Best Buy Co. is going to test special sections in its stores dedicated to home retailer Ikea, as the Richfield-based electronics chain tries to boost consumer spending by showcasing its products in domestic settings.

The initiative will begin in the fall with 1,000-square-foot areas debuting in 10 stores in Florida and Texas, the companies said Thursday.

The pilot aims to make it easier for customers to integrate Best Buy appliances into Ikea-designed kitchens and laundry rooms. The departments will also mark the first time that the Swedish company offers services and products at another U.S. retailer.

The partnership came about by meshing “two great brands in very complimentary spaces,” said Best Buy Chief Merchandising Officer Patrick McGinnis in an interview. “There’s a lot of relevance that we have with our appliance business.”

The companies declined to comment on the financial agreements of the partnership.

Best Buy’s sales have declined the last three years after a spending surge on electronics during the pandemic inflated results. Now the chain is looking for other categories for growth, made even more crucial after a push into health care has disappointed so far.

The retailer already offers kitchen design services in some stores and online. McGinnis said that the collaboration with Ikea “fits quite naturally.”

Ikea is also trying to revive sales after the privately held retailer posted a 4% drop in currency-adjusted revenue in its most recent fiscal year. To lure more shoppers, it has cut prices and invested in its online capabilities. Getting into Best Buy locations may help introduce the brand to new customers.

“We’ve been listening to our consumer and seeing the opportunity to be more convenient and accessible for them,” Rob Olson, Ikea’s chief operating officer in the U.S., said in an interview.

Ikea employees will staff these departments, and Best Buy workers will be present to advise on appliances and electronics.

The companies are also testing using Best Buy stores as pickup locations for Ikea orders. Ikea only has about 50 locations in the U.S., while the electronics chain has roughly 900 stores in America under the Best Buy banner.

At least three candidates have now entered the race for the Woodbury-area Senate seat left vacant by the resignation of Nicole Mitchell last week after her felony burglary conviction.

Republican Dwight Dorau on Wednesday announced his intention to run in Senate District 47 in an upcoming special election. He’d be the first Republican in the race.

Dwight Dorau. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger and Rep. Ethan Cha, both Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers from Woodbury, also plan to run.

The outcome of the special election could tip the balance of power in the Senate, where the DFL has a one-seat majority. Woodbury has favored DFL candidates in recent elections.

Rep. Ethan Cha, DFL-Woodbury. (Minnesota House Information Services)

Mitchell, a DFLer, won election to the Senate with nearly 59% of the vote in 2022. Hemmingsen-Jaeger won District 47A with more than 60% of the vote in 2024 and 2022.

Dorau, a retired Air Force Commander, ran against Cha in the 2024 election for House District 47B and lost by nearly 9 percentage points.

The special election for District 47 is scheduled for Nov. 4. If necessary, there will be a special primary election on Aug. 26.

Candidates could start filing paperwork to run on Wednesday this week and have until Aug. 6, to submit affidavits of candidacy.

Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger (Courtesy of the candidate)

District 47 is a Washington County seat that includes the suburbs of Woodbury and parts of Maplewood.

There are two upcoming special elections in Minnesota. The other is planned in District 26 following the death of Sen. Bruce Anderson, R-Buffalo. That district is seen as a Republican stronghold.

With the two vacancies, DFLers currently hold 33 seats in the Senate to Republicans’ 32.

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“The New York Senate should utilize a special session to pass other legislation tamping down on policies and practices that are or could be used by ICE — such as the emerging threat of biometric surveillance technology in schools.”

A NYC Council rally in 2018, calling for ICE agents to be ejected from courthouses. (John McCarten/NYC Council)

President Donald Trump’s revocation of a directive barring ICE agents from raiding and surrounding sensitive spaces, like K-12 schools, is paralyzing New York communities with fear– chilling students’ attendance, preventing parents from meeting their kids in the pick-up line, and making deportation a regular occupational hazard for essential staff. It has been a disaster not only for our community health, but also for basic educational pedagogy.  

In response, New Yorkers are mobilizing to protect access to safe public education and keep ICE out of schools, coaching students and educators on how to refuse entry to ICE officers. And nationwide, some education advocates are responding to ICE on campus like active shooter lockdowns.

But these community protections can be easily bypassed or squashed. In the news and in our streets, we’ve seen the National Guard intervene to enforce deportations, and we’ve seen state and local law enforcement agencies, like the NYPD, collaborate with ICE.

