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New York Post
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
Target CEO blames lousy earnings on anti-woke ‘headwinds' — and Wall Street is chuckling
Investors and traders got a good laugh last week when Target's CEO Brian Cornell suggested that a lousy quarter was partly the result of a consumer backlash against the retailer for rolling back its DEI efforts, On The Money has learned. DEI, or Diversity Equity and Inclusion, is a management philosophy that says pure merit-based hiring is overrated. Instead, companies must tailor their workforces to match an intersectional matrix — skills be damned. DEI also holds sway over ads, marketing and other corporate functions. Under Cornell, Target went all in on DEI, most infamously in its Pride celebrations, a corporate marketing and sales effort that targeted the LBGTQ+ community. Nothing wrong with that – unless you do it in a way that spoils the shopping experience of most of your customers. Target CEO Brian Cornell suggested that a lousy quarter was partly the result of a consumer backlash against the retailer for rolling back its DEI efforts. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design Those are mainly working class people who just want to buy Target's low-priced goods and didn't want the company to proselytize to them about gender fluidity – particularly when they show up to a store with their kids. As I wrote in my book 'Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America,' Target and Cornell were on the cutting edge of the woke movement and took it to disastrous extremes. Google the product known as the 'tuck-friendly bathing suit' and you will get the full story so I don't have to recite the gory details. In 2023, a full-on customer revolt ensued, and let's say Target never recovered. Earlier in the year, Target took note and began to unwind some of its DEI policies. Gone also were the flamboyant Pride displays. DEI in hiring was rolled back after the courts ruled that discriminating based on race is illegal, and the Trump administration announced it will enforce these edicts. Now, if Cornell is to be believed, Target is suffering from what might best be described as a counter-customer revolt. Our very own Rev. Al Sharpton believes DEI is a civil right, and recently said he would support a boycott of Target stores. Rev. Al Sharpton recently said he would support a boycott of Target stores. Getty Images Target's latest quarterly earnings of $1.30 a share and revenue drop to $23.8 billion both missed estimates – and by a lot. All this and the impact of the Trump tariff increases hasn't totally settled in. Cornell's explanation to investors for all of the above: Ending DEI and becoming less political represented a 'headwind.' That's why investors and traders who spoke to On The Money are getting a chuckle out of Cornell's rationalization. It makes no sense because Target has been flailing for a while, mostly after it went all in on woke. As my pal the 'Sarge,' the veteran trader and investor Stephen Guilfoyle, wrote in The 'For Target, this was the third quarter in five that the firm failed to both meet Wall Street's projections for adjusted profitability and Wall Street's expectations for total revenue generation. Going further back, Target has failed to meet earnings expectations for six of the past 13 quarters.' On The Money asked a Target rep how Cornell could be so sure DEI headwinds, and not management ineptitude (analysts say its stores are in need of a massive upgrade), are to blame for the lousy first-quarter results. We will let you know what they say when (if) they get back to us.
New York Post
4 days ago
- Health
- New York Post
Nutritionist shares 6-ingredient recipe for ‘nature's Gatorade' to stay hydrated without food dyes or artificial sweeteners
Need to give your hydration a switch? Gatorade is an easy and cost-effective way to get your electrolyte fix when you're feeling dehydrated — but if you're watching your sugar or wary of food dyes, one nutritionist has a DIY version that's free of both of those ingredients. Claire Sorlie recently shared a recipe on TikTok for what she calls 'nature's Gatorade,' a drink she says has been around for ages and only has a handful of ingredients. Advertisement Nutritionist Claire Sorlie recently shared a recipe on TikTok for a refreshing summer drink that's full of electrolytes and all-natural ingredients. TikTok/clairethenutritionist 'Switchel is an electrolyte-rich drink that's actually been around for a long time,' she said. 'It's also been referred to as 'haymaker's punch' because American farmers used to drink it to stay hydrated and keep cool.' Indeed, once used to refresh field workers, Switchel is a summer drink that is also known as switzel, swizzle and switchy. Advertisement It consists of only six simple ingredients that are commonly found in your pantry: apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, grated ginger, sea salt and water. Sorlie's recipe calls for adding one cup of peeled ginger to six cups of water in a two-quart pot, bringing it to a boil and letting it simmer for an additional 20 minutes. Put half a cup each of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and maple syrup — and a pinch of Celtic sea salt — into a mason jar or pitcher, along with the strained ginger water. Advertisement It consists of only six simple ingredients: apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, grated ginger, sea salt and water. Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design To make it even more refreshing once you're ready to serve, Sorlie recommends adding some sparkling water or a sprig of mint to top up your glass. 'It's so good and good for you,' she said. Advertisement Her viewers have guzzled up the recipe, with many sharing their unique variations — such as using green tea instead of water for additional taste and health benefits, or eliminating the syrup in the interest of consuming less sugar. 'My grandfather always had this when he worked his farm,' one fan commented. 'Just made this! It's fantastic! The only change I made was I added a tea spoon of turmeric,' said another. For what it's worth, maple syrup is a natural sweetener that contains small amounts of minerals like manganese and zinc and it avoids the blood sugar spike associated with refined sugar. Meanwhile, ginger is an anti-inflammatory powerhouse that can soothe headaches and upset stomach. Sea salt delivers essential electrolytes that support hydration, nerve function and muscle balance — especially after sweating. Lemon juice provides a hit of vitamin C and antioxidants, which may support immune function and help the body absorb minerals more effectively. Advertisement And apple cider vinegar has long been touted as a miracle potion that can be used for practically anything from losing weight to aiding digestion to soothing sore throats, skin issues and migraines. While no amount of alcohol is considered healthy these days, Switchel can be enjoyed as a non-alcoholic beverage — or you can add an ounce of white rum, we won't tell. Cheers!
New York Post
24-05-2025
- Health
- New York Post
Republicans aren't coming CLOSE to cutting Medicaid as much as America actually needs
It's a sign of how cock-eyed the Washington debate has gotten that Republicans are nervous about the slight slowdown in Medicaid-spending growth in the 'Big Beautiful Bill.' If anything, they're not cutting Medicaid anywhere near as much as they should. As the nearby chart shows, Medicaid outlays have positively skyrocketed these last 20 years: The feds spent $160 billion in fiscal year 2003; $591 billion in 2023 — over 3½ times as much. State-level spending, meanwhile, rose from $108 billion to $280 billion — still a huge rise, but far less drastic. What's basically gone on? Democrats steadily pushing toward universal health coverage at taxpayer expense, with Republicans sometimes pausing the march. (It's Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for all' plan, except using the program originally intended to cover the poor, not the one designed for the elderly.) In the process, Medicaid's grown from covering the poor to covering the near-poor and even the not-really-poor-at-all — in the process displacing private insurance more than it's actually expanding the share of the population that's covered. (That displacement has been sped up by the way the ObamaCare law and countless other progressive moves have made the private insurance market ever-more dysfunctional.) Jack Forbes / NY Post Design Also added in: illegal immigants, as well as legal ones who aren't supposed to become public charges. All in a program so poorly designed that the only two major audits done in recent years both suggested that a full quarter of the spending is improper — whether on 'beneficiaries' who don't actually qualify, to 'providers' who don't, or in a truly vast amount of outright, criminal fraud. Dems don't want to discuss any of these ugly details; instead, they fall back on treating any opposition to their drive as 'kicking people off health insurance.' Hence their endless claims that the BBB 'will deprive 13.7 million poor and vulnerable Americans of health insurance.' In fact, the bill's extremely modest reforms (eventually) do things like deny coverage to illegal immigrants, reduce federal subsidies for states to give Medicaid to people above the poverty line, require more frequent eligibility checks and impose a 'work requirement' of just 80 hours a month on able-bodied recipients. What's wrong with insisting that the able-bodied work to receive public charity? Or cracking down on how states like New York and California openly use Medicaid accounting scams to grab extra billions a year from the feds? All too many Republicans flinch from trying to make that case; a few even grandstand by copying Democrats' dishonest arguments. And so, as the Cato Institute's Dominik Lett notes, Medicaid has been the fastest-growing part of the federal budget this past decade because its 'funding scheme actively rewards overspending, resulting in programmatic bloat, wasted taxpayer dollars, and fraud.' It costs the taxpayers more than does national defense. The House-passed 'Big Beautiful Bill' barely begins to change Medicaid's course; as the Senate takes up the measure, cross your fingers that it'll do more to rein in this madness — not less.
