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8AM News on WRAL - Monday, July 8, 2024
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We're live at a new school opening today here in Holly Springs with a look at some of the new measures in place to keep students safe. All right, a lot of things we have to tell you about. As you get your Monday morning started, I hope you had a restful Sunday. Join us here on WRL News in Fox 50. I'm Chris Lovinggood. And I'm Michelle McConnicky. Thanks for joining us this morning. We desperately need the rain we saw a little bit of it last night with this morning. I woke up and there were some raindrops on the car. So that's that's some good news. Meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner is here to tell us why we can see more of that rain that we need all of them. So today tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll have a small chance for thunderstorms, but we have a system that's back to the west at a roll through Thursday and Friday. That's going to give us a much better chance. There was some rain just to wire south and west overnight last night and early this morning. That has dissipated, but we'll zoom in and I'll show you a future cast will pause it right there at lunchtime. You can see a few isolated showers and thunderstorms that roll through. Not everybody will see rain today, but some folks will see some brief heavy rain and some breezy conditions with those showers. Those will be over around five or six o'clock and then the rest of the evening should be fairly dry. Bureau made landfall at five a.m. this morning in Matagorda, Texas as a category one storm with winds at 80 miles per hour. It is producing heavy rainfall across Houston right now. They could see as much as six to eight inches. Of course, there was storm surge flooding that happened and strong winds with this system. There were some gusts up to 85, 90 miles per hour, possibly even 100 as the storm came on shore. It's moving north at 12 miles per hour right now with winds at 75, so it's about to be a tropical storm, most likely in the next hour or so, and then it will continue to move up the Mississippi Valley, missing us to the west, but we'll have our own tropical moisture by the end of the week. And we'll talk more about that coming up live. Look at North Hills at 78 with a due point of 74. So it is very muggy and somewhat miserable feeling outside right now and that's not going to change this afternoon. We climb into the low 90s. The heat index will be close to 100 and it may be even higher for Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll show you that coming up, Eric. Elizabeth, take a look at traffic here this morning. You can see we've got a couple of crashes pop it up all over the map. Thankfully, none of these are major. They're not going to cause any real delays on your drive, but still things you'll want to keep out and keep out an eye for as you're out on the roads. Instead, the biggest issue we're seeing really is a lot of that normal morning traffic, including down here on I-40 westbound, taking a live look in that area. I-40 at South Saunders, you can see things getting a little bit slow as those cars head around that corner, but otherwise not too bad here this morning. Take a look at those drive times as you're coming into the city of Raleigh, things looking pretty good overall, just a couple of minute delays. That includes, if you're coming in from Wake Forest, that about four minutes, otherwise very nice. Similar story as we take a look over in the Durham area, just a couple of minutes as you're getting your morning commute underway. All right. Thank you, Eric. And you just heard Elizabeth mentioned Hurricane Barrow made landfall in Texas this morning. As a Category 1 storm, this is a live look right now in Galveston, Texas. You can see the wind shaking that camera there. The storm is bringing rain and strong winds to the area. Over 120 counties in Texas are under a disaster declaration this morning. School is back in session for 37 year-round schools in Wake County. Thousands of students will be back in the classroom this morning. W.R.E.L.s Laura Levine joins us live from Woods Creek Elementary School in Holly Springs, and Laura, one thing students will have access to is a tip line for bullying and threats. Absolutely. Good morning, Chris. We're here at Woods Creek Elementary School, a brand-new facility opening here for students beginning today. As you just mentioned, we're talking about tens of thousands of students at the district will have to work to protect while they're on school campuses. So that's why Wake County Public Schools will begin using to say something anonymous tip line this year. It's a phase rollout that middle and high schoolers will be using. They'll get trained on how to use it later this summer. Schools that use the free app work with the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise to offer training to staff and students. They can report anonymous safety concerns to help at-risk people before they hurt themselves or others. Tipsters may choose to report several different kinds of tips, including bullying, cyberbullying, health harm, drug activity, a planned school attack, weapons. The list goes on. We spoke with the principal of Woods Creek Elementary School about some of his goals leading into this new school year. Our big thing is about providing joy and that welcoming atmosphere for kids. And I think that's what parents want. They want to feel that their kids are going to be taken care of, that they're going to be safe, and that they're going to have their academic needs met. And those are our priorities, and we can't wait to meet them. So to say something app will be a supplement to you what the district is already using. They will still keep its existing tip line for students and parents and faculty and staff to use. Laura Levine, WREO News, live in Holly Springs. In Wake County School, parents will have a new way to get updates on bus routes as their children go back to school. The district is rolling out a new bus delay