Right now, New York lawmakers and advocates are taking action against these threats. New York State Senators Jabari Brisport and Julia Salazar have called on the New York State Legislature to reconvene in a special session to pass the New York for All Act—a crucial piece of legislation that would significantly limit collaboration between state and local law enforcement and ICE officials.

But the buck should not stop here. The New York Senate should utilize a special session to pass other legislation tamping down on policies and practices that are or could be used by ICE—such as the emerging threat of biometric surveillance technology in schools. This dystopian technology can become a digital backdoor for ICE agents to raid our schools’ hallways, cafeterias, and classrooms.

Many public and private schools across the country are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars to slimy tech vendors selling AI powered software that processes footage captured by school surveillance cameras and collects the biometric features and movements of students, staff members, and visitors without their consent. 

Biometric systems won’t make schools safer. Instead, these technologies turn schools into data collection farms that may function as a backdoor for federal immigration enforcement. Biometric surveillance systems, including facial recognition technology (FRT), expose students—especially Black, Brown, and immigrant youth—to increased risk of law enforcement and ICE encounters.

These systems are prone to algorithmic bias, frequently misidentifying students of color and triggering unnecessary interactions with school security or police. Once a student is flagged by the tech, their personal information can be logged into law enforcement databases—without that student’s consent. From there, fusion centers may share these permanent digital records across agencies, including ICE. ICE can then use that information to pursue dubious warrants and gain access to school grounds, where they may detain students who were never even flagged by the system.

Like the NYPD, school resource officers and administrators may even utilize biometric surveillance in cooperation with ICE—allowing ICE to feed images of individuals they are seeking to deport into the school’s FRT database. Imagine being a non-citizen parent of an American student and not knowing whether coming to your child’s parent-teacher conference will result in your deportation and permanent separation from your child, whether because you attended a protest and became a target of the federal administration, or simply because the facial recognition algorithm misidentified you as a target. How are you supposed to support your child’s education? 

The NY For All Act would regulate school resource and NYPD officers’ disclosure of immigration status to ICE; however, it cannot account for the disclosure of status through data breaches. Schools that adopt biometric surveillance systems often outsource the storage of sensitive data—like students’ facial scans and fingerprints—to private vendors, creating serious and long-term cybersecurity risks.

Even when these vendors technically comply with student data privacy laws, they remain prime targets for data breaches. In one major breach in 2019, hackers accessed Suprema’s BioStar 2 platform and exposed 27.8 million records, including fingerprints and facial recognition data. Unlike a password, biometric information can’t be changed once it’s stolen—meaning that a child’s digital identity can be compromised for life.

These stolen biometrics are frequently sold to shady third-party data brokers and can end up in sprawling databases used by law enforcement, including ICE. Thus, when schools install these vulnerable technologies, they don’t just jeopardize student privacy; they potentially expose children to lifelong surveillance, law enforcement scrutiny, and immigration enforcement far beyond the classroom.

Currently, New York schools are allowed to use most forms of biometric surveillance on students, parents, and other visitors. While facial recognition is currently forbidden by a regulation, a new education commissioner could reinstate facial recognition in schools overnight.

If a special session is called, lawmakers could have the chance to demonstrate their commitment to fostering inclusive, safe educational environments and keep our schools free of dystopian surveillance tech that disproportionately harms vulnerable populations. A bill currently advancing through New York’s Assembly and Senate would not only secure the existing regulatory ban on FRT in schools, it would also expand the ban to other types of biometric surveillance tech currently installed in several New York schools.

In addition to passing the NY For All Act, this is a critical step towards safeguarding educational access for all students, regardless of immigration status. And with Trump-allied politicians like New York Mayor Eric Adams touting anti-immigration policies and swelling citywide spending on surveillance tech, it is our moral imperative as New Yorkers to push our state’s leaders to swiftly pass these and other bills dismantling ICE’s enforcement capabilities.

Sarah Roth is a legal intern at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) and rising 2L at Northeastern University School of Law.

The post Opinion: Albany Can’t Wait Until January To Fight Trump and ICE appeared first on City Limits.

New York is among 20 states suing the Trump administration over the request, which advocates say will have a “chilling effect” on SNAP participation among eligible people in need. The mayor’s office said it’s reviewing its options, and said the mandate “will only worsen food insecurity in our city.”  

Baby formula on display inside a Key Food Supermarket on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

New York officials and anti-hunger advocates condemned the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) request for states to share the personal information of food stamp recipients, and City Hall said it’s reviewing its options around the mandate, the deadline for which passed earlier this week.

