Good News Friday is Cardinal & Pine’s weekly roundup of positive news stories from around NC. For past editions of Good News Friday, tap here.
Here’s what’s in today’s edition:
- The “Jonestown guy” at the Trump rally is from Charlotte
- Attorney General Jeff Jackson sues Dollar General over in-store price gouging
- NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher welcomes five new otters
There are many ways to fight the rise of fascism, and some of them are even funny.
Tom Hoyle, co-owner of MadPark Designs in Charlotte, had around 20 seconds to make his feelings on Donald Trump known to as wide an audience as he was likely to ever have on Thursday and he made the most of it.
Hoyle turned a mirror on the MAGA movement in this 25-second clip that has since been seen by countless folks around the country. It’s a good enough laugh to lead this week’s Good News Friday, and there’s a reason it’s so funny.
As George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1904, “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.”
Charlotte man flips the script on Fox News in viral moment
A Fox News reporter stalked the crowd at a Donald Trump rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday looking for Trump supporters to speak on live TV about why they were there. He thought he found one in an unassuming white man wearing a graphic tee, baseball cap, and beard.
What he got was Tom Hoyle, who in a clip that quickly went viral told the reporter that he had come to the rally because “in the late ‘70s, I was a little too young to get involved and go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I’ll ever get, so that’s why I’m here.”
During the infamous Jonestown Massacre, 918 followers of the cult leader committed suicide by drinking poisoned Flavor Aid. When the reporter asked for clarification on such an odd statement, Hoyle said: “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front.”
Predictably, the Fox News reporter cut the chat short abruptly and moved on, but by that point Hoyle had already made himself more memorable than anything that would be said on that broadcast, including from the president himself. Oh, and he got in a plug for his business, MadPark Designs.
Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket caught up with Hoyle and learned that he stopped by the rally on Thursday morning after being invited by one of the event’s organizers over the phone.
He told Kabas the organizers cold-called him to solicit his attendance. That convinced him to go and cause “good trouble.”
“As much as I despise Donald Trump and his ilk and MAGA and all of that—I despise them. I hate them with every bit of my DNA,” Hoyle said. “That pushed me over the edge and I said, ‘Here’s my opportunity. Let’s go do something goofy.’”
Read the rest of Kabas’ Q&A with Hoyle here.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson sues Dollar General over in-store price gouging
NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 19 other states this week in filing suit against the Dollar General Corporation, alleging that the company has engaged in “long-running deceptive pricing practices” that have cost customers millions of dollars.
The lawsuit claims Dollar Store locations routinely charge customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves or on price tags and advertisements.
The complaint states that thousands of stores across the country have utilized these dishonest practices, garnering tens of thousands of customer complaints. Despite being made aware of the problem, the suit alleges that Dollar General has failed to implement policies or practices to adequately address the problem.
Just a week before Jackson’s announcement, the NC Department of Agriculture fined 10 Dollar General locations across the state for overcharging customers beyond the listed price.
“We’re suing Dollar General because they’re ripping people off, and they know it,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “People should be able to trust that the price they see on the shelves is the price they’ll pay. But Dollar General has been breaking that trust. They’ve failed state inspections and been told over and over to fix these mistakes. They haven’t, so we’ll see them in court.”
NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher welcomes five new otters
The team at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher this week announced that they’ve welcomed five newborn Asian small-clawed otter pups—four males and one female. The sibling pups were born on Monday, Oct. 19, to parents Milli and Binx. They bring the aquarium’s otter family to 10.
In a release from the aquarium, otter keeper Kristen Upton described how she heard the pups chirping from the facility’s behind-the-scenes den.
“We were delighted when we first heard three distinct pup chirps coming from the nest — and even more thrilled when we discovered five healthy pups,” Upton said. “Now that we’ve been able to examine the pups, we’re excited to see that each one is gaining weight and the entire family is bonding well.”
Asian small-clawed otters are the smallest otter species in the world and listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Native to parts of South and Southeast Asia, their population numbers are declining due to residential and commercial development, deforestation, the illegal pet trade, pollution, climate change, and poaching.
The newborns weighed approximately 82 to 91 grams each at birth, roughly the weight of a medium lemon, according to the release. They’ll remain behind the scenes for the time being, but the good news is that the as-yet-unnamed pups have been welcomed warmly by older siblings Nyx, Bohdi, and Baloo, who have been offering pieces of food to the newborns.
