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8AM News on WRAL - Friday, July 5, 2024
Now breaking news from WRAL coverage you can count on. Crews are working to restore power after a power line was knocked over in an early morning crash. Coming up we'll show you when we expect to see the power turn back on. Definitely unfortunate there with this big time heat that we are looking at today. Please make sure to be careful out there. Excessive heat warnings across the area. We're going to talk about what that means as far as our feels like temperature coming up. And a celebration of Independence Day at Dix Park ended well in chaos and confusion. The push for answers this morning over why the fireworks show ended in disarray. We're going to get you some more answers on that. We want to say first of all thank you for joining us here on WRAL News of Fox 50. I'm Chris Lovinggood. Pat yourself in the back folks because you made it to Friday. You win a very hot weekend. Triple digit temperatures is what we're looking at. Meteorologist Anthony Baglione has been watching that for you. What you can expect and ooh it's going to be a scorcher Anthony. It is it's going to be another hot one for us today. Very good to be at the lake. If you can you know layer up on the sunscreen and just go out and enjoy. Or if you want to hang in the air conditioning too. It's going to be a good one for that. We get us outside this morning. In fact here's our late guest camera. I'm thinking there's a boat right there. It looks like a really nice morning to start off on the water. It's going to get pretty hot though pretty fast for us. It already feels like 86 across the triangle. 84 in Fayetteville 86 in Southern Pine. So that goes to show you when it's this early in the morning relatively. And we are this hot. How hot it's going to be here through the rest of today. Here's a look at the hour by hour feels like for us. I put the pool in the background because it's going to be good for that too. 108 is what it should feel like closer to let's say four o'clock. Even into this evening. There's not much of a break from that. So just bear that in mind. We do have another cool event though going on the Holly Springs fireworks tonight. 6 to 9 30 fireworks that are at about 9 15. No problems with that as far as any rain is concerned. I do think any storm activity would be out of here. But the heat is going to be our big story through the weekend. We will talk about that when we could see a break from that Brett here in a few. Thanks Anthony. Let's take a look at traffic 801 on your Friday morning. I'm Brett Neeson for Ken Smith. This is our delay map showing our delay board going into Raleigh and all of our major roots. Just two minutes coming in on US one southbound. That's if you hit one of those stoplights. That's about the only problem you're going to see out there. Same goes for Durham and 885. The Durham freeway free flowing in both directions so far this morning. Not seeing any problems, not seeing any crashes or any other types of incidents out there on the roads. This is for 48 capital boulevard. The belt line looking pretty good as well. There's a few cars out there on the belt line so far this morning. But really not what we normally see here on a Friday. Chris. Thank you, Brett. WRL is following breaking news. About 1,800 people in Durham are without power. Because of a crash that took down power lines. WRL's Nick Pirlin. He has been there for quite some time this morning. Nick, this car that crashed, it's been removed. But it's going to be a while before the power comes back on. Chris, we're hearing it won't be until 2 this afternoon before people in this area can get their power restored. And you can see behind me, crews are working to do that right now. I'm going to get behind the camera and zoom in a little bit more on the work that they're doing. You can see workers with Duke Energy working hard all morning to try to get this power line restored here. I want to show you some video from the WRL breaking news tracker from early this morning though. You can see a car being towed away after hitting this power line and knocking it over. We do know that about 1,800 people will be without power. And you just heard Anthony tell you just how hot it's going to be. So not having air conditioning on a day like today until 2 PM is going to be a problem for some people. So we're definitely working with Duke Energy to make sure we get updates as to when the power will be restored. We'll stay on top of that all morning. Live in Durham, Nick Ferrell in WRL News. Person is in the hospital because of an early morning shooting. That happened around 1 a.m. in a neighborhood on Glenbrook Drive in Durham. Notice the near 100 evidence markers on the ground as police investigated. You can see that in this video here. We are working to learn the victim's condition and if any arrests have been made. All right, this is the big talker in town. The crowds of people gathered at Dick's Park. Well, and they didn't get the fireworks show. They imagined when a rain delay caused mass confusion. WRL's Kelsey Coffee is joining us live from Dick's Park this morning. Kelsey organizers are saying that rain and technical difficulties are to blame here. Yes, Chris. In this morning, we're reaching out to city leaders to get to the bottom of what happened here last night. And we're just a few minutes away from a cleanup effort that's supposed to be scheduled to start at eight o'clock. But let's take you to video of that mass exodus of people leaving the park last night. Heavy rain moved through the area just before 9 30. And that's when some people thought the park was being evacuated and left creating a major traffic jam. Traffic's been pretty heavy. Everyone's trying to get to their