WRAL Newscasts
7PM News on WRAL - Thursday, July 18, 2024
How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly, too. So put it down. It can wait. Don't drive distracted. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Today is a very active W.R.A.L. Weather Alert Day. Damaging wind, flooding, and even hail what your town can expect hour by hour this evening. A water rescue in Raleigh after flash flooding and strong winds toppling trees and causing power outages. New images of the damage as we track this system in the W.R.A.L. storm tracker. Then, W.R.A.L., speaking with NC State's chancellor, hours after his retirement announcement, what he had to say about the decision and the po-hall investigation. Right now, here at 7 o'clock, we are tracking a risk for severe weather across most of our area. The storms ramping back up as you can take a look here. It's a live look at a very active radar on the dual Doppler 5000. We are tracking today on this W.R.A.L. Weather Alert Day. Three main threats, flooding, damaging wind, and hail. And these storms could continue for the next several hours, bringing a little bit of all of this to our area. We are already seeing the impacts as we take a live look outside at a few different towns and cities in our area. We have crews across this area with live team coverage for you tonight. We wanna bring our team coverage with meteorologist, Kat Campbell in the W.R.A.L. Sivir Weather Center. Kat, again, we had some rain earlier, a little bit of a down spell and now it's back. Yes, this is round two, Dan. We have those storms that moved through the triangle earlier. Look at this line that's gonna be coming your way next. So we've got some intense storms moving through Shatham County, headed for Lee County and headed for Southern Pines and Pinehurst. This is round two. This is round one right here that's gonna be moving out. And round two, we don't have any current warnings. They were just allowed to expire in the Sand Hills. Still, some gusty winds up to about 50 miles per hour, possible, a lot of lightning and very heavy rain. This area is likely to see a lot of rain in the southern half of our viewing area over the next several hours. So I do think that we'll see some additional flood advisories, possibly a flash flood warning issued. Some light rain continues to move by the airport. Right now, we've got some light rain headed for Garner East Raleigh at this point in time as well, not as intense as earlier, but future cash shows the second band of storms impacting mainly areas from Raleigh Point South. Fayetteville, you've got a lot of rain, 9, 10, 11 o'clock. And then overnight, we still have the potential for a few showers and thunderstorms to linger. By the time you wake up tomorrow morning, about a 20% chance for rain, a lot of clouds out there as you start your day. A flood watch remains in effect until midnight from the Triangle Points East, and we've got the severe thunderstorm launch for our southern counties until 9 o'clock, but the Triangle has been dropped from this. I'll have a closer look at what to expect into the weekend coming up. - And I'm Brian Schrader in the WRAL Live Center. We are working to find out of lightning led to this church fire in the western part of Wilson County. This is a picture of viewers sent to us of Spring Hill Presbyterian Church in the Lucama area on fire just a little while ago. About six o'clock we got this picture. We do know that thunderstorms with a lot of lightning were moving through that area around four and five o'clock. Here's a picture from our photographer who has arrived at the scene showing some of the damage done to that church. Willie Danley is on his way in the WRAL breaking news tracker to find out more. Some people in the Triangle are dealing with power outages right now, about 2,000 Duke Energy customers who are without power in Durham County. At about 1,000 customers are without power in Wake County. Duke Energy estimating that everyone should be back online around midnight or 1 a.m. Taking a live look right now at Pinehurst with dark clouds rolling in. There's a line of thunderstorms moving through more County right now. Around the Triangle area you can see that the rain is eased up quite a bit as we take a look at radar. The WRAL Storm Tracker on the road right now in the south part of Raleigh and Aaron Thomas is in the passenger seat this evening. Aaron, how's it looking? - Yeah, so looks can certainly be to Stephen Bryant. We are dealing with the lull, but we have spent hours here in the WRAL Storm Tracker tracking some of these storm conditions all across Wake County. If we can actually show you some video that we captured just hours ago, this is a heavy rainfall that took place on both I-540 as well as I-40 during the busy evening commute. Now this rain that you see on your screen, as you can imagine, it caused major impacts for those drivers. You had some of them that had to pull over because of low visibility. A lot of them using their hazard lights. We even saw some minor car crashes as a result of this rain across Raleigh. Now while there's a lull right now, we are bracing for round two of these storms that they just consult with our team of meteorologists. They tell me that there's a line coming from the west that's likely going to push through here in Wake County where they're gonna keep our eyes to the roads and track those conditions for you. I want to send things over to my colleague, Carly Haines, who's now live in downtown Raleigh. The storm impacts there. Carly. - Erin, we're in the Warehouse District along West Hargett Street. And you can see the flooding that we're seeing here on this road several inches deep of spreading across the entire road right here. We've seen several cars come through and this is a really popular street. We've seen them turn around and others trying to brace through it. But this is the kind of water that can be really hazardous because you don't know what's underneath it. So best recommendation is to turn around if you see it. This is the outcome of the really fast rain that came through just all of that rainfall and it's taking a while