A major teachers’ union is calling for its members to skip Target when buying back-to-school supplies, the latest twist in a series of boycotts that have targeted the big-box retailer as its turnaround shows signs of life, CNBC has learned.

The AFT, or American Federation of Teachers, passed a resolution Thursday that calls on its 1.8 million members and others to shop at local stores and not at Target, saying the company did not respond adequately to the surge of federal immigration enforcement in the retailer’s hometown of Minneapolis this winter. Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the operation.

The labor union, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, plans to urge a similar resolution at AFL-CIO’s convention in Minneapolis this summer and at conventions held by other organizations, including the NAACP and LULAC, AFT President Randi Weingarten said.

Target declined to comment.

Target’s annual sales have declined for the past three years in a row, but the company’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke laid out an ambitious plan earlier this month to refresh its stores, add more enticing merchandise and return to sales growth. The retailer said it expects net sales to rise about 2% this fiscal year compared with the prior year and anticipates sales will grow every quarter.

It is unclear if and how much the AFT’s call for a back-to-school boycott could hurt Target, which is trying to win back customers. Earlier this month, Atlanta area pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant announced the end of a yearlong boycott of the company, called Target Fast, which had started because of the company’s rollback of major diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At a press conference, Bryant said Target has demonstrated its commitment to the Black community with investments in Black businesses and donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Yet other activists leading a separate boycott, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, have said they continue to call for shoppers to steer clear of Target.

The retailer has attributed some of its sales losses to backlash to its DEI decision, along with other factors including company missteps with merchandise, a weaker store experience and softer discretionary spending.

At an investor meeting in Minneapolis in early March, Fiddelke stressed that it’s “a new chapter for Target.” He said the company is “doing the work to build connection with new guests, deepen relationships with existing guests and earn back trust with guests we’ve disappointed.”

In a separate email to Target employees earlier this month, Fiddelke highlighted how the retailer is putting its strategy into action, including through its move to cut prices on more than 3,000 items and the opening of its 2,000th store. He said Target has made progress with winning back trust, too, noting the end of the Target Fast boycott.

He said Target has had “ongoing conversations with the organizers” of the boycott, who have “acknowledged the meaningful contributions Target has made, and will continue to make, to the Black community.”

In an interview with CNBC, Weingarten said the AFT’s boycott is focused on what she called Target’s lack of response to the surge of aggressive and violent immigration enforcement in its own backyard. Weingarten said the AFT sent a letter to Target and met with Target staff to encourage them to speak up before the union moved to pass the resolution.

“Target was negotiating with our colleagues in the civil rights community for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said. “They could have very easily dealt with both [concerns about DEI and immigration enforcement] and they chose not to.”

She said Target is “more worried about standing with the Trump administration than the communities that made them a profitable company.”

Fiddelke joined dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations in co-signing a letter in late January calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state after the fatal shooting of Pretti. However, the letter did not name the shooting victims Pretti or Good or call out the president, his immigration policies or federal agents.

Fiddelke also shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for ICE agents to leave the city or for accountability in the two shooting deaths.

Weingarten described the CEOs’ letter as “insulting” and said it “basically blamed both sides.”

She said the union, which includes many teachers, can have the greatest financial impact during the back-to-school shopping season this summer and fall. By passing the resolution now, she said, the AFT can get the word out to members and “give Target enough time to come back to its senses.”

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BuzzFeed has been grappling with a cash crunch as digital advertisers increasingly favor social media platforms such as TikTok and Meta Platforms’ Instagram.

Founded by Jonah Peretti and John Johnson in 2006, BuzzFeed built its audience through listicles before expanding into a newsroom to challenge stalwarts like the New York Times.

Founded in 2006, BuzzFeed built its audience through listicles. Co-founder Jonah Peretti, above, in 2021 when BuzzFeed went public. Getty Images for BuzzFeed Inc.

It went public via a blank-check merger in 2021 with an enterprise value of $1.5 billion. The stock has lost 98% of its value since then.

“The current market value of the company does not reflect the strength of our individual brands,” CEO Peretti said on a post-earnings call. “In other words, we believe the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole.”

BuzzFeed, with a market capitalization of $28.3 million, said it may lack sufficient cash to meet its financial obligations over the next 12 months. It ended 2025 with cash and cash equivalents of $8.5 million.