cars and leave. I think I'm on my third Uber ride right now that I've ordered and the Uber driver is nowhere. It's big. The last Uber guy, he's like, oh, I just picked up a boatload of people. And I was like, I just paid you $50. Like, I'm like, where are you going? Despite the rain, the show did go on, but only for a few minutes. The city later released a statement saying the show was cut short due to technical difficulties. Earlier, the city created a sign up link for text alerts about the show. We checked in on that and they did not send any notifications about the weather or delays. They also did not offer any updates on social media. So we'll be sure to keep you updated if we hear from city leaders later this morning. But for now, the city says that the show will not be rescheduled. Kelsey Copy, WRL news live in Raleigh. I think I mean, a five is out of their home because of an early morning fire in Raleigh. This happened on when Nestle Court near Lewisburg Road in US 1 in Raleigh. This was just after 1.30 this morning. And the WRL breaking news tracker was there. Look at the video here on your screen. About 35 firefighters responded to the call. They were able to get the flames under control in about a half hour. The Red Cross is helping the family affected by this. And a man is in the hospital with serious injuries this morning because of a shooting in Raleigh. Police responded to Body Island Lane around lunchtime yesterday. Officers found a man with gunshot wounds and they also made an arrest. Investigators are still looking into what led up to the shooting. The names of the victim and the suspect, they have been released. It's going to be a busy weekend on North Carolina Lakes. And there will be an increased law enforcement presence because of this. This is happening over the holiday weekend as part of Operation Drywater. It's a national campaign to encourage boater safety. Last year, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission made 40 arrests for boating under the influence and issued more than 1,000 citations. The main thing we're doing is just making sure everybody's safe. Whether that's wearing a life jacket. You know, making sure people aren't drinking and driving and then just, you know, making sure everybody gets home safely. Boaters must have enough life jackets for everyone on board and children under the age of 13 must wear the life jackets while on board. So far this year, 37 boating incidents have happened in North Carolina and seven of those were fatal. Rain at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park did not stop the fireworks show there. Thousands of people came together to witness a holiday show after the Durham Bulls game and a patriotic night at the ballpark is what many people wanted during a tense political climate and election year. Spectators say that it was a welcome break. There's a lot of stuff going on in the country right now, but people coming together, putting all the politics aside, having fun here, eating hot dogs, fireworks, it's a beautiful thing. Now the Bulls did not pull out a win against the Norfolk tides, but that celebration did not stop the celebration. It didn't stop the celebration there. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met yesterday and that happened as a ceasefire deal inches closer. They discussed the ongoing efforts to finalize the ceasefire, including the release of hostages. The leaders talked about the recent response they received from Hamas as well, which includes a new proposal. Biden will have the opportunity to talk about a possible deal with other world leaders next week, and that will happen during the NATO summit. Tonight, an event is happening that gives people exclusive access to the U.S. Olympic swim team. The Stars and Stripes Suarez is happening tonight at Triangle Aquatic Center. Ticket holders will get a private viewing of the Olympic team's practice and even get to chat with Olympians, Colton Jones, David Fox and others. You also get a gift package and autographs from each VIP team member. You also get to skip the line tomorrow. How about that? All of that can be yours for $1,000. The Stars and Stripes Suarez is tonight that is from 4.45 until 7.30 p.m. President Joe Biden has lost the support of a key donor that's because of his recent debate performance. Just ahead, the latest on calls for Biden to let someone else step in and take the reins for Democrats. And the man is recovering after being bitten by a shark while celebrating the 4th of July. The shocking attack in the shallow waters of a beach in Florida. Anthony. And Chris, as we check out the tropics here, we currently have Hurricane Beryl. This did make landfall here about an hour or so ago. It's still a Category 2 hurricane. We're going to talk about the track going forward with this system. We're excited and our forecast here at home coming up. [MUSIC] Getting a live look at White Lake today and Clear Blue skies. Beautiful blue waters there, but it feels a little different. Definitely want to treat yourself this year. Maybe out to a little trip out on a boat to relax today. But definitely make sure you're staying hydrated. Make sure you got the AC on, Anthony Baglione. I mean, we don't need to tell them why. Breaking news, it's hot. Treat yourself to some water, some sunscreen, and yes, it's hot out there. That's kind of what we're going to be seeing here the next couple of days. I do think by the time we get to our Sunday, it'll feel a little bit better, but you don't need me to tell you it's going to be a warm one here the next little while. Let's head outside right now. Here's our Sanford camera. You can see we have the blue skies. We have some pretty high level clouds too. It's not going to help filter much of that sunshine at all. It's still going to be toasty overall. Here's where we sit currently. The actual air temperature in the blue box and then what it feels like, honestly, the more important number on your skin, 86 in Raleigh, 82 in Goldsboro. We're feeling, I'd say, like the upper 70s and low to even some mid 80s there across most of our area. We go through the rest of today though. This is not something we've seen here this year in excessive heat warning. That's including Raleigh. It includes Sanford, Durham. Feels like values up to 110. So all that saying is basically it's a step above or step worse than a heat advisory. We see those a lot of times too during the summer. 