• Jatee Kearsley’s bakery, Je T’aime Patisserie, gained fame after a viral feature on Righteous Eats.
• Going viral changed the trajectory of her business but took a toll on her mental health.
• Kearsley says she wouldn’t want to go viral again, even though that may sound ungrateful.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jatee Kearsley, the owner and pastry chef of Je T’aime Patisserie, which offers a “Black girl twist” on French pastries in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In April 2024, I sat in my bakery with my Bible study group and told them I had $2,000 in my bank account and no idea how I was going to pay my employees the next day.

When I opened my bakery a year prior, I knew it would be hard. I had taken out loans. I had put in my own savings. I understood that small businesses require money for everything: rent, ingredients, payroll, insurance, and taxes.

Still, nothing prepares you for sitting in your own store and realizing you might not be able to cover payroll. Then, the day after meeting with my Bible study group, everything changed.

We were featured on Righteous Eats, a social media feed run by Jaeki Cho and Brian Lee that features New York City restaurants. The video went viral, and by the following weekend, my bank account looked completely different.

Going viral was a blessing. I will never pretend it wasn’t. It changed the trajectory of my business. However, I don’t think people talk enough about what going viral does to your mental health.

For me mentally, I don’t want to go viral again. That might sound ungrateful, but it’s honest.

Going viral didn’t make the work easier

On a normal day before going viral, my team and I of about four, were making, on average, 200 croissants a week. After we went viral, demand shot up to about 200 croissants every other day.

I specifically remember selling four chocolate croissants the day before going viral and then 30 the day of. We make all types of croissants from scratch: chocolate, almond, ham and cheese, blueberry cheesecake, and more.

We laminate the dough, hand-roll each one, proof them, bake them, and fill them. Going viral didn’t make our team any bigger, and I had to loop in friends, family, and volunteers to help fill orders and deliveries.

There were weekends when it was just me and one other person in the bakery at 6 a.m., trying to keep up.

Other days, I was filling 160 mini croissants for catering orders on top of regular production. I’ve even hand-rolled croissants on my day off because there was no one else to do it.

Going viral brought more customers, but it also brought higher expectations

People would leave reviews saying they waited hours, only to find we were sold out. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. So I slept on a bench in the bakery for a week straight after going viral to make sure I was keeping up with the demand that was needed during that time.

There’s also the emotional weight that comes with virality. When we went viral the first time, it was exciting. It also meant strangers had opinions about everything: my prices, my neighborhood, the fact that I accept Electronic Benefits Transfer.

I accept EBT because I know what underserved, overlooked communities of people are dealing with. And I never wanted there to be a moment where someone walked into Je T’aime Patisserie and wasn’t able to afford it.

I specifically wanted Je T’aime Patisserie to be in a neighborhood where people don’t have things. Historically, Bed-Stuy is an underserved, overlooked food desert.

So, it was super important for me to make sure that my food impacts the neighborhood by providing high-quality, fresh pastries. People thought that accepting EBT was going to ruin my business, but it actually helped.

Everything I have achieved with my shop is because I accept all types of people in my store, including EBT and SNAP holders.

It’s not about the money or going viral

I know this is Business Insider, and we’re supposed to talk about numbers. But if I’m being honest, this has never been about the money for me.

If this were just about money, I would make different decisions. I would raise my prices more aggressively. I would stop worrying about whether a single mom can afford a croissant. I would probably choose a different neighborhood.

But I opened in Bed-Stuy on purpose. People told me my bakery “belonged” in Manhattan. I disagreed. I wanted someone who has never tried a fresh croissant or a quiche to walk into my shop and feel like they deserve it.

Financially, EBT makes up a small percentage of my revenue. But the support and gratitude from those customers mean more to me than the dollar amount ever could.

If I could run this business without making money, I would. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic in New York City. You need money to survive. But my passion has always been about helping people and impacting my community.

Cross-progression refers to the ability to carry progress, saves, purchases, and unlocks across different platforms. It’s quickly become the most sought-after quality in modern gaming. Cross-play, the ability to play across different platforms, has been around for a while, but it didn’t allow players to carry all the progress they’ve made with them.

Gaming ecosystems are now much more sophisticated, and players want their game progression to reflect that as well. Major publishers have responded by making unified accounts and a cloud-based progression standard. However, several games still haven’t caught up.