In May, the USDA asked states to hand over data—such as names, dates of birth, personal addresses, and Social Security numbers—for all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients over the last five years by 30 July, or else risk losing federal funding.

Citing President Donald Trump’s March Executive Order, the USDA said the data will help it combat waste, fraud, and abuse.

SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, can be used to buy food and groceries at authorized retail stores. About 2.9 million low-income New Yorkers are currently enrolled in the program, or about 14 percent of the state’s population. Nearly a third are children. 

On July 23, USDA broadened the scope of requested information to include immigration status and information about household members. Although immigrants without legal status are ineligible for the program, mixed-status families may include children who are U.S. citizens and therefore qualify for the benefits.

Earlier this week, 20 state attorneys general—including New York’s—joined together to challenge the Trump administration’s demand in a lawsuit.

But according to the New York Attorney General’s Office, Wednesday’s deadline remained in place despite the legal action, so states and social service districts may still respond.

While SNAP is funded by the federal government, in New York, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) is in charge of managing and distributing the benefits at the state level. In New York City, the Human Resource Administration (HRA), which is part of the New York City Department of Social Services, oversees the program locally.

City Hall did not respond to questions about whether it would comply with the rule, but condemned it. “We’re reviewing our options,” a City Hall spokesman said. 

“Requiring states to provide private and sensitive information on SNAP applications to the federal government is unlawful and will discourage New Yorkers from applying for these essential services, and withdrawing federal funding for not complying with this mandate will only worsen food insecurity in our city,” the spokesperson added. “We urge the federal government to reverse this decision.”

At the state level, OTDA also did not provide details on how it would respond, stating that “OTDA does not comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesperson said via email. A USDA spokesperson also declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit. 

On July 23, OTDA’s Commissioner Barbara Guinn submitted a comment formally requesting that the USDA withdraw the proposed notice, alleging legal, operational, and ethical concerns with the creation and use of the USDA’s proposed National SNAP Information Database.

“Disclosure to such persons in violation of the privacy safeguards is inappropriate and unauthorized and does not serve any purpose related to the effective administration of the SNAP program,” Guinn wrote.

Food insecurity in New York grew to 4.7 percent of households from 2021 to 2023, while SNAP reliance has steadily increased after the pandemic, reaching 1.75 million households across the state in March 2025. 

Children account for 30 percent of New York’s SNAP enrollees; elderly individuals make up 21 percent and non-elderly disabled residents comprise 10 percent.

“We are deeply concerned about the data request, including its potential chilling effect on SNAP participation,” said Krista Hesdorfer, director of public affairs at Hunger Solutions New York, a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating hunger, which also assists eligible New Yorkers in accessing SNAP.

Advocates told City Limits that this request adds to the fear and chaos already being felt among immigrant communities as the Trump administration ramps up deportation efforts, including arrests of people showing up for mandated immigration court hearings, many of whom have no criminal history.

The policy will only lead to more reluctance to enroll in the SNAP program, even if people are eligible, advocates said.

“If you can find me one undocumented immigrant who somehow faked the paperwork to get SNAP, I can find you 10,000 out of thousands of documented, legal immigrants who are not applying for SNAP,” said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America.

USDA argues the information-sharing request is meant to get rid of “data silos” to stop waste, fraud, and abuse of federal funds.

The Trump administration has been working on several paths to gather as much immigration-related information on people as possible, including creating a data-sharing system between ICE and the IRS, using Medicaid databases, and signing agreements between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Homeland Security.

“People are more afraid than ever to apply for the benefits to which they’re legally eligible,” Berg said. “People are even afraid to go to charitable soup kitchens and food pantries. There’s some people who are afraid to shop. They’re getting friends to shop for them. They’re literally putting themselves under essentially self-house arrest.”

While the USDA data request doesn’t mention immigration enforcement, hunger relief and immigrant advocates said the main goal is to help authorities find people who could be deported.

“As one of six children raised by a single mother who worked three jobs to put food on the table, Mayor Adams understands the importance of ensuring that families never have to go hungry,” a City Hall spokesman said.

“SNAP helps thousands of New Yorkers put food on their tables, and we are dedicated to ensuring everyone who needs these benefits can feel comfortable accessing them, regardless of their immigration status.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post Trump’s Demand for Food Stamp Participants’ Data Will Scare People From Needed Benefits, Officials & Advocates Say appeared first on City Limits.