105 to 109, wherever you're at, whatever the distinguishing designation, if you will, it's still going to be warm for all of us. 108 is what feels like value could be there right about three o'clock this afternoon. There's a look hour by hour. Even at 10 o'clock tonight, still feeling like 96. So there's not much of a break into the evening. One kind of cool event though that we still have going on tonight. The Holly Springs fireworks. I think there's probably going to be a lot of people out there for this too. It's 95 at seven o'clock. We go to 87 by the time we get closer to fireworks. And you see that slight chance of a shower where a thunderstorm. I do not anticipate big issues for this event. We're going to be looking at minimal rain chances today, maybe a spotty shower, maybe a thunderstorm here this evening, and it pushes out very quickly. So that's not going to be a big deal. We look at the tropics. Here's the latest on Hurricane Beryl. It's still a category two hurricane. Now that it's made landfall though, I would expect our next update for it to be weaker. What happens when it gets over land? You can think about having friction in a sense. So it runs into that landmass. It slows things down. It kind of tries to rip it apart just a little bit. And so I would expect this to continue weakening a little bit more before it gets back out over the water. The water, that mind you, is very, very hot for this time of the year, just setting records left and right with how hot it is. It gets back out there. It's not going to have a lot of time though to re-intensify. So still going from a category two hurricane there down to a tropical storm, slowly starting to try and strengthen again. Category one hurricane by the time it gets into, let's say, close to Brownsville, Texas, but between the Texas-Mexico border. That's what we're looking at there with Beryl. No other areas that we're watching in the tropics right now, there's some Sahara and dust that's going to kind of keep things quiet for the next week or so. So that's good, but we'll be watching Beryl here going forward. 102 today, 97 tomorrow, 89 on Sunday. Scattered storm chances mainly Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. But those chances stick with us there, Brett, into next week. Alright Anthony, thank you. Let's take a look at traffic 815 on your Friday morning right now. A lot of green on the boards. No incidents to report, which is really good news coming in on US one southbound from Wake Forest. Or if you're heading out towards Windell, if you're heading towards Durham right now, green across the board. No delays out there, which is really good news. 448 Ridge Road. That's our live look there and the belt line is pretty good. Free-flowing in both directions so far. This morning, Chris, we have nothing to report. No news is good news. Thanks, Brett. A key donor to the Democratic Party is withholding donations until President Biden drops out of the presidential race. Abigail Disney says she will no longer donate. She's the granddaughter of Disney's co-founder. In a statement to CNBC, Disney said in part, quote, "If Biden does not step down, the Democrats will lose. Of that, I am absolutely certain." End quote. The president has said that he has no plans to withdraw from the race. Meanwhile, anonymous sources tell CNBC that Vice President Kamala Harris his past donors are privately discussing what her candidacy would look like if Biden dropped out. Happening right now in the WRA live center, it is a new era of leadership for Britain. This was just video of the new Prime Minister for the United Kingdom addressing the crowd minutes after he was confirmed as the UK's 58th Prime Minister. Keir Starmer here saying, quote, "Our country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal, and the return of politics to public service." This is a picture of Keir Starmer and his wife meeting the cheering crowds as he arrived at 10 Downing Street, which will be his permanent residence, the Prime Minister residence. And before that, he met with King Charles, who formally appointed Keir Starmer as a UK's new Prime Minister. We'll be following this story all morning in the WRA live center. New day in the UK. Thanks, Renee. We are weeks away from the start of the fall semester for many colleges, and some students still do not know if they'll be able to afford to go. That's because of delays with the new free application for federal student aid. The FAFSA's remodel was supposed to make the application easier and faster to fill out. It made the application process easier for some people, yes, but created glitches and crashes for other people. And now many students still don't know officially if they're going to get federal student aid, and if they do, how much? And that's not normal for July. So what would happen is we would give a student their admissions decision, and then within two weeks be able to deliver a special aid package, which is really helpful because then they would have anywhere from two to three months to be able to work towards that May 1st deadline of when the national candidate reply date is. Instead, weeks