Why Cross-Progression Has Become a Priority for Players

Gaming has changed as an industry and an art form. This is seen in the growing popularity of eSports. According to a BC.Game review, more players are wagering on eSports event outcomes and using crypto to do so. Experts from CryptoManiaks claim that crypto wagers are processed faster and can be made anonymously, unlike fiat wagers.

Gamers are also more likely to switch platforms, not just once every couple of years, but within a single gameplay session. Cross-progressions allow them to do so without restarting the game. Such an approach increases the lifetime spending on the game. Soon, the feature became a standard one, rather than a luxury.

Industry Leaders Setting the Standard

Some of the biggest games and companies in the industry have embraced cross-progression, and once they did, it became the standard. Fortnite set the benchmark early, allowing progress and purchases to move freely across console, PC, and mobile platforms. Call of Duty: Warzone and recent Modern Warfare titles followed along.

Destiny 2 and Genshin Impact were somewhat behind, but they introduced the option once the benefits were widely accepted. The move strengthens social play and competitive continuity and helps the brands retain player loyalty. Today, most live-service releases offer the option.

Major Titles That Still Lack Full Cross-Progression

Several major games still haven’t introduced cross-progression, even as the rest of the industry has. Some offer a limited version of it.

Grand Theft Auto Online is the most obvious example. Progress transfer was allowed when the consoles were updated, and the users could keep their progress when moving to a newer version of the same console, but that was the extent of the feature. It’s a game with a long life and a huge player base, but their frustration didn’t make the developers change their minds.
Apex Legends is another high-profile holdout. Players can play across different platforms, but that’s all. The developers have addressed the issue openly, saying they are aware of the demand and that the process is technically challenging, but it hasn’t gone much further than that.

Sports franchises such as EA Sports FC, NBA 2K, and Madden NFL present another major gap. Given the time and money the players invest in these games, such a poor user experience is surprising, and it doesn’t seem to be improving anytime soon.

Why Some Games Still Don’t Support Cross-Progression

There’s a mix of technical, platform, and business challenges that’s holding the progress down. Older titles have separate databases for separate platforms, making the change impossible or at least too expensive to try. Engine limitations and legacy architecture can further complicate synchronization across ecosystems.

Platform policies are another reason why cross-progression isn’t available. Each purchasing platform has its own revenue-sharing agreement, making it difficult to use an item purchased on another platform.

Finally, some games simply weren’t designed as long-term live services. The production companies would rather focus their resources on creating new titles than introducing such a complicated and expensive feature for older ones.

The Future: Will Cross-Progression Become Mandatory?

The industry is changing in ways that are very well suited to cross-progression. This includes the focus on cloud gaming, handheld PCs, and multi-device play. After a while, the feature will be the industry standard and basically mandatory for new games.
Most new multiplayer and live-service games now include cross-progression at launch. Many features were once seen as novel and luxurious and are now common and expected; the same could happen to cross-progression.

Cross-Progression and IoT: Converging Toward Unified Digital Experiences

Beyond gaming, cross-progression reflects a broader shift toward persistent digital identities and cloud-synchronized data—core principles also driving IoT ecosystems. As connected devices multiply, seamless data continuity, interoperability, and real-time synchronization across platforms are becoming essential to deliver consistent user and system experiences

To Sum Up

Cross-progression refers to carrying progress from one platform to another. These include items purchased within the game and the skills and unlocks that go with them. It’s already possible to play the same game on different platforms, but not all games allow cross-progression yet. Many big names in the industry did allow it, however, and it helps explain how modern fans are engaging with the games.

Some of the biggest games in the industry, like GTA, still don’t allow it, and it seems they won’t soon. However, many features that were once luxuries are now commonplace, and it could happen with cross-progression too.

The post Cross-Progression Becomes the New Standard: Which Games Still Don’t Support It? appeared first on IoT Business News.

Jatee Kearsley built Je T’aime Patisserie in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with a mission to make high-quality French desserts accessible to everyone, including customers who pay with EBT.

A self-taught pastry chef who learned from YouTube and years of industry work, Kearsley went from losing money to tripling her sales after going viral. Despite the high ingredient costs, steep New York City rent, intense pressure, and emotional burnout, Kearsley has been dedicated to prioritizing community over profits.

• Parent PLUS student-loan borrowers should consolidate their loans by April 1.
• Missing that deadline puts them at risk of losing access to income-driven repayment plans.
• Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation places new limits on parent PLUS borrowers beginning July 1.