notification system. Parents of students who ride the bus will get notifications through email or text. They'll let you know when that bus is delayed. But you have to sign up for the notifications via school messenger. You can find a link on the district website to do that. The here come the bus apps. That will also be available to track your child's bus. Today, environmental agencies are at the aftermath of this huge fertilizer plant fire in South El Virginia. They're monitoring the air pollution from that fire. We know the woman who sparked the fire on Saturday by crashing her car into that plant has died. Police tell us that she drove into a propane tank along the warehouse, knocking at about 10 to 20 feet, causing it to ignite and shoot flames into this building. One firefighter who responded says it's the largest fire he's seen in his career. Well, we knew all the chemicals were in it, so it's pretty much just fuel on the fire. It's a big bomb, really. We could hear explosions inside the building, which I'm assuming are chemical tanks and stuff that were going off. At least 15 firefighters were taken to the hospital at last check. One was still in the hospital. Employees tell us that nobody was inside at the time of the fire because of the holiday weekend. The EPA says air quality is good enough to avoid taking any action, and the DEQ found dead fish in nearby creeks, so it is testing water samples. The North Carolina-based nonprofit Samaritan's Purse is helping parts of the Caribbean that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Beryl. Yesterday, the organization launched its third emergency relief flight to the Caribbean in less than a week. The flight carried essential materials. We're talking about tarps and hygiene kits. These are crucial for families grappling with the storms aftermath, and we're told there are crews in three island nations in the Caribbean. We're in contact throughout the day with all of our teams, so we have over 60 disaster response staff in the area, down in the region. Samaritan's Purse has grown into a near $1 billion relief organization, with more than 2,700 disaster responders and a growing private air force. In investigation, it's underway after Fayetteville Police say a woman was hit by a car. This was the scene from the WRL breaking news tracker near Bragg Boulevard and Sycamore Dairy Road shortly after midnight on Sunday, you can see some serious damage to the windshield of this car. We are working to learn the identity of the woman involved and her condition. The North Carolina State Capitol is reopening to the public today, and this is coming more than a year after renovation started. The outside of the building was repaired, including replacing copper and the roof and dome. Now, the workhouse was included in HVAC's system update. Rumors can take self-guided tours Monday through Friday, that is from 9am to 5pm in Saturdays from 10 to 5. Free guided tours are available from 11 to 1 on Saturdays. You might see some film crews on UNC Chapel Hill's campus the next few days. Starting today, they'll be shooting the popular series this summer I turned pretty. The shoot is for the third season of the show as the main characters enter college. The crew will film Monday through Wednesday, which could impact traffic. UNC says filming will largely take place outside on Macoracle Place and surrounding buildings if you would like to if you're in the area. During that time, you can expect delays, road and parking closures as well. World leaders arrived in D.C. today for the NATO summit. What we can expect as the military alliance meets in our nation's Capitol for the first time in 25 years. And a local teen was chosen for a prestigious MIT program, what he has to say about the opportunity coming up. And the next three days will bring a small chance to scatter at storms, but it looks like heavier rain by Thursday and Friday. I'll show you how much we could see. Save big this summer with great deals! All in the King Supers app. Get juicy Washington red cherries for £2.99 a pound, then get 10 for 10 on items like Lays Stacks, Rice Oroni, and Sparkling Ice Sparkling Water for $1 each, all with your card. Tap these deals at your local Kroger today, or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change, restrictions apply, see site for details. Welcome back as you take a live look over Wilson and the Whirly Gigs. Yeah, they're not moving at all. Pretty stagnant out there. You're watching WRL news available on Hulu and the WRL app on your TV or streaming device. Not only were you talking about our weather, we're talking about what's going on in the Caribbean right now. Meteorologist Elizabeth Garner tracking barrel right now a category one storm, but you say that could be downgraded. It's about to be downgraded to a tropical storm. It has moved inland. That happened at about five o'clock. So if you happen to be joining us, it did make landfall about three hours ago. Matta Gorda, Texas along the Gulf Coast here, between Corpus Christi and Way over there into Louisiana, you can see a big rain shield. That's where the rain is falling. We've had storm surge. We've had heavy rain and of course some very strong winds as this has come on shore, winds at 80 miles per hour, steady as it moved on shore and some gusts earlier this morning up to say 90, maybe even 100 miles per hour. So definitely difficult conditions for folks there along the Texas coast. It is moving north at 12 miles per hour right now with 75 mile per hour winds. So most likely the next update will have it back down to a tropical storm strength. It moves up through the Mississippi Valley and on up toward the Great Lakes. This is a look at where it's likely to head. The orange shaded area is going to be about six to eight inches of rain. So it's going to carry a lot of rain all the way through St. Louis and Chicago, but notice it stays well to the west of us. Now we'll have another system that develops to the south and helps to bring us some decent amounts of rain for Thursday and Friday, but it won't necessarily be related to barrel. We will see