North Carolina inn defies #shutdown

An innkeeper's attempt to defy the government shutdown has struck a nerve in North Carolina. Bruce O'Connell owns Pisgah Inn, a building in the Blue Ridge Mountains that he leases from the National Park Service. Since the inn is located on federal land, he was forced to close the business when the shutdown began on October 1.

As an act of defiance, O'Connell decided to reopen his business on October 4. It took two hours for park rangers to show up and enforce the shutdown, blocking traffic into the inn. Since then, the inn has attracted protesters who support its reopening and attention online in a wider debate over the shutdown.