out from the fall semester, admission staff are struggling and parents are concerned. Governor Roy Cooper passed a series of bills this week, and one of them introduces digital driver's licenses for our state. DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin says the digital licenses would be secured in the laminated licenses, and the people could actually decide whether or not they want one, it wouldn't be forced to have to be had. The option will become available around this time next year. Amazon stock hit a record high this week, and the company's CEO is planning to sell $5 billion worth of shares. Jeff Bezos disclosed the proposed sale of the 25 million shares in a notice Tuesday. After the sale, Bezos would still own 912 million shares, which is nearly 9% of the company. Bezos unloaded over $8 billion worth of shares earlier this year. A spokesperson for Amazon has declined to comment. 40 million Americans say they don't know how to swim. That's coming from the CDC. Black and Latino people are most at risk for drowning. 72% of Hispanic adults and 63% of black adults reported never having taken a swim lesson. That is compared to 48% of white adults. Local nonprofit Carolina Swims Foundation is hoping to change these disparities. They are providing free swim lessons to low-income and children in foster care and also installing free life jacket loaner stations. Sadly, there will be another drowning, and it will be a non-white person, and it will be a male, and they will be over 5 years old if it's an open body of water. If it's a backyard swimming pool, they will be between the ages of 0-4. So far, Carolina Swims Foundation has provided free swimming lessons to 750 children. A shark bit a man at a Florida beach on the 4th of July. Hannah McKenzie talks to the vacationers who saw this happen. New Smyrna Beach living up to its nickname this July 4. A 21-year-old man bitten by a shark on his right foot while playing football in knee-high water. According to Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue, it happened just after 4 p.m. The Ohio resident was in the water near Flagler Avenue. "We were actually about 4 or 5 tenths down from where it happened." Kristen Mazza says her husband ran over to see what was going on. "He had a pretty bad cut, but he was looking like it was not life threatening. I didn't think it was going on. He had a pretty bad cut, but he was looking like it was not life threatening. Thank God. Gash to the foot, lots of blood." John Grindel was sitting just behind the victim and his friends. He says he saw them head out to the water and minutes later. "The lady came screaming and said, "I need help. I need help." And the man was kind of limping in and fell in kind of the shallow part of the water. And next thing you know, paramedics were coming up to him. It could tell he's in pain. You could see the blood coming off him into the sand. Lifeguards tended to him before paramedics arrived. Officials say he'll be okay. "My husband and I have seen sharks coming out of the water here, playing. It looked like they were playing. But they didn't bite anybody." New Smyrna resident Maureen Reyes isn't shocked to hear about the attack, but she was surprised by the location. "Most of the time that people get bit by sharks in New Smyrna, they're in the inlet. And the sharks are following the boats and fishing boats." Other beachgoers now on edge this holiday weekend. "Yes, people have to be careful. This is ocean. And sharks belong here. In ocean we have to be very careful when we go to water." The state's Museum of History is always a worthy visit. Even now, when the family-friendly venue is in the midst of renovations, the museum's first floor still accepts visitors through October 7th. Last month, the third floor is Sports Hall of Fame, closed for those renovations. That exhibit opened when the building actually was opened in 1993, but not much has changed. Curator Katie Edwards says sports legends like Buck Leonard deserve better. "I was quite a bit dated, the technology, and we run out of space. Getting our thinking caps together about how we can present these artifacts. And we're going to preserve these artifacts forever and tell their stories for future audiences." The trophies and banners, jerseys and uniforms are coming down to be safely stored away. Renovations at the North Carolina Museum of History will not be completed for about two to three years. The FBI is investigating a deadly shooting at Yellowstone National Park. According to a statement from Park, Rangers, they responded to the canyon village overnight. That was about an armed person making threats. When Rangers confronted the person, shots were fired and the armed person was killed and a ranger was injured. But no names have been released in this case. Special agents from the National Park Service are helping with this investigation. There was a lot of confusion for thousands of people in Dick's Park last night for the fireworks show. Just moments away. Hear about people's frustrations. ♪♪ 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 Friday morning. Your time is 826. I'm Chris Lovingett. We'll get you started on your weekend forecast with meteorologist, Anthony Baglion. Chris, it's already a hot one out there for us. Feeling like the mid to upper eighties across most of our area. Roxborough, not quite there. It's 75, but certainly everyone's going to be talking at some very hot temperatures today. Feeling like probably between about 100 to 110 this afternoon. This is going to be the hottest though over the next seven. 102 for an actual air temperature. There's a slim chance maybe just a passing storm this evening, but not a lot of coverage. 