New York Post
16-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
NYC should look to the Mississippi Miracle to learn how to teach reading
If you're a parent of a young reader, would you rather start off in Manhattan or Mississippi? The answer may surprise you. Today, fourth-grade students in Mississippi read almost a full school year ahead of their peers in New York City, according to national test scores. Advertisement It wasn't always this way. In the early 2000s, Mississippi students trailed New York City by half a year. Now students in the Magnolia State read above the national average. Advertisement Mississippi isn't alone: Other high-poverty Southern states have made major gains. These dynamics are part of a post-pandemic shift of red states overtaking blue ones academically. Here's another way of understanding these data: About 31,000 New York City fourth-graders scored at the Below Basic level last year. Advertisement These students struggle to interpret the main character's actions in 'The Tale of Desperaux,' a classic story of a mouse on a quest to rescue a beautiful princess. In this summer's primary election, New Yorkers will effectively choose their next mayor, and the stakes couldn't be higher for Gotham's aspiring readers. Here are three things that the city's next mayor should learn from Mississippi and other Southern states about improving literacy. A general view of school children pictured leaving school on the last day of school before summer vacation on June 18, 2024. Christopher Sadowski Advertisement First, be honest and support struggling readers. While 90% of New York parents think their child reads at or above grade level, only 45% actually do. Mississippi doesn't have this kind of honesty gap. The state sends written notice to parents when children are at risk of being held back and requires schools to create Individualized Reading Plans. These plans include targeted interventions and progress monitoring. Schools also offer summer reading camps with small-group support. Line chart shows reading levels of fourth graders in Mississippi, US, and New York from 2003 to 2024. Mike Guillen/NY Post Design Second, empower educators. Through no fault of their own, teachers around the United States are not well-trained in how to teach reading. Of the 16 teacher-prep programs in New York City, 12 earn a D or F from the latest National Council on Teacher Quality reviews. Advertisement After passing a comprehensive literacy bill in 2013, Mississippi funded a two-year course in evidence-based reading methods for all elementary teachers. The state teachers' association supported the change. NYC could offer salary bonuses for completely similar training. Skeptical of adopting a 'red state' reform? Advertisement Research shows that intensive literacy coaching improved outcomes at scale in California. These investments deliver more bang for the buck than just increasing spending. Under the current mayor, the NYC Reads initiative ended Columbia Teachers College's 'balanced literacy' program, which had been the main approach in city schools for 30 years, and replaced it with three evidence-based programs. Advertisement Two — EL Education and Wit & Wisdom — emphasize nonfiction and reading whole novels, a rarity in an age of rampant screen time. While teachers have been offered some professional learning opportunities, implementation has been uneven. Teachers need more time and support to unlearn what they thought for three decades was the right approach for kids. In the old Teachers College model, fourth-graders reading at a second-grade level were given easy, 'just right' books. Advertisement But research shows this doesn't build vocabulary or background knowledge. As Tim Shanahan of the University of Illinois-Chicago wrote, 'If students are working with texts that they can already read quite well . . . there is little opportunity for learning.' The new curriculum rightly demands grade-level texts, but learning new ways to support students takes time. As Robert Pondiscio wrote in these pages last month, 'If we're serious about raising literacy rates, we need to sustain this effort across years, mayors and chancellors.' Finally, set difficult but achievable goals. In 2013, Mississippi's governor set a clear reading goal — one his successor continues to prioritize. No other governor or mayor does this. Former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently noted, 'There are no education goals for the country.' With 70% of NYC jobs expected to require some college, the next mayor could set a 2% to 3% annual literacy-growth goal. Over a decade, that would give students a real shot at success. Mississippi's growth has been called a miracle, but that term implies supernatural causes. The state's gains have been made by leaders and teachers implementing a well-designed strategy for a decade. They also know much work remains to see the same rate of growth in eighth-grade scores. New Yorkers take pride in having the best of everything — and often, they do have the best. But when it comes to teaching reading, it's time for humility, and time to learn from those who are doing better. David Scarlett Wakelyn is a former New York Deputy Secretary for Education and a consultant at Upswing Labs. Michael Hartney is the Bruni Family Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an associate professor of political science at Boston College.