Parent student-loan borrowers have to act quickly to keep their affordable monthly payments.

President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation made sweeping changes to student-loan repayment, and loans that parents take out for their kids, known as parent PLUS, are facing a key deadline.

Currently, parents can take out loans equal to the full cost of attendance. Beginning July 1, 2026, parent PLUS borrowers will face a $20,000 annual cap and a $65,000 lifetime cap on borrowing per student. Also, loans issued after July 1 will not be eligible for income-driven repayment plans, which aim to give borrowers affordable payments based on income and offer loan forgiveness in 20 to 25 years.

This means that parent PLUS borrowers who are not on an income-driven repayment plan need to consolidate their loans into a federal direct loan before July 1 to retain access to affordable payments. The Department of Education recommends that borrowers seeking to consolidate do so “at least three months” before July 1 — that is, before April 1 — to account for any processing delays.

Once the consolidation is approved, borrowers have until July 1, 2028, to enroll in an IDR plan. After that date, existing income-driven repayment plans will be phased out and replaced with two options: a standard repayment plan, which offers fixed monthly payments for a period up to 25 years, or a new Repayment Assistance Plan, which sets payments based on income with forgiveness after 30 years.

RAP has less generous terms than existing repayment plans, and borrowers are likely to face higher monthly payments.

Parent PLUS borrowers who do not consolidate before July 1 will lose access to income-driven repayment plans, as will those who initiate a new loan after that date.

Alongside the parent PLUS changes, the Department of Education is eliminating the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their advanced degrees. Policy experts and lawmakers previously told Business Insider that the new borrowing caps could drive more parents and students to private lending, which could have riskier terms and higher interest rates.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Education decreased oversight over federal student-loan servicers, putting borrowers at risk of billing errors as the repayment changes are implemented. Additionally, the department recently announced that it will be transferring part of the federal student-loan portfolio to the Treasury, which advocates and Democratic lawmakers said opens the door for transfer errors.

Have a story to share about student loans? Reach out to this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• Search interest in CLEAR is spiking as airport security lines stretch for hours.
• CLEAR lets travelers bypass the standard TSA ID check at around 60 airports.
• Houston’s George Bush Airport — one of the hardest hit by long lines — shut down CLEAR for Monday.

Air travelers across the US are facing hourslong security lines — and many are looking to a $209-a-year service to skip them.

CLEAR, a biometric identity service that lets travelers bypass the standard TSA ID check at around 60 airports, is seeing a surge in interest as airport delays worsen nationwide.

Under normal conditions, CLEAR uses fingerprint or eye scans to verify a traveler’s identity and move them to the front of the ID-check portion of the TSA line.

These aren’t normal conditions.

A partial government shutdown has disrupted funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration. The lapse has left TSA officers unpaid, resulting in significant staffing shortages. Hundreds of security agents quit after their employer missed a mid-March payment.

For several days, travelers have reported waits stretching for hours, with lines spilling beyond security checkpoints and into terminal parking areas.

As wait times grow, travelers are reaching for digital tools that promise to make flying easier — even if those tools aren’t functioning normally.

Earlier this month, the app MyTSA — which provides checkpoint wait times and airport updates — saw what analytics firm Appfigures Intelligence described as a “genuine sudden surge” in downloads. Appfigures told Business Insider that the app was downloaded about 740,000 times over nine days, more than it typically sees in a full year.

MyTSA’s usefulness has been limited. Last week, a notice in the app warned that, due to the lapse in federal funding, it was not being actively managed.

CLEAR appears to be another possible workaround gaining traction.

Search interest in CLEAR has hit a multi-decade high, according to Google Trends, and app analytics firm Appfigures said it is tracking a spike in downloads.

One complication for hopeful travelers: CLEAR isn’t always available.

Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport — one of the airports hardest hit by long lines — said on X that its CLEAR lanes would not be operating on Monday.

In an emailed statement to Business Insider, CLEAR acknowledged that conditions are changing rapidly.

“CLEAR remains open and ready to serve our Members,” a spokesperson said. “Though due to circumstances beyond our control, airport conditions are changing rapidly and may affect service at some of our locations.”

The company added that travelers should check with their local airport for updates and thanked Transportation Security Officers for their work.

TSA and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• President Donald Trump instructed his border czar to deploy ICE agents to US airports.
• Airport security lines have stretched for three hours in some places as unpaid TSA agents call out.
• Trump said ICE agents are able to arrest foreigners at the airports.

