[SEGMENT 1-1] Quick hits: True headline: were Adam and Eve black transgender refugees Guy who shot up the KC Super Bowl parade was black and had an illegal gun. Judge assigned to Trump's criminal case in Georgia once worked for DA Fani Willis ... which explains why he refused to admonish or control disrespectful witness Fani Willis when she flipped out on the stand The last time Americans spent this much of their money on food, George H.W. Bush was in office, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was in theaters and C+C Music Factory was rocking the Billboard charts. Eating continues to cost more, even as overall inflation has eased from the blistering pace consumers endured throughout much of 2022 and 2023. Prices at restaurants and other eateries were up 5.1% last month compared with January 2023, while grocery costs increased 1.2% during the same period, Labor Department data show. https://www.the-sun.com/money/10460920/red-lobster-makes-change-deal-customers-losses/ After it was solidified, those who took advantage of the bottomless shrimp deal seemingly ate so much that it directly affected financial losses for Red Lobster at the end of 2023, per CNN. Third-quarter earnings reports from Red Lobster noted an $11 million operating loss, of which the Ultimate Endless Shrimp was seemingly directly part. The deal was offered first at $20 for all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster and was slowly increased to $23 and $25, but the price hike didn't prevent the financial decline. In the fourth quarter of 2023, those losses increased to $12.5 million. [SEGMENT 1-2] Paramount layoffs Harvard students went on a hunger strike…missed a whole meal in support of Hamas… More than 30 pro-Palestinian Harvard students participated in a 12-hour hunger strike Friday in solidarity with students at Brown University pressuring the Brown Corporation to divest from Israel. How harrowing that must have been for them… [X] SB – Woman describes all the businesses that left Oakland They are going to beg white people to come gentrify that city Dunkin Donuts…gone Starbucks…gone Raising Cane…gone Walmart…GONE! Several CBS News reporters were caught up in layoffs at Paramount Global that claimed 800 jobs, including one who is embroiled in a high-stakes First Amendment fight — and another who has reportedly weathered HR probes over his workplace behavior, The Post has learned. Catherine Herridge — an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post. The carnage provoked outrage from the rank-and-file at CBS, with some focusing their ire on Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who pulled down $32 million in total compensation last year despite the company’s ever-shrinking financial profile. “Everybody in the newsroom is pissed that Bob Bakish is making over $30 million and he’s making these cuts,” one insider fumed. Elsewhere, some suspected the layoffs were more than just cost-cutting. Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews — a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post. [SEGMENT 1-3] KFC closings in Chicago 1 Things must be bad in Chicago when this 100-year-old franchise decides to abandon one of its key customer bases. But when crime is as bad as it is in the Windy City, no business can survive. Following the wave of location closings in bad neighborhoods in Democrat-controlled cities all over the country, a KFC franchisee called it quits in three South Side Chicago locations with no warning, according to news sources. Things were going so badly for the franchise owner, that he scuttled the outlet located in Chatham, which had been "undergoing renovations for months". He simply boarded up the building. Such actions are not unique, a month prior to the "gone too soon" KFC outlet, the Cinema Chatham shut down; again, without warning. When I lived in St. Louis in one of the roughest areas of the city, I frequented a Popeye's Chicken franchise each Monday because of a BOGO sale on an 8-piece meal. I visited like clockwork for over a year. One day I went to the outlet, and it was closed for business. No signs, no nothing. Just no cars or activity. I went back the following two Mondays and finally figured out that the owner just tucked tail and run. No warning. I suspect he took all his restaurant gear out the back door and left the store for the vagrants, drug dealers and prostitutes in the area. Going to that Popeye's franchise took either guts or desperation. As for the Chicago KFC situation, Sixth Ward Alderman William Hall said, "A closed business is not only a sore eye, but it’s a gateway for violence because when you see abandonment, it looks as if there is no love, no hope in the community." "There was no communication," he added. "I saw what the residents saw, disappointed just the same way they are." Why are businesses closing in Black neighborhoods? A commenter on the Fox 32 story conveyed, "What's killing business on the south side of Chicago is no one feels safe anymore. I frequented both the 35th and 75th Street locations, and the food was great. But I'd never go after dark. There's a whole different feel to those streets when the sun goes down." I can attest to this personally using my own kids. One of our sons wanted to take his girlfriend to Lee's Chicken in the same area as the Popeye's. It was getting dark, so we warned against it. But he felt like it would be ok, so they walked to the restaurant. About 15 minutes later my wife got a call from him. I didn't even wait to hear the discussion, and instead jumped in my car making the 3-minute drive in less than a minute. When I got to the store, my son and his girlfriend were sitting in a booth and a Black man was menacing them. They saw men, and I calmly said to them, "Go to the car." I then looked at the man in a way that he hadn't been looked at in a while, and his eyes veered to the ground like a good beta male". Point made. I wasn't there to play. In the video below, this Black woman explains the mass vanishings of retail stores in her neighborhood in Oakland. https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1754548421623787936 Tim Young documents other business closings in Oakland. But I remind you, these business closures are happening all over the country: https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1754501414657597785 If I have any sympathy, it's for the business owners. They tried. [SEGMENT 1-4] KFC closings in Chicago 2 Everything closes down Starbucks closed down No jobs, no hope. Where are the community leaders? Why aren’t they getting together to garner community support. Are they having these troubles in non-black dominated neighborhoods? They bought into the idea of serving an "underserved" community, and they stepped up only to get shot down. Promises by politicians, even inducements. Poverty Zones or other cute names for these communities that really means "high crime", thus the likelihood of failure. What amount of money can the government give you, if you are robbed repeatedly and the perpetrators are never arrested. How long would any business last. But there can be humor in tragedy. https://twitter.com/thatbruh420/status/1760102474684244161 Some folks, like Twitter/X user Jay here, had fun with the bad news. "I went to that same KFC," he posted. "When I got my order I walked out and I was chased by these two guys with red hats and they were yelling 'This is MAGA country' in a Jamaican accent… no wonder why it’s shut down."