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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2026 | Sponsored by | Morning Brew |
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Happy Hump Day, Lunch Club!
Four interesting stories for your lunch break today. I hope you enjoy. And if you don’t, let me know. I am always working to improve the newsletter.
A Louisiana prosecutor who withheld evidence in death row cases, compared a Black teenager to a dog, and was forced out of his job over falsified weapons paperwork is now the frontrunner in a local judicial race, with $61,000 raised and the backing of the county Republican Party.
Red Lobster's new CEO has gone viral on TikTok and landed glowing press coverage. Bloomberg got behind the curtain, and the picture is considerably worse: four quarters of losses, 100 money-losing locations locked into ruinous leases, and investors quietly losing faith.
A 28-year-old Canadian woman has lived in ten homes in five years. Her account of cockroach infestations, broken elevators, and cities that priced her out of her own hometown is a ground-level portrait of a housing crisis that policy has refused to seriously address.
In April 1990, In Living Color premiered on Fox and drew 23 million viewers. Geoff Bennett revisits how Keenen Ivory Wayans built the show, why it mattered, and how it launched careers from Jamie Foxx to Jennifer Lopez.
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PROPUBLICA
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Richard A. Webster
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Hugo Holland spent nearly four decades as one of Louisiana's most aggressive prosecutors, sending at least ten people to death row in Caddo Parish. Courts found he withheld evidence in at least two cases. In a third, he compared a Black 16-year-old to a dog and told jurors to "get rid of it." He was forced out of the DA's office in 2012 after submitting false paperwork to obtain military rifles. Now 62, Holland is running for a judgeship, has raised over $61,000 in under two months, and has the backing of local Republican leadership.
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Bloomberg Businessweek
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Eliza Ronalds-Hannon and Anders Melin
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Red Lobster hired Damola Adamolekun in 2024 to execute what he called "the greatest comeback in the history of the restaurant industry." The reality: the chain has lost money in four of the last five quarters, carries sales at least 20% below pre-bankruptcy levels, and is locked into leases on roughly 100 chronically unprofitable locations it cannot easily close. Fortress Investment Group is growing reluctant to write more checks. Adamolekun has streamlined the menu and gone viral on TikTok. Without a structural fix on those leases, nearly everyone close to the situation considers the turnaround doomed.
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Maclean's
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Alexandria Ages
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Alexandra Ages has lived in ten homes in five years, not by choice. Cockroaches in Montreal. A broken-elevator high-rise in Edmonton. Cities that priced her out before she could unpack. Her account tracks a national pattern: 18% of Canadians aged 35 to 44 have experienced a forced move, and one-quarter of affordable rental units are rated in poor condition. As people flee expensive cities, they spread the crisis to cheaper ones. Policy stays fixated on homeowners. Ages is 28, wants a modest bungalow, and knows that should not be a radical ask.
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The Atlantic
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Geoff Bennett
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When In Living Color debuted on Fox in April 1990, it drew 23 million viewers and changed what American television could look like. Keenen Ivory Wayans built it as a performer-driven counterweight to Saturday Night Live, sourcing talent far outside Hollywood's usual pipelines. The result was a sketch show where Black artists controlled the creative voice entirely. Atlantic journalist Geoff Bennett traces how the show launched careers from Jamie Foxx to Jennifer Lopez and ignited the broader boom in Black television that defined the decade.
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