97 tomorrow we go to 89 on Sunday and the temperature is pretty consistent through next week in the low to mid 90s along with some more storm chances there. Thanks, Anthony. Let's take a look at traffic. We are looking pretty good still out on the roads. Green Cross the board, which is good news. 440 looking good. 540 and capital boulevard. Also looking good. Durham Freeway is clear right now. You also want to carry Parkway for coming in from the apex and carry area. Not a lot of cars. Not a lot of company on the roads this morning. We are going to continue to watch it. We'll let you know if any crashes pop up. A person has life threatening injuries because of a shooting in Durham. Video from the WRO breaking news tracker shows the scene on Henson Drive. Investigators found dozens of shell casings and a car that was shot. Please say that the person who was shot went to the hospital and someone took them there in a private vehicle. Crowds of people gathered at Dix Park and they did not get the fireworks show they imagined. That was when a rain delay created mass confusion. This video shows the crowds of people trying to get home. The fireworks did happen after a delay, but many people had already left or were waiting for a ride home. The city of Raleigh says it will not be rescheduled. Up next on today, Joe Martins steals and deals on everything from wrinkle fighting skincare to a great tote bag you'll want to bring everywhere. [Music] Now breaking news from WRO coverage you can count on. Roughly 1,800 people in Durham are without power after a car ran into this power line early this morning. Coming up will tell you when the power is expected to return. [Music] It is going to be another very hot day for us. We have excessive heat warnings out across the area. We're going to talk about what that means and if we have a break from the heat any time soon. Coming up. [Music] After a mix up over the 4th of July fireworks show at Dix Park, coming up the questions we're asking city leaders this morning. [Music] A lot of questions we have for them and we'll try to get those answers to you. Thank you for joining us here on WRO News on Fox 50. I'm Chris Lovinggood. One of the biggest things we're talking about right now is the weather, how hot it is going to be. We've got Anthony Bagley on in here and Anthony, I see the map behind you and I am not a meteorologist but I'm pretty sure when it goes from red to fuchsia that's worth noting. Never a good thing. Whenever you see the bright colors, even if you're not a meteorologist, it's just kind of that human nature. Your eye is drawn to that and that tends to lend itself to kind of worse weather if you will. We're talking about excessive heat warnings outlined there for Raleigh. Most of the triangle are northern areas and a heat advisory is south of that. The difference being it's just the cutoff of how kind of hot it's going to feel. 100 to about 105 is the heat advisory. Up to 110 is where we see that darker color contour. So everyone's going to be very, very hot today. It's just a matter of how hot you get this afternoon. Where we sit right now, 86 across the triangle we feel like 84 in Fayetteville, 82 currently in South Hill. So we're starting to see those warm temperatures filter in but not quite as bad as what it's going to be later on this afternoon. There's our muggy meter too. This is kind of a big telltale of how it feels outside. We're in the tropical category. You can call it gross. You can call it uncomfortable. Any of those terms is just going to be how it is. We're bumping that up from humid where it was earlier this week. We will talk about those. Some rain chances headed this way. Hopefully the coolest off just a little bit and our tropical forecast bright coming up in a few. Thanks Anthony. Let's take a look at traffic now. 831 on your Friday morning. I'm Bretton Eason, Fort Kinsmith and we got green across the board. The 40 looking good. If you're coming in from I-40 westbound from Johnson County area past Clayton bypass. No delay. A couple minute delay. If you're coming in on US one southbound those are just our typical stoplight delays. If you're hitting any of those stoplights as you approach capital will of art and coming into Raleigh. Over in Durham we're looking good as well. The Durham freeway in both directions delay free and all of our other major routes into Durham are delay free at this point. It's a pretty easy Friday morning out there. Glenwood Avenue at Creedmore Road. That's our live look there and it's pretty good out there if you're over there by Crabtree Valley Mall. Maybe you want to get some shopping in here before the holiday weekend continues on. Chris so far so good. All right. Thank you, Brett. About 1800 people in Durham are without power because of a crash that took down power lines. W-R-L's Nick Perlin has been on this scene all morning. We're crews there. We're working to fix this. Duke Energy worked this morning to try to restore power for people who live in this area after a car ran over into this power line early this morning. Now, I want to show you some video from the W-R-L breaking news tracker and you can see that car being towed away here after running into this power line and knocking it over. We're told around 1800 people are going to be without power until around 2 p.m. and because of how hot it is that could be a big issue for people who live in this area. We're still working with Duke Energy to find out when exactly the power will return. Once we have more information, we'll be sure to update you in Durham, Nick Perlin, W-R-L News. And we do have new information about a shooting overnight in Durham. Deborah Ariel has confirmed that the victim did suffer life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital. Now, this happened around 1 a.m. in a neighborhood on Glenbrook Drive in Durham. Police found dozens of