🗞️ A Kernersville man was bitten by a rabid fox in his own yard

🗞️ The man who looked like the AI sketch

🗞️ A $2,500 boost for summer reading in Kernersville

🗞️ The rain helped a little; the drought is still here

🌞 Hot, then storms | High: 94°F | Low: 73°F

Still hot with a heat index around 100 to 102, but the pattern finally cracks. A 30% chance of showers and storms this afternoon, and the Triad sits in a Level 2 slight risk for severe weather. Damaging wind is the main threat.

Travis Mecimore was outside working on a vehicle Monday evening when a fox wandered into his yard on Hastings Road. It did not behave like the foxes he was used to.

"It was probably somewhere between 12 to 24 feet from the vehicle. The fox kept on getting closer and closer, and it started making me wonder and worry a little bit," Mecimore said. "We have had foxes around the yard before, but it was just for a second and they would run into the woods."

So he tried to scare it off. That is the part he regrets.

"It showed no fear at all. It looked at me like I was crazy. That was a mistake I made that I wish I had not. It just kept getting closer and closer, and that was a little much."

The fox bit him just above his boot and held on. Mecimore was wearing blue jeans and boots, which turned out to matter a great deal. Then, he said, he shot it.

"Thank God it did not cut my skin and get saliva on me. I did not want to have an open wound," he said. His wife called Forsyth County Animal Control, who arrived around 7:09 p.m. and asked whether he had been bitten. "I said, 'I am not sure, but I do have a scratch on my arm,' and they told me I had to get the first vaccination."

That scratch was enough. Rabies attacks the central nervous system and spreads through the saliva of infected mammals by bites, scratches or contact with broken skin. Untreated, it is fatal. Mecimore got his first shot Tuesday, his second Friday, with the third due seven days after the encounter and the last at 14 days.

The number worth remembering: this was the 10th confirmed rabies case in Forsyth County in 2026.

The lesson in Mecimore's story is the one wildlife officials repeat every year. A wild animal that will not back away from a person is not being friendly, it is showing you something is wrong. Do not try to run it off. Put distance between you and it, get indoors, and call Animal Control.

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We told you Friday that the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office says the assault reported at Tanglewood Park did not happen there. Here is what that meant for a man who had nothing to do with any of it.

Brandon Brown of Whitsett first saw the AI-generated suspect image on Facebook on July 2. His family teased him about it, because the picture showed a bald white man with a beard and an earring.

"First thing anyone can point out is that I'm bald. I think the second thing was the beard, and I have an earring on one side," Brown said.

On July 6, investigators knocked on his door. They inspected him and questioned him. Brown said the detail that unsettled him most was one the sketch got wrong: "The officers did tell me ... that's not on the sketch is a cross tattoo on one of the arms, and I have a cross tattoo on both of my arms."

Deputies cleared him before they left that day. But being cleared is not the same as being un-accused. "These are serious allegations," Brown said. "You don't have to be guilty of something for someone to form an opinion of you from tips and allegations."

District Attorney Jim O'Neill confirmed Brown was not alone. "Doors were knocked on. People were interviewed. I can also tell you that a composite was put out there about what everyone thought the alleged attacker was going to look like, which then, of course, members of the public were calling in, and innocent people were being looked at."

Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough confirmed the sketch was created by the victim and submitted to his office. A sheriff's spokesperson said that when an incident has no witnesses other than the victim, any details circulated come from the victim. The office has since told reporters to stop using the image.

Brown thinks it went out too early, and he is left with a question nobody has answered yet. "The fear of what could happen to me. What is happening to others? Because I am assuming I am not the only one."

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The Kernersville Foundation has given $2,500 to the Friends of the Paddison Memorial Library, and the money goes straight into things kids can actually do this month.

The Friends group is an independent nonprofit of volunteers supporting the Paddison Memorial Branch Library. "The Paddison Memorial Branch Library is an important feature of our community, inspiring people of all ages to read and learn," said Kernersville Foundation Board Chair Duane Long.

Here is how the Summer Reading Program works if you have not signed up. The library has reading lists sorted by age group, so children, teens and adults, and by genre. Stop in and pick up a Digby card to track the books you read and the programs you attend. Turn the completed card in at Paddison by the end of July and you are entered in a random drawing for a prize.

The grant covers the fees for several free programs, including Ottobot Robotics, a STEM session where kids build robots and compete, and Explore Lost Worlds with Mad Science of the Triad. It also pays for supplies across the rest of the 2026 program.

Contributions can be made to "Friends of the Paddison Memorial Library" and mailed to 248 Harmon Lane, Kernersville.

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If the storms this past week made you think the drought is over, the state's own numbers say otherwise.

The North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council released updated classifications Thursday based on conditions from July 7 to 14. Eight counties, largely in the Triangle and eastern Triad, are in exceptional drought, which is the worst category there is. Brunswick County near Wilmington is too. Another 38 counties are in extreme drought, 37 are in severe drought and 13 are in moderate drought. Kernersville sits in the extreme drought band, with exceptional conditions just east of us in Guilford County.

Linwood Peele, who supervises the Water Supply Planning Branch at the state's Division of Water Resources, put the math plainly. "Raleigh still has a 16-inch deficit since August, even with decent rain in the last week. One or two nice rains doesn't fix 10 months of little to no rainfall."

The rest of the picture is consistent. Reservoirs around the state are still below normal, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Rainfall in Wilmington is down more than 21 inches against historical averages. Streamflow and groundwater remain below normal in much of the state.

For counties in extreme or exceptional drought, water systems are advised to follow their Water Shortage Response Plans and stick to water reduction measures. The practical takeaway for the rest of us is the same as it has been: check with your water provider about restrictions, and keep conserving. A wet week is not a wet year.

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