More than two dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles on the ground in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area “currently lack the necessary emergency lights and sirens” required to be “compliant with law enforcement requirements,” according to a contract justification published in a federal register on Tuesday.

The document justifies ICE paying Whelen Engineering Company, a Connecticut-based firm specializing in “emergency warning and lighting technology,” $47,330.49 for 31 “ATLAS1” kits—seemingly a typo of ATLAS, the name of the product sold by Whelen—which the company’s website describes as an “Adaptable Travel Light and Siren Kit.” The document explains that the ATLAS Kits would “allow vehicles to be immediately operational and compliant with law enforcement requirements to support the current surge operation” out of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)’s St. Paul office, which conducts operations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota.

“These vehicles were deployed prior to being permanently retrofitted and currently lack the necessary emergency lights and sirens required for operational use,” the document says.

The document also says that because of the “the time-sensitive nature of the mission” that HSI agents are conducting, having to wait for “permanent retrofitting” the agency vehicles with lights and sirens “would negatively impact operational readiness, law enforcement officer safety, and public safety.”

HSI’s most recent public handbook for agents conducting “emergency driving”—defined as driving during “official duties,” like low- or high-risk pursuits, that may require breaking speed limits or violating certain traffic laws—appears to have been published in 2012. It says that any HSI vehicles without lights and sirens “may not be used” in emergency driving, unless the officer “is conducting surveillance or is responding to an event that may adversely impact or threaten life, health, or property or requires an immediate law enforcement response.”

The handbook adds that if an HSI officer is emergency driving but their vehicle does not have lights or sirens, they “must terminate” their participation in a law enforcement operation, and an officer from another law enforcement agency that does have lights and sirens should take over. This HSI officer ”may continue to assist in a backup role, if necessary.”

The handbook does not specify the exact number or location of lights that have to be on an emergency vehicle, but it says that officers are responsible for reviewing any state statutes for emergency lights and sirens where they operate. Minnesota state law requires law enforcement and emergency drivers to “sound an audible signal by siren” and have at least one red light on the front of the vehicle, among other stipulations.

According to the listing for the ATLAS Kit on Whelen’s website, the kit includes several items that are also sold separately by the company, including lightheads and lightbars, as well as a siren amplifier and speaker. The kit comes in a portable case resembling a wheeled suitcase and a small device with a microphone and buttons for controlling the other items in the kit. Whelen describes ATLAS as being “designed for quick installation” for any vehicle, regardless of make or model” and ideal for “on-the-go law enforcement.”

The listing comes six days after ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis, sparking massive protests and an influx of right-wing influencers trying to capitalize on the chaos. After Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem announced that hundreds of additional ICE officers would join the 2,000 already in the Minneapolis area, the State of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed a federal lawsuit against DHS and its top officials, asking the judge to halt the federal immigration enforcement operation underway in the state.

Microsoft said on Tuesday that it would be taking a series of steps towards becoming a “good neighbor” in communities where it is building data centers—including promising to ask public utilities to set higher electricity rates for data centers.

Speaking onstage at an event in Great Falls, Virginia, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith directly referenced a growing national pushback to data centers, describing it as creating “a moment in time when we need to listen, and we need to address these concerns head-on.”

“When I visit communities around the country, people have questions—pointed questions. They even have concerns,” Smith said, as a slide showed headlines from various news outlets about opposition to data centers. “They are the type of questions that we need to heed… We are at a moment of time when people have a lot on their mind. They worry about the price of electricity. They wonder what this big data center will mean to their water supply. They look at this technology and ask, what will it mean for the jobs of the future? What will it mean for the adults of today? What will it mean for their children?”

The announcement follows a post from President Donald Trump on Truth Social Monday in which he pledged that his administration would work with “major American Technology Companies,” including Microsoft, to make sure that data centers don’t inflate customer utility bills.

“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI,” Trump wrote in the post, in which he also accused Democrats of being responsible for the rise in utility bills. “Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’”

Average electricity bills have risen faster than inflation in recent years in many parts of the country. These price hikes are due to a variety of factors, including the costs of repairing and maintaining the country’s aging electric grid. But higher demand for electricity—including from data centers, which can also be expensive to connect to the grid—plays a role. As technology companies and utilities are predicting a massive new need for energy from the nationwide data center buildout, the Energy Information Administration projects that electric bills will keep increasing through 2026.

Concerns around data centers and electricity bills played a key role in several local and state midterm elections last year, while research released last fall shows that local opposition to data centers skyrocketed in the second quarter of 2025, leading to billions of dollars in projects stalled or cancelled. The political divide against data centers appears to be bipartisan. In recent months, influential former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has begun speaking against the energy and water costs of data centers on his War Room podcast, part of a larger pushback from some MAGA figureheads against the AI buildout in the US.

The Trump administration, by contrast, has made expediting the data center buildout in the US a key priority. It has removed a variety of environmental protections for data centers, including water protections, expedited the review of chemicals involved in their use, and encouraged their development on federal land. The Department of Energy has also instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate transmission, to work on a suite of issues around data centers and the grid.

Microsoft, which has around 100 data centers planned or under construction across the country, has met with some local pushback to some of its projects. In October, the company canceled plans for a data center in Wisconsin due to local opposition; the group leading the charge against that project warned of a potential “5-15% rate hike to subsidize cheap power.” The company revealed last week that it was also behind a proposed project in Michigan, which was put on hold in December following concerns from community members. Hundreds of residents attended a planning commission meeting for the project Monday night, with many telling local media they were there to express opposition.

My kids also enjoyed Save the Bloogs, an obviously Lemmings-inspired platformer, where you use the pieces as ladders, bridges, and canons to guide the cute wee Bloogs away from impending death. Board Arcade is the only one that reuses pieces, with spaceships and robots adding physical controls to versions of classics like Snake and Asteroids.

Most of the games are marked as age 6 and up, and I’d expect young kids to love this. The dull digital pet Mushka is clearly aimed at wee ones. Sadly, a couple of the more interesting titles, international mystery Spycraft and strategy face-off Thrasos, are still marked as “coming soon.” The Tetris and Chess-inspired Strata is a bit more challenging and makes for a fun two- to six-player battle for territory. I also quite liked the sushi-themed Omakase, a head-to-head battle to build the best bento boxes.

The quality and depth of the launch titles vary, but they feel more like examples of what you could do with the tech than must-have games. It’s telling that the best of the bunch are clones. It will be interesting to see what third-party developers might come up with. While I applaud the lack of a subscription, it’s not yet clear how much the 10 new incoming titles will cost, when they will land, or how many more might follow. You’ll be able to download the titles digitally, and the physical component packs will be shipped.

Mixed Reception

I really like Board, but my teen kids (13 and 16) weren’t impressed. They both found Board’s games boring. Other family and friends had similarly mixed reactions. We play a lot of video games and board games, but I was the only one pushing Board over the holidays. It lacks that killer addictive hook that keeps you coming back for more. I suspect it would go down a lot better with younger kids (6 to 10).

Board is big, and I struggled to find a spot to store it. While it has survived mostly unscathed so far, I can’t help wondering about long-term durability, as the frantic nature of some games could lead some, especially younger kids, to be a bit rough with the screen. It has already sustained a faint scratch from a wayward cat claw, as one of my cats has the unfortunate habit of sitting on board games when we gather to play.