maybe as much as one to three inches, which will be great to see. This low pressure system will sit here for the next several days and help to draw in some of that golf moisture and push it our way, which brings some heavy rain. But of course, golf moisture has a lot of humidity associated with it. It is in fact moisture. So it will be quite money for us for the next week or so. Looking at today, a few isolated showers and thunderstorms, some brief heavy rains, some brief gusty winds, but not everybody's going to see the rain today tomorrow or Wednesday. But that's going to be our next best chance. We jump on ahead and take a look at the rainfall that we're looking at the next three days and then some heavy rain Thursday and Friday and then the heat index also up around 100 or so. 30 to 40% chance today, tomorrow and Wednesday, 70% Thursday and 80% chance on Friday. How much rain total will we see between now and say Saturday? It could easily be anywhere from an inch to almost three inches. So that is some much needed rainfall that we could see. We need three to six inches to really kind of get back to where we should be for this time of the season or this time of the month. So we do have drought situation, mostly moderate drought, but a little pocket of severe drought from Goldsboro up toward Wilson. We may have the potential for some flooding on Thursday and Friday with the amount of rain that we'll see, but it could help to bring our drought situation down just a little bit. It'll bring our temperatures down to 89 on Thursday and 84 on Friday, but we're back to the 90s over the weekend, Eric. Well, Elizabeth, taking a look at traffic here this morning, things are looking pretty good and pretty green out here. You'll notice the only major issues we're seeing, those are popping up on the belt line right around Raleigh. A couple of crashes, they're not leading to any significant backups or delays, but if you're in the vicinity of that 44087 interchange or up here as you approach 440 in Glenwood, you'll just want to keep a close eye out. You see any first responders out there of folks on the side of the road, trying to move over, give them a little space. That's always the nice thing to do and the legal thing to do. Taking a live look outside, this is I-40 at South Saunders. You can see as is the case just about every morning, things are looking a little traffic-y out there as folks make that curve, some slight slowdowns, maybe adding one to two minutes to your drive, but so far so good out there on the roads this morning. All right. Thank you, Eric. A left-wing alliance now has the most seats in France's parliament after a high-stakes election. The country is now facing a parliament with no majority. The result could be political deadlock for the Olympic host country, and it could have effects on the war in Ukraine and Europe's economic stability. Police had to disperse large crowds celebrating the left coalition win in Paris last night. The effects of the election will likely reduce the authority of French President Emmanuel Macron. Protesters marked a grim milestone in Israel with calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down. Yesterday marked nine months of war between Israel and Hamas. Protesters blocked highways across the country, demanding a ceasefire that could return hostages still being held by Hamas. They demonstrated outside of the homes of Israel's parliament, and called the protest "day of disruption." Heads of state from around the world are arriving in Washington, D.C. today. Our nation's capital is hosting the NATO summit for the first time in 25 years. The gathering also marks the 75th anniversary of the military alliance that began after World War II. Not Amy Kylie reports the main focus might not be on the historic occasion. Final preparations are underway as world leaders descend on Washington for this year's historic NATO summit. We will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the most successful alliance in history. The NATO Secretary-General meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today. The summit itself starts tomorrow. What these foreign leaders are going to be hoping and praying is that the focus is actually on NATO, and maybe even Ukraine. Analysts say President Joe Biden's candidacy could be the focus instead. If there's a possibility that he might lose or drop out, all these Western European leaders have to do something different. They have to appeal to President Trump. Also descending on Washington for the summit are protesters from around the world. We do need defense, but we don't need super defense, which is what this is all about. Among them are groups advocating for peace and standing in opposition to the NATO military alliance. The response of more NATO is a vicious cycle that gets more Russian militarism and more NATO militarism and more Russian militarism. We need to pursue a different path. I may be Kylie reporting. 2023 was the year of the complaint, according to the Department of Transportation data. The Department received almost 97,000 submissions last year, with 91% of them being complaints. That's up from about 86,000 in 2022. Passenger complaints were over delays, cancellations, ticket agents, and foreign airlines, grievances and discrimination on race or national origin also made the list. This morning Boeing accepted a plea deal to avoid a criminal trial over crashes of its planes. The Justice Department says the company will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge from two crashes that killed 346 people. Prosecutors accused the company of deceiving regulators who approved its airplane and pilot training requirements. The deal calls for Boeing to pay $243 million as a fine. A federal judge still needs to approve that plea deal, though. The Florida Coast Guard rescued five people 11 miles off of Florida's coast. This is what they saw when they found them, all wearing life jackets sitting on top of their boat that had overturned. It happened around 10 o'clock Sunday morning when the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office