Target Corp. is eliminating about 8% of corporate roles in its first major restructuring in years, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg News, a move to cut costs and reduce complexity.

The Minneapolis-based company is cutting 1,800 roles across various teams and seniority levels, according to the memo. This will include 1,000 layoffs and the company will close out 800 open roles.

Target has been struggling to get out of a rut driven by soft demand and inventory missteps. The retailer has also been the subject of public backlash after it stepped away from DEI policies.

“The complexity we’ve created over time has been holding us back,” Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke said in the memo. “Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life.”

Fiddelke will take over the top role in February.

The memo instructed all U.S. employees at headquarters to work from home next week.

Related Articles

Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is out now and breaking records. Here’s what to know

Target debuts thousands of holiday gifts, plus weekly sales and faster delivery

Target steps up next-day parcel delivery as discounter tries to narrow gap with rivals

Target insider Michael Fiddelke named CEO

 

“This has only weakened our local communities and economy by disrupting our neighborhoods and their small business partners. All for politics. We don’t need any more of this disruption,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said at City Hall Thursday.

City Council members held a press conference Thursday denouncing ICE’s raid in lower Manhattan earlier this week. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

On Thursday morning, 11 City Council members and religious leaders rallied to condemn U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) use of military-style tactics to arrest street vendors in Chinatown.

“We began in unison to send a clear message to the Trump administration: hands off. Stop threatening our public safety and our economy,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said during a press conference in City Hall’s rotunda.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said 14 people were arrested in Tuesday’s sweep in Lower Manhattan, in which ICE agents—and an armored vehicle—descended upon a group of vendors selling bags and other goods on the sidewalk. Nine of those arrested were migrant men, while the others were demonstrators.

New Yorkers reacted immediately to the operation by taking to the streets, staging protests Tuesday night and the following day. Public condemnation from local leaders also hasn’t stopped, and the state’s Attorney General Letitia James asked New Yorkers to send photos or videos of Tuesday’s raid for her office to review, in order to assess whether any laws were broken.

The incident follows months of federal arrests at the city’s main immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, and after the Trump administration sent National Guard troops into several other major cities this fall, including Chicago and Los Angeles.

During a Fox News interview Wednesday, ICE Director Todd Lyons warned that he plans to increase the number of arrests carried out in the city. Federal authorities called the Canal Street sweep an “intelligence-driven” operation, focused on the alleged sale of counterfeit goods in the tourist-heavy area.

But local advocates say it was a racially profiled operation against African migrants. The Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group, said that at least five street vendors were arrested on Tuesday. 

The sweep occurred just days after right-wing influencer Savanah Hernandez visited and posted a video of herself on Canal Street, tagging ICE’s account. “Hopefully ICE makes a trip over that way and starts mass deporting the illegals breaking the law,” she replied to a comment on social media site X. 

Canal Street has long been a hot spot for vending and a tourist location for shoppers of discounted imitation items. Since Mayor Eric Adams took office, the NYPD has ramped up enforcement against street vendors around the city, as City Limits previously reported. 

Referring to the arrests of vendors in the area, Speaker Adams said that these actions do not make the city safer. “In fact, it makes us all less safe. Trump’s ICE has repeatedly violated constitutional rights, unlawfully disappearing members of our communities and separating families,” she said. 

“This has only weakened our local communities and economy by disrupting our neighborhoods and their small business partners. All for politics. We don’t need any more of this disruption,” she added.

A few weeks before the incident, city lawmakers drafted legislation to update existing sanctuary city laws that have been in place for decades.

Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán introduced a bill that would make ICE’s exclusion from Rikers Island law, after Mayor Eric Adams’ administration sought to allow the federal immigration agency back at the island jail complex. The City Council ultimately stopped the move by suing and winning in court. Additionally, Cabán wants to expand the number of federal agencies with which municipal agencies cannot share information.

Tuesday’s operation in Chinatown included multiple federal agencies, including ICE, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

City Council Immigration Committee Chair Alexa Avilés said that it was unlikely that these reforms would pass this year, as the Council expects Mayor Adams to veto them. Therefore, it would be up to the next mayor to deal with them.

