Happy Thursday, folks here’s some of

today’s

headlines:

1. Early voting locations expand throughout the state today. As the second week of early voting (also known as one-stop voting) begins, counties are adding more locations for early voting. In Durham, it’s ballooning from five locations to thirteen. Other counties like Forsyth County, which only had one location for the first week, will finally allow voting at satellite locations. By opening other locations many counties will have the opportunity to help solve the problem of congestion and long wait times, but the hope is to all bring in more voters. WRAL has a great tool to help look up locations and hours for early voting in the Triangle and surrounding counties.

2. Mysterious deaths leaves the Duke Lemur Center trying to find answers to what happened to four endangered aye-aye lemurs before they died. Any lemur death is sad, but four dying within a short period is devastating. Veterinarians weren’t able to save them while they were fighting the “mysterious illness” in emergency care.

From The Washington Post:

There are fewer than 50 aye-ayes in captivity in the entire world, Dye said, calling the loss of four animals a “big blow” to the lemur center’s conservation and breeding programs.

“We had 13, and now we have nine,” Andrea Katz, the lemur center’s animal curator, said in a statement. “This is the most significant loss we’ve ever had and is a terrible blow to our breeding program. This is a significant percentage of the aye-ayes in the U.S. at this time.”

According to the Duke Lemur Center, aye-ayes are considered unique among 100 or so species of lemurs.

We’re sad to hear about the loss, and hopefully, the mysterious illness doesn’t hit any other lemurs at the center.

3. More Triangle grocery store news! A few weeks back we wrote about a Wegmans coming to Chapel Hill. Yesterday the news broke that more sites were being planned for the Triangle.

From The News & Observer:

The New York-based grocer plans to open a 120,000-square-foot store on Wake Forest Road between Six Forks Road and Interstate 440, next to Trader Joe’s.

The Raleigh store would be Wegmans’ third foray into the Triangle market. The company has also committed to sites in Cary and Chapel Hill.

“In addition to these, Wegmans is considering other sites in the Raleigh/Durham market, but until there are firm deals for each site, we are unable to share the locations or other details,” Jo Natale, Wegmans’ vice president of media relations, wrote in an email.

Wegmans adds to the growing list of grocers entering an area that for years was dominated by Harris Teeter and Food Lion. This year alone, Raleigh council members approved plans for the city’s first Publix at the intersection of Leesville and Strickland roads, and German franchise Lidl announced plans to open a store at the corner of Wake Forest Road and Ronald Drive.

Sorry, Durham. No Wegmans for you.

4. MORE CLOWNS? Seriously, when can we all just leave the clowns behind us and move on with other things in our lives? Apparently not anytime soon. During the investigation into the firebombing at the NCGOP headquarters in Hillsborough, law enforcement stumbled into something… different?

From WNCN:

During the process of reviewing footage, a person wearing a clown mask was seen on video captured by an ATM.

Hillsborough police said investigators worked to determine if the clown was connected to the arson attack.

But the suspect was found to be connected to the theft and fraud of an ATM card and not the incident at the GOP headquarters.

Police identified person in the mask. Charges are pending, police said.

That’s all for now. Keep on, keepin’ on, y’all.