITES
People are ‘bathing’ in nature to get relief from, well, all of this
Important: Just because it’s called “bathing” doesn’t mean you do it naked.
‘Saturday Night Live UK’ aims to take the comedy hit across the pond
It’s like a reverse “The Office” situation.
Meet Georgia’s oldest candy company
I would commit prosecutable acts for one of their pecan rolls right now.
ON THIS DATE
March 22, 1931
“Working Wives” contest winners are announced The Journal has selected the prize winners on each side of the question, “Can a working wife be loyal to a job and to a home?”
Letter 1: Yes
Through the medium of her extra income, the working wife can equip her house with all modern conveniences and engage capable, trustworthy servants who can adequately take care of her home and family. … Because of increased finances, the working wife’s children have more and better opportunities, and with their father, find constant joy in her pep and snap and interesting, well-informed conversations.
Letter 2: No
Woman, having achieved her economic independence and proved her ability to work side by side with man, now offers to bring in half the living, or more, in addition to caring for her own job. Man therefore is relieved of responsibility, his inspiration dies, his pride is hurt, and his ambition lessened or killed. He learns to depend on the help and income of his too-capable wife. … Truly ‘no man can serve two masters.’”
Yes, it’s the exciting conclusion of “Does lady remember house if job?” A few weeks ago we discussed the impetus for this little exercise, a 1931 deep dive into whether women who work can also take care of their households. I dunno ladies, there’s some ironclad arguments here!
ONE MORE THING
Ironically, these two examples tell us more about men than they do about women. (We won’t even touch the “servants” part.)
Is your guy a delicate flower whose “inspiration dies” and “ambition is lessened or killed” if his partner also has a job, or does he appreciate the “pep and snap” and “well-informed conversations” of a working lady?
Funny, that’s actually the only reason I work: to amuse my husband. It’s also improved my decorating skills, because my Emmy looks great in the library.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.
About the Author
AJ Willingham is an National Emmy, NABJ and Webby award-winning journalist who loves talking culture, religion, sports, social justice, infrastructure and the arts. She lives in beautiful Smyrna-Mableton and went to Syracuse University.