Curtis Sliwa, Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani. (City Limits, Flickr/Andrew Cuomo)

Mayoral candidates weigh in

The final debate with the three candidates for mayor, which aired Wednesday night, began with questions about Tuesday’s sweep on Canal Street. Each candidate criticized the deployment of federal agents in their own way.

Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor running as an Independent after losing the Democratic primary, said that the city doesn’t “need ICE to do quality of life crimes. We don’t need them to worry about illegal vendors. That’s a basic policing function for NYPD.”

Zohran Mamdani, Democratic candidate and front-runner in the race, criticized the Adams administration and called for an “end [to] the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government,” He also urged the Council to pass street vending reform bills aimed at protecting sellers from criminal enforcement.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, said that federal agents shouldn’t have stepped in, saying that “this is a matter that should have been left up to the NYPD.”

On Thursday, Avilés acknowledged that the city is limited in its ability to stop unexpected ICE raids, but said the state could step up and offer more protection.

State Sen. Andrew Gounardes recently introduced a bill to stop other states from sending their National Guard troops into New York without local permission. He said officials need to be “as creative as possible and do anything we can to protect ourselves in this moment.”

Gounardes said he’s frustrated and disappointed that state legislators have yet to pass the “New York for All” bill, which would limit cooperation between state and local government agencies and ICE. 

Outside the five boroughs, the number of local law enforcement agencies across the state that have struck partnerships with federal immigration officials has multiplied this year, as City Limits previously reported.

“I just think it’s only going to get worse. What we saw happen on Canal Street is just the beginning,” Gounardes said. “And so we need to be doing everything, I mean, everything we can to really protect New Yorkers and fight back.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org. Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘Hands Off’: City Lawmakers Push Back Against Federal Agents in NYC appeared first on City Limits.

An Eagan man faces up to 30 years in prison for sneaking into a woman’s first-floor apartment and physically and sexually assaulting her.

Ricardo Roberto Mahkwah Diaz, 27, of Eagan, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Dakota County District Court to one count of first-degree criminal conduct in connection with the September 2023 attack. Two other counts will be dismissed at sentencing as part of plea agreement with the prosecution.

Ricardo Roberto Mahkwah Diaz (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

A 34-year-old Eagan woman told police at a hospital that a man she didn’t know came into her bedroom and hit her head with a handgun and raped her, according to a police report and the criminal complaint. Diaz was arrested after police found him sleeping in her bed.

Prosecutors will seek a 30-year prison term based on the aggravated factor that the offense was committed at her home, where she had an expectation of privacy, the plea document said. The defense can ask for a term no less than 12 years.

Diaz remains jailed ahead of sentencing, which is scheduled for Feb. 5 before Judge Tanya O’Brien.

Minnesota court records show Diaz was civilly committed as mentally ill in January 2020, August 2021, July 2022 and June 2024. He was found to be mentally competent in November and entered his guilty plea a day before jury selection in a scheduled trial.

According to the police report and criminal complaint:

Eagan police were dispatched to Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville around 6:15 a.m. Sept. 23, 2023, on a report of a sexual assault that occurred that morning. The woman had cuts and abrasions on her face and head and appeared to be in shock.

She told an officer she was watching videos and trying to fall asleep when a man, who police later identified as Diaz, came into her bedroom between 3:40 and 4 a.m. She asked him who he was and told him to get out.

Diaz said he was going to sexually assault her, then jumped on top of her. She struggled to get him off, but he pulled out a handgun and struck her repeatedly on the side of her head, hitting her harder after she began to scream.

The officer saw cuts on her hand and a possible broken finger “from using her hands to protect her head,” the complaint said. “(She) also had a bite mark on her neck.”

She said she continued to struggle with the attacker, who put all of his weight on her. He became angry when she turned away from looking at him while he sexually assaulted her, she told police.

She said she was afraid he was going to kill her “as he never attempted to hide his identity,” the complaint said. She told him to leave, but he refused. She was able to escape the apartment and drive to the hospital.