Though BuzzFeed was one of the defining brands of the social-media-driven digital publishing era, its “situation could be a sign that being well-known and getting a lot of clicks isn’t enough anymore,” said Emarketer analyst Grace Harmon.

BuzzFeed said it may lack sufficient cash to meet its financial obligations over the next 12 months. Above, the newsroom in 2014. REUTERS

While BuzzFeed has significantly reduced operating costs and real estate obligations, it still faces “legacy commitments that are burdening the business,” CFO Matt Omer said in a statement.

It offloaded a few assets in 2024 to enhance profitability, selling First We Feast, the creator of YouTube’s popular talk show “Hot Ones,” for $82.5 million. It divested publisher Complex to live-video shopping app NTWRK in an all-cash transaction valued at $108.6 million.

British media group the Independent took control of BuzzFeed’s UK and Ireland editorial and commercial operations in a multi-year licensing deal the same year.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, BuzzFeed reported revenue of $56.5 million, compared to $56.2 million in the same period last year.

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But who was the real winner in this takeover tussle of the century?

The epic, six-month tango between some of the largest players in media for the owner of the Warner Bros. studio, HBO Max streamer and CNN came to a suitably stunning finish late Thursday — although regular readers of this column probably weren’t too surprised.

Let’s start with Netflix and its co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the architect of the streaming giant’s thwarted bid to snare WBD. Until just days ago, he had remained the official frontrunner. Ted can best be described as both a winner and a loser.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos departs the White House on February 26, 2026 in Washington, DC. Getty Images

He’s a winner here for the simple reason that he walked away, albeit after lots of drama. That’s because Netflix didn’t need to do this deal. Shares of Netflix soared more than 10% after I posted on my X feed that Netflix was going to cave.

Deals like this aren’t how Netflix became one of the biggest and most successful media com panies ever created. It has grown organically. Yet Sarandos spent months cobbling together mountains of debt while inviting regulatory scrutiny. By dropping out, Sarandos can go back to building his business.

More From Charles Gasparino

Now here’s why Sarandos is a loser: He went there. Why this seasoned media mogul thought all this was a good deal for shareholders (he lost $200 billion in market value during negotiations) — and why he thought he had a shot with the Trump antitrust cops in combining the No. 1 and No. 3 streamers — is still a mystery.

It’s also still unclear if the feds have completely dropped their early Section 2 Sherman Act monopoly inquiry into Netflix’s already powerful size and its ability to squeeze consumers.

Then there’s David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.

He’s a clear winner. I’ve known Zas for years, when he toiled through the infrastructure of NBCUniversal, then decamped as CEO of Discovery Inc.

Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison arrives before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Feb. 24, 2026. AP

He got his big break running a bona fide media conglomerate in 2022 when AT&T spun out Warner Media and his mentor, the legendary John Malone, arranged a new company combining it with Discovery and making Zas its CEO. He got off to a rocky start, taking heat for cost cuts because of all the debt involved and for not delivering on results.

But slowly, Zas began to rebuild what is now Warner Bros. Discovery. In 2025, his company was poised for something big, but you wouldn’t know it from its stock price. Then magic happened: first, an unsolicited bid by Paramount Skydance at $19 a share when his stock was at around $12.

Then he went to work dangling WBD in front of a who’s who of media and tech companies. He got plenty of interest until there were just two, Netflix and Paramount Skydance.

Zas wanted at least $30 a share and people laughed. Last week, he got his number plus a buck as Paramount swooped in with a $31 a share, $80.5 billion offer.

David Zaslav attends “One Battle After Another” world premiere at the TCL Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California on September 8, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison is also a winner, and not just for pulling off the defining media deal of his generation. He also displayed the wisdom to put one of the best media dealmakers in the business, Gerry Cardinale, in charge of his pursuit of WBD.

Ellison is the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, who provided financial backing for the deal, so it’s tempting to write him off as a lucky sperm kid. I’m here to tell you he’s smart and insightful and knows what he doesn’t know. He started with a small indie film producer, saw the depressed values in media and snapped up Paramount, with its studio, low-ranked streamer and once-prominent CBS unit.