shell casings on the ground and a car that was shot at. We'll keep you update on any information that comes to this story. Grounds of people gathered at Raleigh's Dix Park. They wanted to see the fireworks show, but the problem was that it happened just not as long as they wanted, and it caused mass confusion there. W-R-L's Kelsey Coffee joins us live from Dix Park this morning, and Kelsey organizers say that it was rain and technical difficulties. That's what's to blame here. Chris, we're asking city leaders a lot of questions this morning about what happened, and now you can see that they've started cleaning up after that event last night. But we'll take you to video now so you can see the mass exodus of people who left the park yesterday that the rain moved through the area just before 930. And that's when some people thought that the park was evacuated and left, creating a major traffic jam. Now, despite that rain, the show did go on, but only for a few minutes. The city later released a statement saying the show was cut short due to technical difficulties. Earlier, the city created a sign-up link for text alerts about the show. We checked in on that. They did not send any notifications about the weather or delays. They also didn't offer any updates on social media, so we'll be sure to keep you updated when we hear from city leaders this morning. But for now, the city says the show will not be rescheduled. Kelsey Coffey, WRL news. Live in Raleigh. Ephemia 5 is out of their home because of an early morning fire in Raleigh. That happened on when Nestle Court near Lewisburg Road in US 1 in Raleigh. This was just after 1 30 this morning. The WRL breaking news tracker was there as you can see this video. About 35 firefighters responded to this call. And they were able to get the fire under control in about a half hour. The Red Cross is assisting the family affected in this. Raleigh police have arrested a man accused of stabbing another man to death last month. Ernesto Torres Torres is accused of stabbing 32-year- old Aaron Heath. That was back on June 20. Heath later died at the hospital. And Heath's father, who you see right here, told WRAL he was happy to learn of the arrest. And it was the first time that he saw his wife smile since the deadly stabbing. A barricaded man with a gun was taken into custody in Raleigh on Live Oak Road. That's coming from police. They were first called to the home around 4-15 yesterday afternoon. What you see on your screen now is the police response from video from the WRAL breaking news tracker. The man was barricaded inside for more than an hour and was taken into custody without incident. And no one was injured. This morning, a 14-year-old is still missing after disappearing in the water off North Topsel Beach. Crews from surrounding areas helped search the new river inlet for the teenager yesterday. Two other people were also pulled from the ocean yesterday in North Topsel. In just south of there, crews are investigating a possible drowning in Currie Beach. That happened near the Currie Beach Pier. Hurricane barrel has made landfall on Mexico's Caribbean coast. It hit on the Yucatan Peninsula as a category two storm. And authorities in Mexico were urging tourists to get to higher ground before this storm arrived. The hurricane is already being blamed for nine deaths in Venezuela, Jamaica, Granada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After barrel crosses the Yucatan Peninsula, it could make landfall again in southern Texas or even northern Mexico. Law enforcement. There are increasing controls to keep you and your family safe all weekend. WRAL joined the Nash County Sheriff's Office as they conducted a checkpoint for drivers on 64. That's one of the busiest highways in the state. It's part of an operation called "Arrive Alive" on July 5. Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone says while driving under the influence is one of the biggest issues on the road, also as road rage. And he urges everyone to use caution when driving. The town of Apex confirms that a ransom wear attack is behind the problem with their computer systems. And the latest statement that we received, the town says, "Nothing more about the cyber criminals is known at this time, including their demand. The town of Apex has not and will not communicate with, negotiate with, nor make payment to those responsible." This all started Wednesday. The town says cyber criminals hacked their system and forced them to take everything offline. And so the town contacted the state's cyber security task force to assist in this. President Biden is looking to calm concerns of his party as he sits down for his first televised interview since last week's debate. The next few days of his campaign are critical. That's because of last week's poor performance in the debate against former President Donald Trump. NBC News has learned that the president is privately torn between defiance and acceptance. That's happening during calls to step aside according to four people familiar with this. The president acknowledged that his performance in a radio interview was not as strong as it could have been. That's screwed up and made a mistake. That's 90 minutes on stage. Look at what I've done in 3.5 years. We're going to win this election. We're going to just beat Donald Trump. Looks like we did in 2020. The president is contradicting his own press secretary. He says he had a brief checkup a few days after the debate and was fine. Well, on Wednesday, press secretary Corinne Jean Pierre said that he was not checked by the doctor. You know, it's a great month to save on just about anything from a new mattress to large appliances, even back to school gear. Your Science CUNY Arthur has Consumer Reports. Best buys for July. We always