Related Articles

Investigators drop $10M fine against Wells Fargo exec of Lake Elmo

2 plead guilty to Medicaid fraud through St. Paul treatment center

Ross Douthat: Amy Coney Barrett is looking beyond the Trump era

St. Paul man accused of sexually assaulting girl, 13, he met on dating app

Former Minnesota Teacher of the Year gets 14-year prison term for sexually assaulting student

Diaz was arrested around 7:30 a.m. when officers went to the woman’s apartment located west of Cedar Avenue and north of Cliff Road and found him sleeping in her bed. His hands were covered in blood, and he had no cuts or other injuries.

Officers recovered a handgun in the apartment that had been reported stolen this year in Robbinsdale.

Later, while at the police department, he declined to give a statement, but without prompting said, “I (expletive) up,” according to the complaint.

Police said they found no signs of forced entry to the home and they believed Diaz went through an unlocked patio door.

Most sexual assaults are committed by someone known to a victim; about 31 percent are perpetrated by a stranger, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).

By ANDREW DALTON

The indictments announced Thursday of a poker cheating ring involving NBA figures and backed by the mafia emphasized their alleged high-tech cheating methods. But the con tactics they described are as old as poker itself, familiar from heist movies and James Bond films.

Related Articles

Loons sign Joaquin Pereyra to contract extension

Aaron Jones activated from IR. What does his return mean for the Vikings?

Shipley: Sports and gambling, strange and terrible bedfellows

Marcus Foligno leading Wild with mix of fists and fun

Annunciation ties unite Gophers, community in grief and hope

Shady shuffles came not from quick-handed card sharks, but tricked-out machines. Instead of mirrors or guys in the corner peeking over shoulders, there were X-ray tables and high-tech contact lenses. Low-tech signals between players and old-fashioned beatings for debtors allegedly were used too.

Here’s a look at how the alleged fraudsters rigged the games, according to an unsealed indictment and the announcement from federal officials.

The poker

The underground games were illegal by their very existence, and operated by mafia families. So the indictments go out of their way to emphasize that these were extra illegal — as opposed to “straight” illegal games where at least the poker itself is legit. Texas Hold ’em was the poker they played, like most games these days. It involves very few cards — just five face-down public cards and two for each player. That potentially simplifies the scamming.

The victims and the ‘face cards’

Rich targets known as “fish” were brought in by the allure of playing for high stakes in posh secret spots in Manhattan with names like “The Lexington Avenue Game,” the indictment said. They were also attracted by the prospect of playing with pro athletes and coaches, including Portland Trail Blazers coach and Hall-of-Fame NBA player Chauncey Billups, who is expected to make his initial court appearance later Thursday. The operators called these “face cards.”

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups watches from the sideline during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games tied to La Cosa Nostra organized crime families that cheated unsuspecting gamblers out of at least $7 million. Also charged was former NBA assistant coach and player Damon Jones.

Authorities gave no hints about the identity of the victims other than to say they were usually wealthy people who lost tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cheaters.

The “face cards” and everyone else at the table who was not a target was in on the scam.

The cheating tactics

The shuffling machine did most of the work. Using machines is common, but the advanced tech on these ones could determine the exact order of cards after a shuffle, and who was holding what once they were dealt. That information was transmitted wirelessly to someone off-site, who would send the identity of the player with the winning hand to the phone of a player at the table, known as “the quarterback.”

Then it got low-tech. The “quarterback” would use classic subtle signals like touching certain chips to pass the information to the fellow cheaters. They’d all bet accordingly.

The other cheating methods

The shuffling machine con was apparently the main tactic, but the conspirators supposedly tried other gadgetry, some of it similar to the tech used to identify players’ hands on poker telecasts. Authorities didn’t go into detail about them, but they included:

An X-ray table that could identify the face-down cards used in Texas Hold ’em from underneath.
Hidden cameras built into the trays that hold players’ chips that could identify cards.
Customized contact lenses and glasses that could detect special marks on cards.

The postgame

The cheating winners would share a percentage of their take with the game operators. The victims were often told to wire money to shell companies that laundered it. And the organizers sometimes used robbery, extortion and assault to get debtors to pay. Authorities said two game operators used their fists to extract payment from one cheated player.

Also charged was former NBA assistant coach and player Damon Jones, who stands accused of participating in a separate scheme of exploiting private information about players to win bets on NBA games.

Billups made an initial court appearance Thursday, and his lawyer declined comment outside. A message was left at a phone number and email address listed in public records for Jones.