got a 911 call about the five people in the water. The Coast Guard says they picked them up and brought them right back to shore. Luckily, nobody was hurt. It is unclear how that boat capsized. And family members confirmed the body of a 14-year-old goldboro boy who disappeared into the water near North Topsle Beach on 4th of July washed up on shore. Camp Lejeune officials say they found Maynard Perez's body washed ashore on base Sunday morning and notified Topsle Beach authorities. According to Perez's brother, the teen had waded out into the water of the New River Inlet and was swept away. New River Inlet is known for strong currents, and signs are posted along the beach warning swimmers. Now, Edna and Sicily erupted again yesterday, volcanic activity has intensified there in the last week. Alert levels were already set higher there on Friday. Edna is Europe's tallest active volcano. It has a long documented history with records dating back to 425 B.C. A man is dead after being hit by a car in Durham. It happened shortly before 10 o'clock Sunday night on I-40 near Fayetteville Road. Officers say the man was taken to the hospital where he died from his injuries. No details have been released about the driver involved in the accident and police say this is an ongoing investigation. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesperson says Emhoff is experiencing mild symptoms. His wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, tested negative for the virus. Emhoff is isolating at home and working remotely. The couple were with President Biden and the first lady last Thursday to help celebrate Independence Day, but no word yet on whether the president is undergoing testing for COVID. The Sanford Fire Department will have an additional engine staff daily. That brings its fleet to four fire engines and one ladder truck. Additionally, there will be at least one battalion chief on duty at all times. The fire department says they were able to expand because of recent hires who have started shift work. Sanford's first fire academy class graduated at the end of June and the city is building a new fire station. In the meantime, the additional engine will respond from station two on Woodland Avenue. Alright, so this is very exciting. And Enlow Meghan High School senior is doing something this summer that only 100 students around the world get to do. Ryan Rayzon got accepted to a renowned research program at MIT. In the six week intensive program, this is something he's going to be able to do here. Listen to this. He's going to be researching quantum computing and quantum photonics. Science and math has always been a passion of his because this is kind of like a dipping your toes in kind of like the professional world and sense like how we're working on this research. So it kind of gives me like a little bit of taste of what I'm going to be doing in the future. Rayzon says this intensive summer program will set him up for college applications next year. People who have previously attended the Research Science Institute have gone on to become scientists, entrepreneurs and professors too. Congrats to you. Alright, so you have a chance to snag some great deals on kids' toys, clothes and more enrollee this week with the Kids Exchange Consignment Sale. It's happening at the gym, gram and expo buildings at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. The sale is free admission and will be open until next Monday. Doors will open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily. You can find out more on WRAL.com. Coming up, Alec Baldwin is expected in court tomorrow, the latest trial in the legal saga following a shooting on the set of the movie Rust Just Ahead. And traffic delays could affect Chapel Hill today. We'll share the road closures expected as a TV crew is filming on UNC's campus. Carry. Get ready for the exciting new Go Carry Downtown Loop. Enjoy easy access to downtown destinations like Downtown Carry Park, Carry Regional Library, the Carry Theater and more. The Loop operates Thursday through Sunday every 25 minutes and it's free to ride. Bring downtown, park at the town hall parking deck and hop on the downtown loop. With the new Go Carry app, you can effortlessly plan your trip and track your bus in real time. The app is free to download and use. Visit GoCarry.org to learn more and start your journey today. At WakeMed MyCare 365, we deliver convenience others only talk about. Every day of the year, primary care and urgent care under one roof. Help the locations, virtual visits, walk in or schedule an appointment online. From annual physicals and routine care to sinus infection strep or the flu, we couldn't be more convenient. Learn more about our kind of care at our kind of convenience at wakemed.org. As you get into your cartoon to WRL news plus on your radio in Raleigh on 99.3 FM. In Durham, 96.5 FM at everywhere on 101.5 HD 3. Good morning. Happy Monday. Time now is 826. I'm Michelle McConnicky. We are a drive for now. Meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner has a look at our forecast. We could see some rain later on today. Likely to have just a few isolated thunderstorms this afternoon as well as Tuesday and Wednesday. And then some heavier rain by the end of the week, which we definitely need. The clouds are beginning to thin a little bit here in Sanford. We're going to see partly cloudy skies and then just after lunchtime, the chance of a few isolated storms. 