NO ONE DIED ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ON AUGUST 9

A death among the local population (146,000) is big news on Prince Edward Island, off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada. But last Thursday, August 9th, the local daily newspaper, the Journal Pioneer, had no obituaries to publish. The lack of death notices prompted at least two calls from concerned readers. This led reporter Colin MacLean to tweet a message on his Twitter account: “There were no obituaries in today’s paper. People are calling, wondering what happened to them. Just … nobody died.” In 24 hours, the tweet garnered more than 17,000 likes, more than 2,600 retweets, more than 156 comments and by Friday afternoon had reached approximately 1.3 million people.
* Sorry, folks, better luck tomorrow.
* “What the heck, Colin, reading the obituaries is the highlight of my day!”
* Don’t worry, we’ll make up for it over the weekend.
* Death must have been out fishing or something. Everybody needs a break now and then.
* There was one guy that would have been hit by a truck if he had left the house 30 seconds sooner.
* And this has been the origin story of the Prince Edward Island “Obituary Killer” who now promises “Never less than one per day.”