to subside now. So this was even bigger just about an hour ago. Carly Haines, WRAL News, live in Raleigh. - All right, thank you to the entire team there with the updates for this unsettled weather as it continues through the weekend. It's a really good time to make sure you have the WRAL News app. You can take the radar with you anywhere you go and get alerts straight to your phone. It is free to download. Now to some big breaking news tonight. NC State's Chancellor Randy Woodson will retire in the summer of 2025. He made that announcement earlier today. WRAL's Kaylee Arthur joining us. She was there to talk to him earlier, joins us in the studio with an update, Kaylee. - Stan, Woodson has been Chancellor for 14 years. Today he is leaving the university, he says better off. And in many ways, he really will. NC State has the more than $2 billion endowment. Men's and women's basketball both made it to the final four this year. But in the last two years of his tenure, they've been wrought with issues. There were 14 student deaths in 2022 school year. And in 2023, the university closed Poe Hall, the education building after cancer causing chemicals were found inside of it. Now much of the press conference today focused on Woodson's handling of Poe Hall. Since the closure, 210 people have reported exclusively to WRAL news that they develop cancer after working or studying in that building. Our investigation found that under Woodson's leadership, the university pulled out of a federal health investigation into the building, ignored the Environmental Protection Agency for months and tested the exterior of the building in 2018, found toxic chemicals there then, but then didn't test the exterior of the building until five years later. Despite this, the university system president, Peter Hans commended Woodson on his handling of Poe. - President, you speak very highly of Chancellor Woodson's handling of Poe Hall. Have you talked to anyone who worked or studied in that building and now has cancer? - I have talked with a number of interested parties. - Now we will continue to press for answers on Poe Hall, regardless of who is in leadership. As for Woodson, he says he's gonna stay in Raleigh after he retires, and I wanna kind of paint a full picture for you, many people are saying thank you, Randy Woodson. The folks who are the most upset or happy that he's leaving really are the ones connected personally to Poe Hall. - All right, Keely, thank you so much. Either way, this is gonna be a kind of a busy time for a lot of the schools in our area. And she's state now, the fourth school in the UNC system, searching now for a new chancellor, Appalachian State and UNC Chapel Hill are already looking. Elizabeth City State is starting that process a little later in the fall. As more high-profile Democrats are expressing concerns now about President Biden's candidacy, vice president, Kamala Harris was back in North Carolina today, this time in Fayetteville. See the motorcade there? Security, as you can imagine, was very tight. This is her second visit here to North Carolina in just a week. Harris touched down at an airstrip on Fort Liberty. Her motorcade was protected by local authorities and secret service. Streets along the route were shut down while she made her way to Westover High School. WRO capital bureau chief Laura Leslie was there for the vice president's visit. She tells us what the vice president talked about and what she didn't talk about. - Last week at the Greensboro rally, Vice President Harris and other speakers, at least alluded to the division within the Democratic party about the top of the ticket. Of this week, even as pressure mounted by the hour for Biden to step aside, there was no mention of it on the stage from Harris or any other speaker. Harris's speech was largely focused on criticizing former president Donald Trump and touting the work of the Biden-Harris administration. She mocked the RNC's theme of unity in Milwaukee this week, calling the Republican platform extreme and divisive. - You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity. (cheering and applause) - Harris never mentioned the attack on former president Trump last weekend. She also never made any reference to the growing pressure. Top Democratic leaders are putting on president Biden to step aside as the nominee. Supporters who came to the rally weren't eager to talk about it either. - Oh, I can't speak for others, but I will be in support of him. - This is the second time Ida Morton has seen Harris speak. She says she admires the vice president, but she says she still thinks Joe Biden should be the nominee at the DNC next month. - My thoughts are instead of he's done a great job, he has proven himself as poor as I have considered it as being. And I think that we should move forward and just see how things go day by day. - Now, North Carolina Republicans, as you might guess, were more than happy to talk about the discord at the top of the Democratic ticket. There should be lots of questions for Harris and Fayetteville today about her party's effort to drive their sitting presidential nominee from the ballot. Said Matt Mercer, the N C G O P spokesman, a candidates don't often take questions after campaign rallies and this was no exception. Harris did not take any today either. Laura Leslie, WRAL news live in Fayetteville. - Thank you to Laura and out of some breaking news on this same topic here. The New York Times now reporting that several people close to president Biden say he appears to now accept that he may have to leave the race. Biden today facing new and growing pressure from powerful Democrats to bow out one of those names former president Barack Obama. As if tonight Biden continues to remain in isolation at his vacation home in Delaware after his diagnosis for COVID. Today again was the vice president's second visit here to North Carolina in less than a week ahead. NBC's Steve Kornaki explains what's likely driving a heavy push from the Democratic ticket. - And a live look at Sanford, a new severe thunderstorm warning in that leading edge. The most intense part of a thunderstorm is just about to hit. You need to seek shelter in Sanford. Parts of Lee County, Moore County and Hornet County are under the severe thunderstorm warning until eight o'clock and I'm tracking the impacts of these storms coming up. - How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you'd think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down, it can wait. Don't drive distracted, shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. - When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers where you'll find over 30,000 mouth watering choices that excite your inner foodie. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week. You can also save up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with fuel points, more savings and more inspiring flavors, make shopping king supers worth it every time. King supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. (upbeat music) - Brian Schrader back here at the WRA Live Center. With a big update to a story we brought you last week about a slide used in training presentations at Fort Liberty. This afternoon, Senator Ted Bud shared this from the Secretary of the Army, answering questions about that slide. The slide labeled anti-abortion organizations as terror groups, and the Secretary of the Army says that it had been used at Fort Liberty for at least seven years. She said that Fort Liberty leadership is not aware of all of this until media attention last week. She says the Army is investigating and that the slide does not represent the views of the U.S. Army and no longer will be used at Fort Liberty. - Thank you, Brian. Well, this is the fourth trip by the Biden-Harris campaign in less than three weeks to our state here in North Carolina. NBC's Steve Cornaki has a closer look now at the Democratic push in North Carolina. All right, Kamala Harris in the Tar Heel State today, Democrats, it's a sign that they believe they can make North Carolina a battleground state. Look, it was close in 2020. I don't need to remind you of that. Trump carried North Carolina by just over a point. Interestingly, if you went back to 2016, you can see what happened. Trump had won the state by more than three points, three and a half points in 2016. That was a margin of about 175,000 votes. That margin was cut more than in half in 2020. So it headed away from Trump toward the Democrats, but not enough in 2020 to actually flip the state. So Democrats believe there's growth potential for them. Opportunity in North Carolina, what would that mean if Democrats could put this state in play in terms of the Electoral College battle? So let's take a look at that, go to our road for 270 map. And these are the states as they went in 2020. If they all stayed the same, that's what the result would end up looking like this year. But the Trump folks look at it this way. They think they have a pretty clear path that involves. They like the polling that they've got in Georgia, a state Biden won. They like the polling Trump folks do in Arizona, state that Biden nearly won. And in Nevada, a state that Biden won. So that, just getting those three states would bring Trump to the cusp of victory. And then it would come logically to Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, talk about them all the time. Trump won all three in 2016. They went Democratic in 2020. But under this scenario, if Trump could win, let's say, Michigan, just sake of argument here, that would be at those three states, plus one of those Rust Belt states, and Trump is over the hump, or is he? That's where North Carolina comes into play. And the Democrats thinking they can make a play for North Carolina because in a scenario like this, where Trump gets those three states, picks off a Rust Belt state, if Democrats actually succeeded in flipping North Carolina, look at that. It would allow them to lose one of those Rust Belt states and still win the presidential election. Now, there are a lot of Republicans who will look at this and say, this is a pipe dream for Democrats. They'll say 2024 is a much worse climate for Democrats than 2020, 2020 is the best Democrats can do there. But this is one, the reason Democrats are sending Harris there, the reason they are spending some money here is because exactly this. They want some kind of a fallback option. If they do lose one of these Rust Belt states, Carolina, they think, is their best only maybe shot of getting an extra state into play. - Thank you, thank you. What an interesting report. Talk about the importance of this state. As we take a live look now inside the Republican National Convention as we speak, this is where former President Trump is expected to speak tonight for the first time since surviving the assassination attempt. Tune in for our prime time coverage on this final night of the RNC, coverage is from nine o'clock until 11 right here on WRAL then stick around for our late news at 11 o'clock. The big story today has been the weather. Meteorologist Kat Campbell joining us as the rain continues to move through. - Yes, and we're seeing some severe storms move through right now in Sanford. Some intense winds move through just a short time ago and in Wake County, it's just lighter rain. But notice this line right here. This is an outflow boundary. It could spark some new development of rain and storms in Wake County. But I do not expect that we're gonna see those strong winds and severe storms in the triangle like we saw earlier. At this point, it would just be a flooding threat as we head throughout the evening. And really, the main concern is going to be the southern half of our viewing area, mainly areas south of Raleigh, over the next couple of hours for that flooding threat and severe threat. It's because these areas haven't seen as many storms just yet. So it's still hot, it's still humid, and the atmosphere is still energized in those communities. That's severe thunderstorm warning, including parts of Lee and Harnett County goes till eight o'clock. And then you can see future casts nailing this line of storms that we've seen this evening, pushing it toward Goldsboro. Clinton, as we get toward about 10 o'clock tonight, with some of those lingering showers through about 2 a.m. in our southern counties. But notice this, the past couple of runs of future casts. And this model of future casts to update every hour has been pretty consistent in showing a band of some of these showers moving through, perhaps the triangle as we head throughout the overnight hours. So there will still be a chance for rain overnight. A lot of clouds that you're likely to wake up to in the morning. Here's the front. When I showed you this map three hours ago, this front was in the exact same spot. It is stalling out over North Carolina. We're gonna see it kind of pushed to the south a little bit and then come back to the north and kind of bounce back and forth over the next several days. And that's what's going to bring some additional storm chances for the weekend. 