78 in Fayetteville now, 76 in Irwin, 78 in South Hill. So it's a warm, muggy start. Great day for the pool. Highs will be in the low 90s, but the heat index will be closer to 100. Elizabeth, take a look at traffic here. You can see a couple of crashes popping up on the belt line around Raleigh, but thankfully none of them causing any major issues for us this morning. And a closer look, you can see one, we've got a disabled vehicle over there in the vicinity of I-440 and 87. That just something to look out for. Similar situation up around I-440 and Glenwood, no major issues again, just things you want to be aware of as you're driving in. Thanks, Eric. The body of a 14-year-old Goldsboro boy who disappeared near North Topsel Beach was found. Camp Lejeune officials say they found Maynard Perez's body washed ashore on beach Sunday morning, warning signs are posted along the beach where Perez was reportedly swept away. And way counties 37 year round schools start today. This school year two new schools will be in place, a new bus tracking and messaging system and also the safe something anonymous tip line to report any incidents of bullying, drug use and also planned attacks on schools. Next on Fox 50, the cooling stations open in way county this week and coming up next on today. It's Scarlett Johansson live in Studio 1A. Save big this summer with great deals! All in the King Supers app. Get juicy Washington red cherries for £299, then get 10 for 10 on items like Lays Stacks, Rice Oroni and Sparkling Ice Sparkling Water for $1 each, all with your card. Shop these deals at your local Kroger today or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers, fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change, restrictions apply, see site for details. Hi Drew and Jonathan Scott here, reminding you that American family insurance agents can help build a customized renters policy so you can protect stuff like this, or this, or even this, well case in point. Life's better when you're under American family's roof, ensure carefully, dream fearlessly. Get a quote and find an agent at ampam.com. Products not available in every state, American Family Mutual Insurance Company S9 is operating company 6,000 American Parkway, Madison, Wisconsin. Storm surge flooding, heavy winds and power outages. We are following Hurricane Barrow as it moves through Texas this morning, the latest updates from the Lone Star State. And here we'll see some afternoon thunderstorms, we'll continue to see a chance for the next several days with a better chance for some heavier rain later on this week. And summer vacation is over from year round students here in Wake County. I'm live at a new school opening today here in Holly Springs with a look at some of the new changes students and staff can expect this year. The Amazon hit series, the summer I turned pretty starts filming at UNC today, coming up where the show will be filmed on campus and how this could impact traffic in the area. Some pretty exciting stuff, a show, right here. Right here locally. I love it. We'll get to that coming up. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Michelle McConaughey. And I'm Chris Lomingo. We want to get over to Elisabeth Garter because she's looking at the satellite radar as we see some green popping on there on the map, Elisabeth. And we're looking at some afternoon and evening thunderstorms. We had of course some rain yesterday, we saw some of that lingering early this morning around parts of South Carolina and off to our West, but that has fizzled out. We definitely have some rain on the way later this afternoon as well as Tuesday and Wednesday. Here's a look at future cast. Lunchtime, it is quiet, but once we get into the mid to late afternoon, you can see just a few isolated cells popping up. It's not going to be a lot of coverage. I wouldn't expect to see showers and thunderstorms, but just be happily surprised if you happen to see a little bit of rain that falls. And that'll be the case again for Tuesday and Wednesday. Now Thursday and Friday, I'll hold another story. You'll have an actually potent system that'll come through to bring us a decent amount of some rain. And then of course we have barrel that made landfall here in Texas, bringing a lot of heavy rain to Houston right now. They can see as much as six to eight inches. And coming up, I'll follow the path of the heaviest rainfall and show you where it's headed. I'll tell you, it's not headed here. The storm still has 75 miles per hour winds, it's moving north at 12 miles per hour. It will become a tropical storm here, probably within the next hour, moving up the Mississippi Valley up toward the Great Lakes. But again, I'm going to follow their rainfall path where you're coming up. In North Hills, it is mainly cloudy, 78 with a dew point of 74, so it's a warm sticky start this morning. We'll see highs in the low 90s, but of course, with this amount of humidity, it'll feel more like nearly 100. Eric? Well, Elizabeth, take a look at the traffic map here this morning. You can see we've got a couple of minor incidents popping up in and around Raleigh, but nothing that's leading to major backups or delays at this point as you're driving into town. Taking a live look outside right now, this is I-40 in South Saunders. You can see at this point, both the eastbound and westbound lanes are moving pretty good. Take a look at those drive times as you are coming into the city. We're really only seeing a couple of minute delays all around. The worst of it, just four minutes as you're coming in from Wake Forest. A very similar situation as we look at the drive times coming into Durham, those sensors not picking up any major delays here, just one to two minutes as you're headed into the Bull City. Eric, thank you, Hurricane Barrel has officially landed in Texas this morning as a category one store. What you see right here is a live look in Galveston, Texas right now. You see how powerful the wind is right there? This is an American flag that's swaying in the wind. That's how powerful we're seeing the winds. The storm is bringing in rain, of course, to the area as well, and more than 120 counties in Texas are under a disaster declaration this morning. Jeff Hohen in the Dobera Live Center, Chris, you showed that spot in Galveston with about 45 minutes away. This is a look at downtown Houston right now. The Galleria area, if you're familiar with Houston at all, but as we take a look at these live pictures here, Barrel is setting its sights certainly on Houston as you look at the path slowly pushing north, strongest winds are in that eye wall, so still to come there. The southwestern portion of the metro area there is getting these winds. There's torrential