🗞️ The shelter is full, and adoptions just dropped to $5

🗞️ Severe storms and flash flooding are the midweek worry

🗞️ He helped integrate the fire department, and lived to 104

🗞️ Should your test results wait 72 hours?

⛈️ Warm and stormy | High: 90°F | Low: 71°F

Windy and near 90 with rain chances hanging around all day. The bigger concern is midweek: forecasters have the Triad in a slight risk for severe storms, with the flash flood threat peaking Wednesday.

If you have been thinking about a dog or a cat, this is the week.

The Forsyth County Animal Shelter is at capacity and has cut its adoption fee from $125 all the way down to $5 for dogs and cats. Their website currently lists 56 animals looking for homes.

"The team is working diligently to move animals into foster homes, reunite lost pets with their families, and complete adoptions, but we cannot do it alone," the shelter said in a post over the weekend. "We need our community's help."

A full shelter is not just a sad statistic. When kennels fill up, the pressure on staff and on the animals goes up fast, and the options get harder. Which is why the ask here is refreshingly simple: come look, and if one of them is right for your house, take it home for five dollars.

Worth saying plainly for anyone on the fence: adopting is not the only way to help. Fostering opens a kennel without a lifetime commitment. So does sharing the listings with someone you know who has been talking about getting a dog. And if you have lost a pet recently, check the shelter, because reuniting lost animals with their families is one of the things they are actively working through right now.

The shelter is at 5570 Sturmer Park Circle in Winston-Salem. You can reach them at 336-703-2480 or [email protected], and you can browse the animals available right now on the county's adoption page.

See the animals

Yesterday we told you rain was coming and the drought needed it. That is still true. What changed is how the rain may arrive.

The National Weather Service said Monday that the Triad faces a slight risk of severe storms and excessive rainfall through the early part of the week, as a front lingers over North Carolina. Winston-Salem is forecast to pick up as much as 2 inches of rain this week, with damaging wind gusts possible. Areas east of Interstate 95 could see up to 4 inches.

The flash flood risk peaks Wednesday, and meteorologist Nick Petro made a point worth remembering: the total is not what gets you.

"It's not always how much rain that falls that results in flash flooding. Oftentimes, it's how heavy the rain falls," Petro said. Two inches in a single hour is enough to cause flash flooding.

The practical version: do not drive through standing water, even on roads you know. Most flood deaths happen in vehicles, and it is nearly impossible to judge depth from behind the wheel. If storms are firing in the afternoon, keep an eye on the sky before youth practices and outdoor plans.

Temperatures stay in the low 90s through the first half of the week. Real relief arrives later: Saturday's high is forecast at just 79.

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Retired Sgt. Robert Grier has died at 104, and the piece of local history he carried is worth pausing over.

On March 1, 1951, Grier was one of the first eight Black firefighters hired by the Winston-Salem Fire Department. He was there at the beginning of the department's integration, at a time when that took a particular kind of steadiness. He served out of Engine 4, the city's first African-American fire station, and stayed long enough to retire as a sergeant.

"His courage, dedication, and commitment to serving others helped shape our department and paved the way for generations of firefighters who followed," the fire department said in announcing his death. "Thank you, Sergeant Grier, for your service, your leadership, and the path you helped create."

In later years he was a regular presence at the department's Black History Month observances, photographed among the firefighters who came after him, which is its own kind of full circle. A man who helped open a door lived long enough to watch a couple of generations walk through it.

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Anyone who uses MyChart knows the feeling. Your phone buzzes, your test results are ready, and you are reading them before anyone has explained a thing.

That is federal law working as designed. Since the 21st Century Cures Act, providers have been required to release electronic health information, including lab results and clinical notes, essentially as soon as it exists. Blocking that information is prohibited.

Now Novant Health's Center for Public Policy Solutions is asking regulators to loosen that in one specific way. In a new report called "When Test Results Outpace Care," the clinician-led group argues that immediate release can leave people learning about a serious diagnosis alone, with no one to call. Current rules already allow a delay when release could cause physical harm. Novant wants that widened to cover psychological and emotional harm, and would let clinicians hold certain results for up to 72 hours.

"A slight delay in the release of test results allows clinicians the opportunity to have a personal discussion with the patient so we can help them understand their diagnosis and develop a treatment plan," said Dr. David Rizzieri, physician-in-chief of Novant's Cancer Institute. "Patients deserve timely access to their information, but they also deserve support and guidance when facing life-changing news."

The counterargument is not small, and the numbers are lopsided. A 2023 survey of 8,000 patients published in JAMA Network Open found 96% wanted their results as soon as possible, even if a provider had not reviewed them yet. Among people who got abnormal results, about 95% still wanted them immediately. Patient advocates also point out that fast access helps people catch errors in their own records.

Since Novant is the dominant provider around Kernersville, this one is worth watching. No bill on the timing of records was filed in the 2025 or 2026 North Carolina legislative sessions, though several other states have already passed their own versions.

Read the report