Now, Ellison sits on top of one of the biggest media companies in the world. He snared what looked like a white whale by playing the long game: lawsuits challenging WBD’s initial decision to sell to Netflix, hostile bids and plenty of acrimony. Yes, there’s lots of debt in this deal, and there will be cost-cutting. But as I see it Ellison really didn’t overpay at the end.

People thought he would use his dad’s money to win by throwing $34 a share at Zas but he stopped at $31. The reason: Cardinale, the best bidding-war banker in the business.

He also listened to his GC, Makan Delrahim, and pops and didn’t overpay. Cardinale & Co., saw the regulatory shoals faced by Netflix.

If Ellison is a winner, so is Cardinale and the people around him.

Elsewhere, another winner is PSKY’s reliably smart and accessible flack, Melissa Zukerman; another loser: Netflix board member and partisan Democrat Susan Rice, who irritated the White House with some dumb comments about President Trump at the worst possible time.

But if those are the latest scores, indications are that the hard part may be what comes next, as this new media giant, whatever it’s called, weighs painful cost cuts and rejiggering to stay competitive. Stay tuned for the next crop of winners and losers.

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Federal immigration agents detained the workers inside a Richfield, Minn., store on Jan. 8 after a confrontation that began in the parking lot and spilled into the vestibule, according to local officials and witness accounts.

One of the employees shouted, “I’m literally a US citizen!” as agents escorted him toward a vehicle, The Wall Street Journal noted.

Federal agents entered a St. Paul store — with Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino — without a warrant and detained two US citizens, on January 8, 2026. AP

The duo, Jonathan Aguilar Garcia and Christian Miranda Romano, were doing drive-up duty when they were stopped by agents led by a senior US Border Patrol commander, officials said.

Minnesota state Rep. Michael Howard said the agents entered the store without a warrant and physically detained the workers, while family members and witnesses alleged the incident amounted to racial profiling.

The Department of Homeland Security later said on social media that one individual had been arrested for “assaulting a federal law enforcement offers [sic],” which the defendants’ families and local officials denied.

Both employees were eventually released.

One was reportedly dropped off injured and crying at a nearby Walmart parking lot while the other was briefly taken to a detention center before being let go.

The Post has sought comment from Target, DHS, ICE and US Customs and Border Protection.

Garcia and Romano were not immediately available for comment.

Protests erupted outside the Richfield Target store days after the detentions, with demonstrators demanding the retailer take steps to protect workers and customers from federal immigration agents operating on its property.

US CBP agents are seen outside of a Target store in St. Paul, Minn., on Sunday. AP

Activists chanted, held signs and confronted store management during a Saturday demonstration that drew local residents and faith-based groups.

Organizers said they asked Target to train employees on how to respond to immigration agents, including informing them that access to private areas of stores requires a signed warrant.

Protesters also urged the company to publicly oppose immigration enforcement actions at its locations, arguing that Target’s silence had fueled anger in a community already on edge.

“It’s odd for them at this moment, when Minnesota is under sort of occupation, that they are silent,” said Ben Whalen, a former Richfield City Council member who helped organize the protest.

Video from Richfield, Minnesota shows BP agents detaining a teenager working at a Target store. The teen identified himself as a U.S. citizen and had a passport on him, even though U.S. citizens are not legally required to prove their citizenship to ICE.pic.twitter.com/0PGTD2o2RH

— WarMonitor (@TheWarMonitor) January 8, 2026

Whalen said the group met with the store’s manager to press for clearer policies and stronger protections for employees following the incident.

Federal immigration enforcement has surged across Minnesota in recent weeks, with ICE and Border Patrol agents conducting operations in residential neighborhoods, retail parking lots and inside big-box stores.

The activity intensified following a major federal deployment that has netted hundreds of illegal immigrants — including dozens accused of serious violent offenses — and rattled residents, according to officials.

Tensions exploded after the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, with the incident sparking days of protests and sharp political backlash.

Demonstrators flooded streets and gathered outside government buildings and federal targets, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other officials calling for ICE to leave the city as investigations into the shooting continue and public anger over the federal presence shows no sign of easing.

Graffiti reading “We’ll do it again, ICE out now!” is seen on the exterior wall of a Target store in Minneapolis on Jan. 11. AFP via Getty Images

In the early phase of the operation, agents arrested roughly 300 people in a two-day sweep in the Minneapolis area, according to federal officials, with at least 10 identified as accused killers or violent child sex offenders.