want folks to hang on to their money and save it. But if you're in the market for some new items, July is actually a great month with sales because of the 4th of July as well as prime deal days later this month. ♪♪ July 4th sales have already been going on since late June and you can expect big discounts on things like mattresses, large appliances and also summer items like grills. First, this Samsung top freezer refrigerator is as low as $694 at Walmart. CR says this 28 inch fridge is excellent at keeping internal temperatures constant through the fridge. Next, Caspers, the one mattress queen, is now as low as $995. This fell mattress in a box ACR's mattress durability tests and is a great option for back sleep births. And let's take the savings outside with a brand new grill. The Monument Grill's Mesa Grill is as low as $425 at Walmart and mark your calendars for mid-July when the online sales really heat up. Amazon Prime Day falls on July 16th and 17th this year and what we tend to see are black Friday level prices on pretty much everything that Amazon has to offer, but you do need to be a prime member to shop the sale. And although it might seem early towards the end of the month, look out for back-to-school sales. Whether you're looking for new tech devices like a new set of headphones or a laptop or a printer, anything that you're going to need for the back-to-school season, you're going to see discounts this month. Healy Arthur, five on your side. And if looking for something else, Consumer Report says you can expect discounts on dishwashers, washers and dryers, also home security cameras, sunscreens and insect repellents as well. A retired Marine arrested in Moscow is calling on President Biden for support. Why the State Department says he is being wrongfully detained and what can be done to help. Plus, a classic sci-fi movie will return to theaters this weekend. You're a chance to catch close encounters of the third kind on the big screen. Look at that nice slow zoom out this morning as we're looking at the W-R-E-L tower cam. Beautiful way to start the day as you're looking out in beautiful skies here. You're watching W-R-E-L news available in Spectrum and the W-R-E-L app on your TV or your streaming advice. Now, it may look beautiful outside. Feeling though, not really feeling too beautiful. A little ugly outside. Triple digits for expected-a-day Anthony. Yeah, it's going to feel a little uncomfortable here. So we go through the rest of today. We're looking at an actual high temperature of 102. So that's comparable to what we saw yesterday. I think our fields like values though will be worse this afternoon. We're looking at probably about a 30% chance, just a passing shower, maybe a thunderstorm closer to this evening. It's not going to be a lot of coverage though for us. Into tomorrow and Sunday though. That's when we start to see at least scattered storms closer to the afternoons and evenings with the daytime heating. That may be a better chance. So, dinner plans could be affected here the next couple of days. We look at kind of our part of the country. A lot of heat alerts out there. You can see a heat advisories all in the orange. We are squarely in this area right there. That is an excessive heat warning. That's a step above a heat advisory. We're going to be looking at fields like values up to about 110 this afternoon. It comes with just a sliver. I mentioned a second ago chance for some rain. A little bit is better than nothing, right? But I think we're going to see a mostly dry day. Futurecast is pretty adamant at least back toward the mountains, seeing some scattered storms. We go closer to tomorrow morning. Futurecast takes all of that and goes poof. We're not going to see much here to start our Saturday with this cold front back to the west. But we get some more heating. We get through the day and it may bubble up yet again. There's a look at 8 o'clock tomorrow night. Mostly from the triangle to the north. We could be seeing that coverage. And then very similar story into our Sunday. We start off nice and calm and then we get into the afternoon and evening. Some of those could start to get going again. So, definitely not wash out conditions this weekend. But it's enough where we may get a little bit. The plants might be happy here the next couple days. Tonight, we have the Holly Springs fireworks going on. So, I don't think we're going to see major issues for that. Just a spotty shower early on. Temperatures are going to be very warm for that though. So, make sure to take precautions with that. 87 at 9 o'clock. Just a slim chance of a shower. Most of this event is going to be nice and dry. 915, I believe, is when those fireworks start. In the tropics, so we have hurricane barrels. So, we're pretty busy here with all things weather. 100 mile per hour winds. It's a category 2 hurricane. It did make landfall near Tulum, Mexico here earlier this morning. That one's going to push back out into the Gulf of Mexico and then get closer to a place like Brownsville, Texas into next week. 102 degrees for us today. 