New York Post
16-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Trump's ‘crypto council' has ‘no juice' as it stumbles out of the gate on key Capitol Hill vote: sources
President Trump's crypto czar David Sacks and his sidekick Bo Hines are facing backlash from some industry leaders after legislation over a key digital coin had stalled on Capitol Hill, On The Money has learned The two members of Trump's 'crypto council' – Sacks, a high-profile venture capitalist, and Hines, a lawyer and former GOP congressional candidate from North Carolina – have been whiffing in their attempts to push through much-needed stablecoin legislation, crypto industry sources say. After lots of last-minute arm twisting by the legislation's sponsor, Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, the bill will finally come to a vote in the coming days. Stablecoins are crypto assets backed by real assets, such as those denominated in US dollars like US treasuries, and they're becoming increasingly popular in the burgeoning digital coin business. 3 President Trump's Crypto Czar David Sacks and his sidekick Bo Hines have so far whiffed in their attempts to push through much-needed stablecoin legislation, sources say. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design Without passage of a stablecoin bill, industry insiders say it will be next to impossible to push through a broader overhaul of the digital coin regulation that is also being planned. Meanwhile, the stablecoin legislation could help funnel US Treasuries into these investments, leading to possibly lower interest rates, and bring about better disclosure of the stablecoins' backing, one of the top criticisms of both this asset class and the crypto business in general. The crypto council, officially called the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, is a brainchild of Trump, promised during his campaign as a way to push pro-crypto legislation through Congress. Getting legislation that resets the rules for the $3.45 trillion crypto business would help fulfill Trump's campaign pledge to make the US the world's crypto capital. 'David and Bo are well meaning but they don't really have the juice in the Senate to get this thing done,' one crypto industry insider told On The Money. He pointed to the procedural vote last week to bring the bill to the floor for a full debate. Two Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri, voted against the measure – along with most Democrats – thus delaying any action until just as On The Money goes to press. Sacks declined to comment but Hines told On The Money that the characterization that the White House and the council aren't pushing hard enough, or don't have the political juice, for the passage of the bill is 'completely false.' 3 David Sacks, flanked by President Trump and Bo Hines at a White House crypto summit in March. Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock He blamed the delays on recalcitrant Democrats who had supported the bill, but for political reasons backed out. Hines, the executive director of the crypto council, called their actions a 'litmus test for the folks on the other side of the aisle' who are preventing digital innovation that the legislation would provide and the American people voted for in electing Trump. He noted that the bipartisan legislation is being sponsored by Hagerty and New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. 'We are participating when helpful and will continue to engage to get this across the finish line,' Hines added. Haggerty and Gillibrand had no comment, though sources tell On The Money the Tennessee Republican continues to the work the phones to get enough Dems to bring the bill to the floor for a formal vote before the Senate becomes focused on the President's Big Beautiful Budget, which could push off crypto legislation indefinitely. 3 Getting legislation that resets the rules for the $3.45 trillion crypto business would help fulfill President Trump's campaign pledge to make the US the world's crypto capital. Above, a Trump image at a crypto currency exchange in Hong Kong. AFP via Getty Images If all goes according to plan, Hagerty will bring the stablecoin bill for a full senate vote Friday or sometime next week. For a time, that was a big 'if' given the political factors at play. The bill — known as the GENIUS Act—needs 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, which means Dem support is necessary given the Senate math. Hagerty thought he had those votes until Dems like anti-crypto Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren whipped up opposition by demanding language that prevents Trump — who has regulatory authority over crypto through his appointments to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — or any future president from profiting from crypto before signing on. The president and his wife Melania have a meme coin, of course. World Liberty Financial, a so-called di-fi venture (decentralized finance offers an alternative to traditional banking) is majority owned by the Trump Organization. There is also some concern that a foreign stablecoin company named Tether, the industry's largest, would benefit despite criticism over what's exactly behind its dollar-backed assets (Tether has long contended that its stablecoins are fully supported by US-backed assets and its disclosures are proper). Hagerty is arguing to Dems that stablecoins have nothing to do with the president's crypto side hustles, and are necessary for industry innovation, which most of them supported before Warren & Co., started tying their vote to Trump's business interests. That said, getting crypto-friendly legislation through even a closely divided Congress was supposed to be easy given the bipartisan support for lighter regulation and general agreement that the old way of regulating digital coins through enforcement actions stymied innovation in crypto's blockchain technology, a potentially revolutionary way of transacting business. It has been anything but easy. That's why there's so much finger-pointing at Sacks and Hines.