Federal immigration enforcement has played out at major retailers other than Target across Minnesota.

Immigration officials have detained people inside Walmart stores and in parking lots around the Twin Cities in recent days, according to local officials.

Bovino walks out of a Target store in St. Paul on Sunday. AP

Videos circulating online appear to show agents confronting individuals inside stores and using retail locations as staging areas while operations are underway.

Home Depot parking lots have similarly become frequent sites of enforcement activity, particularly because day laborers — many of them immigrants — have long gathered there seeking temporary construction work.

Activists have urged the company to intervene or discourage the raids, but Home Depot has said federal agents are permitted to operate in publicly accessible areas and that the company does not coordinate with ICE or CBP.

The Post has sought comment from Walmart and Home Depot.

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On Monday (January 12), WPT Global announced that Tony ‘Ren’ Lin had been appointed, writing on X: “Tony ‘Ren’ Lin joins WPT Global as our newest Ambassador! One of the most accomplished players on the global live circuit, Tony brings over $16 million in live earnings and years of success on poker’s biggest stages.”

NEW AMBASSADOR

Tony ‘Ren’ Lin joins WPT Global as our newest Ambassador!

One of the most accomplished players on the global live circuit, Tony brings over $16 million in live earnings and years of success on poker’s biggest stages.

Welcome, Tony! pic.twitter.com/QvD13HDKjL

— WPT Global (@wpt_global) January 12, 2026

However, the decision has been met with criticism on social media, as Lin has previously admitted to cheating, serving a suspension from poker in the second half of 2025. Lin was disqualified from the World Series of Poker Super Circuit Main Event in Cyprus last year for using prohibited real-time assistance (RTA), resulting in the player being “indefinitely suspended” from both GGPoker and WSOP events as a result.

Other World Poker Tour brands, including the parent brand, have distanced themselves from WPT Global in the wake of the announcement. ClubWPT Gold posted a picture of controversial alleged poker scammer Maurice Hawkins on X, joking that it had signed him as an ambassador too.

And while we’re at it… pic.twitter.com/TTDDQfbZjP

— ClubWPT Gold (@ClubWPTGold) January 12, 2026

The World Poker Tour took to X in a now-deleted post to say: “WPT Global is a licensee of the World Poker Tour. We do not officially endorse any of their ambassadors.” By Tuesday, Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin of the Chip Race podcast stepped down as ambassadors over the appointment.

WPT Global doubles down on hiring Tony “Ren” Lin as backlash spreads across poker’s social media. Credit: WPT Global / X

In a statement posted on X, the duo wrote: “In June 2025, we joined WPT Global as ambassadors, putting The Chip Race content slate under their sponsorship. We are enormously appreciative of the role that Cameron Soane played in putting that deal together. We saw WPT Global making waves in the poker space and, in particular, investing in the Irish market. We wanted to be a part of that and believed that our brands aligned, both in objectives and values.

“The signing of Ren Lin as a Global Ambassador came as a shock to us. Given our personally held and outspoken views on the scandal surrounding him, it was immediately obvious that our continued roles with the company were untenable. As a result, we are parting ways with WPT Global.”

ANNOUNCEMENT pic.twitter.com/zPqEdR8yyR

— The Chip Race (@thechiprace) January 13, 2026

WPT Global doubles down

WPT Global has doubled down on its choice of ambassador since then, writing in a now-deleted X post: “We’re thorough when reviewing every ambassador we work with, including Tony Lin, and we have full confidence in his integrity and standards. We select ambassadors based on proven performance and results, not follower counts.

“Players like @TheBradOwen & @rampagepoker are great at farming vlog watchers, but are they great poker players? While others may prioritise ‘influence. We stand apart.”

https://t.co/FQnDmnQ0Mt

— WPT Global (@wpt_global) January 12, 2026

In a second, longer statement also shared to X, WPT Global indirectly acknowledged the cheating scandal, writing: “WPT Global remains dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of integrity, security, and fairness in online poker. Our decision to collaborate with Tony is rooted in our belief in second chances and our focus on the future.”

Featured image: WPT Global

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