97 tomorrow we go to 89 on Sunday. Hot is really going to be the story for us next couple days and then scattered storms there through next week. Alright, thank you, Anthony. People in Iran are voting in a runoff election to select their new president. Polls will be open until this 1030, I believe, is our local time. The election is happening because President Ibrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May. None of the four initial candidates to replace him got more than 50% of the vote in last week's election. US Marine veteran Paul Wayland is calling on President Biden for help. Wayland was arrested in Moscow in 2018 and then later sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges. He has repeatedly denied the claims against him. He called yesterday for President Biden to reignite talks for his release. The US State Department has already declared Wayland as being wrongfully detained. Right now in the WRIL Live Center we just got the new jobs report from the Labor Department. The big headline here, the US economy added 206,000 jobs in June so it slowed a bit from last month. Wall Street was hoping for a Goldilocks number for June which would show a slow and say decline in monthly job gains and equates with the slowing economy. A dramatic increase in jobs could have pushed the Federal Reserve to hold off on cutting rates. On the other hand, a dramatic decrease would have indicated that there's a weakness in the labor market, but the labor market remains strong. The jobless rate increased to 4.1%. That was the big surprise here because that would tie for the highest level since October of 2021. Very different numbers. All right. Thank you, Renee. Edna erupted in a fiery glow this week. See this right here? Lava could be seeing cascading down the sides of the mountain after one of its craters erupted for the first time in four years. This is just stunning to see this. Edna is one of Europe's most active volcanoes. Wow. Today, a peaceful demonstration is planned as a traveling circus comes to the NC State Fairgrounds. The Loomis Brothers Circus is one of the few remaining traveling circus companies still using wild animals. It will perform at the Hunt Horse Complex today through Sunday. Organizers tell us there will be demonstrations each day this weekend to talk about animal injustice in the circus industry. After more than 160 years, parts of Fort Fisher that were destroyed will appear more complete than ever. Thanks to construction and recreating lost parts of this fort, guests can soon explore another large segment. This includes earthworks and cannons as well as the underground tunnel that served as the original entrance. How about that? They're also building a new visitor center and underwater archaeology lab and more expansive exhibits. To see it for yourself and learn when it'll be open for the public, just go to our website, WRAL.com. In person county, more than 14 miles of roadway will soon be upgraded. We're talking about a $2.4 million contract from the state Department of Transportation making this happen. The project affects US 158 between John D. and Cent Road in the Caswell County line. This will also affect six secondary roads. Roads will be milled and resurfaced and then shoulders will be reconstructed. Work will start late this summer and is expected to be finished in the fall of next year. We gotta show you this. It is just beautiful to see it. 30 people celebrated becoming US citizens at the state capital yesterday. ♪ After all the concert band performed for this occasion, the celebration included an outdoor ceremony for the new citizens and a wreath-laying ceremony at the George Washington Monument. And for the people who attended, there's an added element to going through this process. It's always important to be able to vote. It's especially important now because I feel like it's important to be able to make a voice heard. I feel like democracy is under threat. You have to make your vote count and you have to go out there and make a difference in any way you can. Appropriately, there was also a reading from the Declaration of Independence. It's 4th of July weekend when the sun is out and the grill is going. There's a reminder to keep your heart in mind. As temperatures rise, so does the risk of cardiac events. People with preexisting conditions have the greatest risk, but everyone should be alert and be prepared. New research shows heat-related cardiovascular deaths may more than double in the coming decades with the effects of climate change. The war extremes of temperature, but also the population's aging. So the number of people at risk is increasing. The American Heart Association is pressing Congress to pass legislation mandating AEDs and cardiac response plans in every school. So when cardiac emergencies happen, schools are prepared. And because it'll be a hot weekend, David Daniel has the movies that you can catch to beat the heat in today's Hollywood Minute. Prepare for a close encounter on the big screen. Columbia Pictures is celebrating its 100th anniversary by re-releasing Steven Spielberg's Director's Cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The science fiction classic, which won an Oscar for photography, returns to theaters on Sunday, July 7, and Wednesday, July 10. Check FathomEvents.com for locations and showtimes. Despicable Me 4 is off to a strong start. The latest film in the franchise debuted Wednesday with an estimated $27 million in opening day ticket sales. Analysts are predicting a five-day holiday weekend gross of $120 million. Meanwhile, the reigning champ Inside Out 2 was expected to hit a milestone Thursday, reaching half a billion dollars in domestic box office in just 21 days, the fastest of any animated film ever. In Hollywood, I'm David Daniel. Film teams will begin setting up to shoot the popular TV series the Summer I Turn Pretty. It'll be on UNC Chapel Hill's campus today. The director of the Chapel Hill Orange County Visitors Bureau confirmed this during a June Town Council meeting. The shoot is for the third season of the show, as the main characters enter college. The crew will film Monday through Wednesday, which may affect traffic. UNC says filming will largely take place outside of McCorkel Place and surrounding buildings. And if you'll be around that area during the time, expect delays, routes, and closures for that. In justification, miss them. Before we go to break, here are your winning lottery numbers from yesterday, July 4. [MUSIC]