🗞️ Their insurance denied his brain surgery, a day before it happened

🗞️ Duke Energy customers are looking at a 9.5% rate hike

🗞️ Tornadoes and flash flooding are today's real risk

🗞️ NC jobless rate hits a two-year low, but the Triad keeps losing factories

⛈️ Stormy and unsettled | High: 82°F | Low: 70°F

A cold front moves in today and it means business. Forecasters have the Triad in a slight risk for severe storms, with damaging wind gusts and even isolated tornadoes possible, plus a flash flood threat as heavy rain sets up. Highs settle into the low 80s. Real relief comes Thursday, when we cool to the mid 70s, though rain chances hang around near 60% through Saturday.

You have met Bennett Reel before. Back in issue #070 we told you about the Kernersville boy whose family rallies under the phrase "Brave like Bennett," and about the rare brain tumor he was facing. Here is the update, and it is one worth sitting with.

The surgery worked. The tumor was fully removed, and Bennett is cancer-free. But the Reel family almost did not get there, and the reason had nothing to do with medicine.

About 24 hours before the operation, their insurance denied it. The neurosurgeon they had chosen, in Memphis, was out of network, and as Bennett's parents put it, their policy "does not have a neurosurgeon underneath its blanket." So the day before their son's brain surgery, Lauren and Daniel Reel were not resting or preparing. They were on the phone, on hold until the line went dead, hiring a patient advocate out of their own pocket, and weighing whether to have Bennett admitted through the emergency room just to force the issue.

The approval finally came as the pre-op process was already beginning. It came, but it came at the last possible moment, and only after the family fought for it.

Now the Reels want that fight to mean something for the next family. They are pushing for more transparency from insurers, so parents are not left guessing what is and is not covered when their child's life is on the line. "We want to set a precedent," they said. Bennett's older brother Brantley has been part of it too. And Bennett, for his part, still lives by the motto his family repeats: "Let them do the stuff and pray a lot."

We will keep following this one. It started as a Kernersville family's private nightmare and it is turning into something bigger.

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If Duke Energy is your power company, your bill is going up.

Duke has reached a settlement that would raise residential rates an average of 9.5% over two years: 5.9% in the first year, then another 3.6% in the second. For a typical home using 1,000 kilowatt hours a month, the monthly bill would climb from about $157.15 today to $163.68 in 2027, then up another $4.66 a month in 2028.

Here is the context that matters. Duke originally asked for an 18% increase. It lowered that to 11.6% in mid June, and this settlement brings it down again to 9.5%. So the number got smaller through the process. But not everyone is on board. Attorney General Jeff Jackson refused to join the settlement, saying the increase is still too high, and Governor Josh Stein has been critical of it as well.

The deal is not final. It needs approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission, with a decision expected this fall. If approved, the new rates would take effect January 1. Duke serves around 2.3 million customers in the state, so this touches a lot of households, including plenty here in Kernersville.

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Today is the day to keep one eye on the sky.

A cold front is moving through, and FOX8 has the Triad and areas eastward in a Level 2 slight risk for severe storms. That means damaging wind gusts are the main threat, but isolated tornadoes are possible too. On top of that, the same setup carries a Level 2 excessive rainfall risk, which is the flash flooding threat. Some spots could see 2 to 3 inches of rain or more.

Highs today land in the low 80s. The good news is that the relief is close: Thursday cools into the mid 70s as the front clears. The not-as-good news is that rain chances do not fully leave, hanging around near 60% through Saturday.

The practical advice does not change. Do not drive through standing water, even on roads you know well. Bring in anything loose that a wind gust could throw around. And if storms fire up this afternoon during outdoor plans or youth practices, do not wait to move inside.

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North Carolina's unemployment rate dropped to 3.6% in June, its lowest in two years. That sounds like good news, and in one sense it is. But dig into the Triad and the picture gets more complicated.

The low rate is coming from a mostly stagnant job market, not a booming one, and the growth that does exist is in health care and technology, not manufacturing. Around here, manufacturing is exactly what keeps slipping away. Since early 2025, the Triad has seen more than 13 plant-closing announcements, adding up to over 1,460 jobs lost.

Economists are watching the split. Michael Walden and Mark Vitner, both well-known voices on the state's economy, describe a market that is holding steady on paper while the ground shifts underneath certain industries. For a region built on factory work, the loss of those plants is not just a number. It is the kind of change that reshapes what work looks like for a lot of families.

So the headline and the reality point in different directions at once: fewer people are officially out of work, and yet the Triad keeps saying goodbye to the kind of jobs that built it.

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