88 for the high tomorrow, about a 50% chance of storms, mainly during the afternoon and evening. And then Saturday, 87, a lot of clouds early, some clearing by the evening. And again, the best chance for rain looks like it would come later in the day. In the morning, there will be 20% rain chances. Today, we had a level two threat for severe weather for most of the area. Tomorrow, no severe weather threat, just general, non-severe thunderstorms possible. Keep in mind, storms, of course, can always have lightning in them. By Saturday, we are back to a level one risk for severe storms for most of us. Here's your weekend forecast that we updated after looking over the new models today. High temperatures are in the upper 80s. Through the weekend, that'll be feeling pretty good. And we've got the daily chance for storms. It's a pretty steady seven day forecast here. Highs are in the upper 80s to near 90 each day. Low temperatures are in the low to mid 70s each night. And we are expecting some scattered storms on the radar each afternoon and evening. No day do we expect every single city in our viewing area to see rain each day, about 50 to 60% of our area should see some showers and storms on the radar during the afternoon and evening. And, you know, we've got 90 degrees. It's the hottest day on our seven day forecast. That's a win if you ask me. Some of us still need the rain and we still have that flooding threat. I think we'll still be tracking rain tonight. So be sure to tune in to Mike Mays at 11 before he head to bed. - Sounds good, Becky Cat. Coming up next, we hear from NC State men's basketball head coach, Kevin Keats, as he anticipates the season ahead. - What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. - How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down, it can wait. Don't drive distracted, shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. - Everything going on in the world, you almost forget that the Olympics that bring the world together right around the corner, the summer games, look at the countdown there. The excitement is building all across the globe. As athletes go for gold, Olympics planners are going for green. The Paris 2024 set a target not to exceed 1.5 million tons of CO2. That's less than half the carbon footprint of the previous summer Olympics. To do that, organizers, they had to do some interesting things. Secured 100% clean energy to power the games from solar panels on the venue to windmills in Normandy. Only two new Olympic venues were built for the games, for aquatics and basketball, with seats made of recycled plastic. All along the way, people were saying, "This is too ambitious, you're never going to make it." Actually, that was one of the most difficult things. Yes, you can do it. You know, if this game's managed to send that message across, I think we have all one, you know, a really good metal part of this. - You know, Paris is such a big city, populated already. You think all the visitors, some roads are going to be shut down, public transit is going to be beefed up. They're going to have green taxis available, like the ones you see here, under a canopy of 300,000 newly planted trees, and 800 miles of new bike lanes have been added. Cycling will be encouraged during the games, and organizers will provide 3,000 pay-as-a-go bikes for spectators to use. It sounds interesting, I think it's going to be fun. I would love to be there. I won't be, but we do have somebody from WRL covering this for you. We are your home for the Summer Olympics. We have live coverage, our Liz McLaughlin will be out there from July 26th through August 11th on WRAL2NAM. We've been looking at live reports from Paris throughout the competition, primarily at 6 a.m., 6 p.m., and 11 p.m. Today we heard from NC State men's basketball coach Kevin Keats. Four months later, he's still processing the team's final four run. Being in the middle of it all, Keats said it took some time for it all to sink in. Funny enough, Keats said the way he processed that run was by going back and watching the games, all nine of them, multiple times. He says he learns something new every time. But as I go back and I watch and I see and I scan, you know, and see the excitement around people, you know, it's grown men that are crying when we win the ACC Championship. That's pride, but I don't know that there'll be another nine game run as we've had in the history of basketball. There's something Wolfpack fans will never forget. Thanks for being with us tonight. Tune in for more news at 10 and 11. Keep watching WRL news over the air channel 34 and spectrum channel 1257. How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly, too. So put it down, it can wait. Don't drive distracted, shifting to safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Hello, it is Ryan, and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumbagocino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing. They're also playing Chumbagocino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumbagocino's home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere. So sign up now at Chumbagocino.com to claim your free welcome bonus at Chumbagocino.com and live the Chumbalites. Sponsored by Chumbagocino, no purchase necessary. 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