Air travel just got even more chaotic.

After weeks of airport security lines spilling into sidewalks and parking garages — as unpaid TSA officers call out en masse during the partial government shutdown — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been sent to airports nationwide to help manage the crowds.

President Donald Trump first threatened the action in a Saturday TruthSocial post after Congress, for the fifth time, failed to reach a deal on Friday to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

“I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before,” Trump wrote. He instructed his border czar, Tom Homan, to lead the effort.

In a statement shared with Business Insider, DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said the agency is not releasing an official list of airports with ICE agents: “For operational security reasons, we are not going to confirm the locations of our officers.”

Some have been revealed.

Reuters and ABC News have reported that ICE agents — who, unlike TSA agents, are still being paid during the shutdown — are stationed at the following US airports as of Monday, citing social media posts and officials.

• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
• Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD)
• Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
• Houston Hobby Airport (HOU)
• Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
• Fort Myers’ Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW)
• Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
• San Juan’s Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU)
• New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
• New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
• New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
• Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

Several X posts show ICE agents standing at TSA checkpoints and talking to passengers on Monday. They are identifiable by their green and beige uniforms with a “Police ICE” patch. Trump said in a Monday TruthSocial post that he wanted ICE agents to be maskless at airports — they have routinely worn masks and uniforms lacking nametags during immigration raids.

However, few details were given about what these ICE agents — who are trained in law enforcement, not airport security — would actually be doing to help.

TSA agents receive months of specialized training to detect contraband that ICE agents wouldn’t have had time for in the seemingly few days it took Trump’s plan to come together.

Homan said during CNN’s “State of the Union” broadcast on Sunday that ICE duties would be more about crowd control and covering the exits than looking at X-ray machines — but he did not say they would stop conducting their regular immigration enforcement at airports.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that ICE agents at airports are “able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory.”

Some industry analysts say their presence — especially as people increasingly disapprove of ICE — could make things worse.

ICE is not trained in airport security

ICE and TSA are both part of DHS, but their roles are very different: ICE is armed law enforcement with arrest powers; TSA agents are unarmed screeners who interact with the public but have no police authority.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, warned in a Sunday statement that ICE agents “cannot improvise” airport security.

“TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints — skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification,” he wrote. “Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”

Homan provided some clarifications to CNN. He said ICE agents are “well-trained” in security and identification and are already present at some airports for certain investigations, such as smuggling.

But he said that they would not conduct screenings; instead, they would handle support roles, such as managing passenger flow, covering exits, and assisting with crowd control. TSA lines at airports in Houston and New York have stretched as long as three hours; some airports, like Atlanta, have stopped reporting wait times altogether.

“Stuff like that relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines,” Homan said. “I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because they’re not trained in that; there are certain parts of security that TSA’s doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs and help them move those lines.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that ICE agents operate similar screening machines for people and packages at the Mexican border — suggesting they have the proper security training and could help agents in those areas — but said just managing the flow of people is helpful.

Helpful or not, their presence could still be intimidating.

Cathy Creighton, the director of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab, said in a statement shared with Business Insider that ICE agents have been “acting aggressively in public situations” and may not provide the “softness” and “de-escalation” needed in the confined TSA areas.

“Additionally, the public perception of ICE is poor,” she said. “Multiple public polling has found that public support for ICE has declined markedly.”

Roughly 56% of Americans expressed little to no confidence in ICE in a poll by The Economist/YouGov conducted from February 27 to March 2.

Federal officers on Sunday detained a passenger at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in an “isolated incident” that the airport was not involved in, an airport spokesperson told Business Insider.

SFO is one of 20 airports across the US that use officers employed by private security companies instead of the TSA —meaning they are paid during the shutdown thanks to pre-funded contracts. SFO said lines have been short.

ICE agents are still being paid

ICE’s presence at airports comes as more than 400 TSA officers have left the agency since DHS funding lapsed and their pay was paused on February 14.

Frontline TSA agents average $60,000 to $75,000 a year, but often live paycheck to paycheck. The ICE agents now stationed alongside them are still being paid, as DHS has funding that continues to cover certain law enforcement roles even during the shutdown.

TSA agents will not get paid again until Congress reaches a deal to fund DHS. Republicans have blamed Democrats for the shutdown, while Democrats say they will not approve a deal without reforms to ICE, including requiring agents to show their faces and wear body cameras.