rain, there's flash flooding already taking over with two to four inches of rain already had fallen, and there's plenty more on the way. I just listened to a local reporter talking to an emergency official. He says the number of customers without power in this storm's path has now topped a million customers. Power crews are facing a lot of the same challenges locals are. The roads are flooded, and that's preventing them from getting to the outages and the high winds. Once they are on site for the outages, they can't put the buckets up just yet because the winds are too strong. Oh, my goodness. What a sight there. Thanks, Jeff. Well, today's school is back in session for 37 year round schools in Wake County, Woods Creek Elementary in Holly Springs is welcoming its first class this morning, and that's where we find WRL's Laura Levine, Laura parents who have a new way to get updates on their kids bus routes as well, right? Yes, Michelle. Superintendent Robert Taylor told me this morning that they have hired 130 drivers since last July. He believes they're moving in the right direction, but yeah, the buses are rolling in right now. Matter of fact, as we're speaking, the first bus here rolling into Woods Creek Elementary School. This is one of 37 year round schools that will start today welcoming more than 42,000 students. Starting this school year, parents of students who ride the bus now can get up to the minute notifications via text and email when their child's bus is delayed. This can still also check for those bus delays by clicking on the live bus update link on a school's transportation page or by using the here comes the bus app. This comes as the district has dealt with this major transportation and bus staffing issues over the past few years. I spoke with Superintendent Taylor about his priorities this year. My goal is to focus on teachers and learning and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that teachers have the resources that they need, that schools have the resources that they need. This is a core business and that you'll always be a focus for me. We obviously want to continue to focus on school safety, making sure students are safe when they come to school, and they have a great learning environment. And Superintendent Taylor also shared with me, they have 271 bus routes for year round schools. They all have drivers, so they do not expect any issues with that. There will be some delays, however, with some new drivers who are just beginning this year that they'll have to work through some of those kinks, but he says he feels comfortable with the direction they're heading in. Laura Levine, WRL news live in Holly Springs. And there's more mental health services for students in North Carolina schools. Schools are hiring outside agencies to provide services for kids who can't otherwise leave school to get them. Providers and educators tell WRL's education insider that the services are improving kids' moods and helping them focus on school. They say the partnerships are a solution after more than a decade of rising mental health struggles among young people. You can find out more about the services at the education section of WRL.com. Today, environmental agencies are monitoring air pollution in the aftermath of this huge fertilizer plant fire in South Hill, Virginia. Investigators say a woman crashed her car into a propane tank at the facility, and this led to it catching fire and spewing flames throughout the warehouse. That woman died. 15 firefighters were taken to the hospital, and at last checked, one was still in the hospital. The EPA says air quality is good enough to avoid taking action, and so the DEQ actually found dead fish in nearby creeks. That's why the agency is testing water samples too. First Lady Jill Biden will be in North Carolina today as calls for President Biden to end his re-election campaign grow. She's expected to speak at a political event in Wilmington. Jill Biden is also making stops in Florida and Georgia as well today. While President Joe Biden reached out to Pennsylvania voters Sunday, some of the House's top Democrats met to discuss his campaign. House Democratic leader Harkim Jeffries held a private meeting, and sources say there was a divide among them. Some of them privately saying that Biden should step aside, while others, including members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, argue that Biden should remain the party's choice. Biden told reporters yesterday that he is up for the job. This morning, the TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty will be filming on UNC Chapel Hill's campus, and that could affect people traveling in the area today. W.R.O.S. Kelsey Coffee has been in Chapel Hill all morning, where several roads are now closed for filming. Most of the filming this week will happen here at McCorkle Place on UNC's campus. Now some fans of the show may be able to recognize actor Christopher Briney, who plays Conrad Fisher. He's there filming on Franklin Street. Crews are filming season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty that's set to premiere next summer. The main characters in the series are about to enter college, which explains why they're filming at UNC. And something interesting to note, the show's creator, Jenny Han, is a UNC alum. Roads will be closed in Chapel Hill today for filming. These are a list of the roads that will be impacted. Only part of East Cameron Avenue is expected to be closed tomorrow. Traffic will be detoured and some parking lots on campus will be closed. Filming is set to wrap up by the end of the week. Kelsey Coffee. Great news in Chapel Hill. Just a reminder, cooling stations are still open in Wake County today. The county has several locations open, including public libraries and a number of Wake County Health and Human Services locations. You can find more on locations near you online at WREL.com. Tonight, a Wake County Road is expected to close as part of the complete 540 project. West Lake Road and Carrie between Jamison Park Drive and Langston Circle is scheduled to close. That is tonight from 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. Rivers are encouraged to avoid the area, if possible. You can use 10-10, Bell's Lake, and Optimus Farm Roads as detours. And that closure is dependent on weather. Coming up an update to a sad story out of Durham, the funeral arrangements for a two-year-old who is killed in a drive-by shooting. Plus, the summer box office is heating up, which animated sequel took the top spot this weekend. We'll take you to it. And we'll take you out to the Zebuland live look right now. For the brake meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner, we'll let us know who can expect some rain this afternoon. Save big this summer with great deals! All in the King Supers app. Get juicy Washington red cherries for £2.99 a pound, then get 10-10 on items like Lays Stacks, Rice Oroni, and Sparkling Ice Sparkling Water for $1 each, all with your card. Shop these deals at your local Kroger today, or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers, fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change, restrictions apply, see site for details. And back here in the WRI Live Center, we're getting a lot of calls and emails into our newsroom about this. You may have seen it or heard it on your phone, it's an alert from Wake County government. Let me show you what we found out about this alert. It's surrounding the sirens that folks are hearing out of Harris nuclear plant, they sounded this morning, but there is no emergency, so there was a public safety activation for an emergency alert system, but Duke Energy Harris nuclear plant that is southwest of Raleigh, you can see it over by Holly Springs, you see it on Route 1 there, there's no emergency, I want to make sure that it's perfectly clear, no protective actions are needed to be taken by the public. The Wake County Emergency Management Group is working with Duke Energy and they're trying to determine the cause of why their sirens went off. There's no emergency though, thanks Jeff. All right, let's turn to weather meteorologist, Elizabeth Garner, taking a look at what's going on right outside your front door, we see some rain on the radar, we could see some spotty showers later, right? We are likely to see just a little bit of light patchy rain that pops up this afternoon, a few scattered storms, substantially as well, a little bit of activity, potentially starting to develop down just south and west, potentially down around Moore County and Hope County, so we'll watch that. Futurecast doesn't really show much for us until maybe right around or just after lunch time, and it's likely the coverage today is going to be really minimal. Most folks aren't going to see any rain today tomorrow or Wednesday, but there will be some isolated showers and storms that pop up, so you might run into some brief heavy rain or some brief gusty winds with these, but you can see that coverage is looking pretty minimal. You head down to Texas where Hurricane barrel made landfall at 5 AM with winds at 80 miles per hour. It is still producing heavy rain here in Houston and still 75 mile per hour winds, so doing some wind damage for sure, and it did create a lot of storm surge there on the coast of Texas. It's moving north at 12 miles per hour right now, I believe that once we get our next advisory probably at 9 AM, it will be a tropical storm, and we'll continue to weaken as it moves up the Mississippi Valley and toward the Great Lakes. While the rain stays on the west side of the mountains, we're going to see our own tropical moisture by the time we get to, say, Thursday and Friday, but it won't necessarily be related to barrel, but it will bring us some much-needed rain, that's for sure. It's a warm start out there, 78, this is a live look at North Hills looking at 90 degrees by around two o'clock this afternoon. The rain that we saw over the weekend much needed, and a lovely rainbow there, sent in by Charles Wrenstich and Raleigh. We love your weather watcher photos. Send us some, go to WRL.com and search weather watchers and you can upload some photos. Low 90s today in Raleigh and Durham, and then 95 in Fayetteville are due points way up there at 74, just a very uncomfortable feel to the atmosphere right now, and that's not going to change all the way through Friday. We're looking at very high humidity and high heat index too. Close to 100 today, 106 Tuesday, 104 for Wednesday, both of those will come close to heat advisory criteria and the weather service, as far as I can tell, hasn't been chatting too much about that for tomorrow, but we'll keep an eye on it, definitely looking at the map, the major heat risk map, showing that potential. 95 tomorrow, 94 Wednesday. It's cooler on Thursday and Friday when the rain rolls through, so a double wind there with some cooler temperatures and a good chance for some rain, as much as one to three inches. Now the con there would be that we'll have possibly some flooding with that much rain. Saturday and Sunday, we're just back to another hot summer pattern. Funeral arrangements have been announced for the two-year-old girl who was shot and killed in Durham last month. Menery Bradshaw was shot during a drive-by shooting on East Cornwallis Road in Durham on June 20th. She died a week later. Her family is holding a memorial service on Saturday for her. It's happening at the Blackwell Funeral Home in Burlington, Bradshaw's mother and a 22-year-old man were injured in that drive-by shooting. No arrests have been made in this case, and Durham police are asking anyone with any information to give them or crime stoppers a call. Tomorrow the trial against Alec Baldwin begins in New Mexico, and this comes nearly three years after the death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins. That was on the set of the film Rust. Baldwin is charged with felony and voluntary manslaughter and connection to the shooting. And if a jury convicts him, he could get 18 months in prison. Baldwin was pointing a revolver at Hutchins during a rehearsal for the movie. That's when the gun went off and killed her and wounded the director. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired. The film's armor, Hannah Gutierrez Reid, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter back in April. The lake fire continues to burn in Santa Barbara County, California. A county fire department official posted this stunning video of the fire burning in the Los Angeles, the Los Padres National Forest. The fire has burned more than 16,000 acres. Several structures are being threatened, including Michael Jackson's former Neverland Ranch. More than 750 firefighters are battling these flames. And more than 120 line workers and support staff have traveled from Ohio to Texas ahead of Hurricane Barrel's arrival. They are there in case the storm leaves widespread power outages. The workers began their journey on Saturday to make sure they got there before that storm hit. The highest camp on the world's tallest mountain is littered with garbage and it may take years to clean up. Sherpas on Mount Everest say there could be as much as 40 to 50 tons of trash still at the South Pole. It's known as the last camp before climbers attempt to reach the top of the summit. At that point, climbers are worried about staying alive more than cleaning up after themselves. Teams have even found and dug up two frozen climbers who had to be taken back by helicopter. Cumberland County is rolling out a new app today. It's called the MyCC NCGov Mobile app. It'll help you get important notifications straight to the palm of your hands. You'll also be able to report any issues and stay up to date with upcoming events, meetings and classes. You can start downloading the app today. And 4th of July celebrations continued over the weekend and one celebration in Alaska attracted people from around the world, thousands hiked to a remote hillside just to get a glimpse of vehicles flying off a cliff and crashing to pieces. Yep, here it is right here. This is the annual Glacier View Car Launch. This year more than a dozen vehicles from police cruisers to buses met their fate at the bottom of that hill. The event that it's been happening for more than 20 years. I have lots of questions. Are they cleaning it up? Great grandmother from Pennsylvania has 5 million reasons to smile. She recently finished up her treatment for breast cancer and then after having to postpone a trip to see her daughter, Donna Osborne stopped at a gas station and bought a scratch off lottery ticket. She won 5 million bucks, folks. Osborne called her daughter immediately to share the good news. She is a better person than I would have. I would have kept my mouth shut. The 75-year-old admits she is a frequent lottery player. She says the prize came just in time for her birthday. Now she's figuring out how to spend the money. She says one thing on her bucket list. She might just treat herself to a trip to Alaska and if you go, Donna, you can go see those cars going off the cliff there. Yeah, amazing. Oh my goodness. Incredible. Well, after the NC encourages match against racing Louisville, the team honored players from both teams that are playing in Paris at the Olympics this year. And representing the United States, Casey Murphy. Very exciting. The courage have five players in the Olympics, Carolyn, for Brazil, Feli Roush for Germany and Casey Murphy for the US. They were there last night. The list also includes Sydney Collins for Canada and Courtney Vine for Australia. And Team USA Swimming took a break from training at the Triangle Aquatic Center in Kerry to check out the game and support their fellow Olympians. Swimmers watch the courage remain unbeaten at Wake Med Soccer Park. And WREL is your home for the summer Olympics. Liz McLaughlin will be in Paris, bringing you live reports will also have live coverage all day from July 26th to August 11th on WREL. Brad Pitt is entering the racing world of F1 in the big screen. David Daniel has that and more in today's Hollywood Minute. You need to know the car for combat. How am I supposed to make that safe? Who said anything that's safe? The first teaser trailer is out for F1 from Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kaczynski. Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Damsen Idris and Javier Bardem star in the racing flick, which was filmed in part at actual Formula One events. The checkered flag drops for F1 in IMAX and other U.S. theaters June 27th, 2025. Lego's latest brickbuster video pays tribute to the original blockbuster. Jaws in a Jiffy is a promo for Lego's film-inspired display set featuring Chief Brody, Hooper, Quint and Bruce the Shark. The nearly 1,500-piece set includes a tile with Brody's famous line, "You're going to need a bigger boat." Lego does warn fans the set due out August 6th does not float. Going fishing in Hollywood, I'm David Daniel. And for sequels and a prequel went head to head in this weekend's box office, Despicable Me 4 had a strong start landing the top spot and debuting at $75 million. The beat inside out too, which has now made $534 million domestically, and a quiet place day one, Maxine and Bad Boys ride or die made up the rest of the top five respectively. All right now the big was trending, big news, Michelle, congratulations, you get married, look at you. Thank you. They have noticed you was gone last week because you had a little trip and then hold on, bring your own camera quick. Let's see it, let's see it, let's see the hard word, look at that. That's not a ring, that's a ring, look at that right there. Thank you so much, yes we got engaged in Maine right at a beautiful church on the ocean, it was incredible. I love you Sebastian. And congratulations to all Sebastian. Save big this summer with great deals, all in the King Supers app. Get juicy Washington red cherries for $2.99 a pound, then get 10 for 10 on items like Lays Stacks, Rice Oroni, and Sparkling Ice Sparkling Water for $1 each, all with your card. Shuff these deals at your local Kroger today or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers, fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change. 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