🗞️ A forgotten cemetery gets the respect it was owed

🗞️ Toyota joins a fuel-cell venture as its Liberty plant keeps growing

🗞️ NC is holding over $1 billion in unclaimed money, and some might be yours

🗞️ A salmonella outbreak is linked to recalled eggs

⛈️ Warm, humid, storm possible | High: 86°F | Low: 70°F

Summer humidity is back, and so is the afternoon storm chance. Look for a mix of sun and clouds with a hazy sky and highs in the mid 80s that feel closer to 90. A pop-up thunderstorm or two is possible later in the day, so keep the umbrella close if you have outdoor plans.

Sometimes doing the right thing starts with one person asking a simple question.

Back in May, Janet Brice noticed a small, half-acre burial ground on Byerly Road in eastern Winston-Salem had fallen into rough shape. Known as the Masten Cemetery, or the Middle Fork Cemetery depending on the records, it is the final resting place of more than 50 men, women and children buried there between the mid-1800s and 1981. The oldest marked grave belongs to a 10-year-old boy who died in 1843. Brice contacted the city's 311 line, and for good measure a reporter, with a straightforward request: give these people the respectful recognition they deserve.

By late spring the place was a mess. Thigh-high weeds and scrubby saplings had swallowed much of the lot, and fallen trees had toppled some of the stones. What made it sting is that photos from a decade earlier show the grass neatly mowed, so someone used to care for it. County tax records list the owner only as "cemetary," and no owner or caretaker has come forward.

Then, quietly, someone fixed it. The downed trees were cut and hauled off, the weeds and saplings cleared, the grass trimmed, and the toppled headstones set back upright. It was not the city, which does not own it, and not the state. Just an anonymous good deed, considerable and clearly done with care. As Brice put it, "The dead deserve respect." Every so often, the squeaky wheel really does get the grease, and a community is a little better for it.

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Three of the biggest names in vehicles, all with major operations in our region, just teamed up on the future of clean trucking.

Toyota announced Monday it will become an equal partner in cellcentric, a company that makes hydrogen fuel-cell systems for heavy-duty commercial trucks, joining Daimler Truck and Volvo, who started the venture in 2021. Toyota is expected to become a full partner by early 2027, pending regulatory approval. In plain terms, these companies are betting together on hydrogen as a way to move big rigs without diesel.

Why it matters here is the local footprint. Toyota runs the enormous $13.9 billion Toyota Battery Manufacturing plant in Liberty, just down in Randolph County, where it now employs more than 2,500 people and is working toward a pledged workforce of 5,100 at full production. And the other partners are neighbors too: Daimler's Thomas Built Buses, a leading school-bus maker, employs about 1,900 in the area, and Volvo Trucks North America has around 1,500 at its Greensboro headquarters.

Add it up and a huge share of the people building the trucks and buses of the future are right here in the Triad. For a region that has watched a lot of older factories go dark, that is a genuinely hopeful place to be.

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This is the rare news story that might actually put cash in your pocket, so give it five minutes.

States hold on to what is called unclaimed property, money that belongs to you but got lost in the shuffle. It comes from things like forgotten bank or utility deposits, uncashed paychecks or refund checks, insurance benefits that never got claimed, and abandoned safe-deposit boxes. When a business cannot track you down, it eventually turns the money over to the state. North Carolina is currently sitting on more than $1 billion of it, and estimates suggest as many as 1 in 10 Americans have some waiting somewhere.

Checking is free and takes only a minute, and this is important: you never have to pay anyone to claim your own money, so ignore any service that wants a fee. Search your name at the state's official site, and it is worth searching under a maiden name, a spouse's name, a late relative's name, or a business you have owned. If something turns up, you follow the state's claim steps and they send it to you.

Start at North Carolina's official unclaimed property site, NCCash.com, run by the State Treasurer. You can also search across states and Canada at MissingMoney.com, which is handy if you have lived elsewhere. Worst case, you spend a couple of minutes and find nothing. Best case, you find a check with your name on it.

Search NCCash.com

A quick heads-up for your kitchen this week.

Federal health officials have tied an ongoing salmonella outbreak to a large egg recall. Nearly 1.6 million cartons of white and cage-free brown eggs produced in Texas were pulled last week over possible contamination. The good news for us is that those eggs were mainly sold at stores in Texas, Louisiana and a handful of nearby states, not here. The CDC counts 98 illnesses so far across 17 states, with 26 hospitalizations and, thankfully, no deaths. North Carolina has had just one confirmed case, and investigators say the eggs may not even be the only source.

Still, it is a good reminder to play it safe with eggs year-round. Check the CDC and FDA recall notices if you buy eggs in bulk or shop across state lines, cook eggs until both the white and yolk are firm, refrigerate them promptly, and wash your hands and surfaces after handling raw eggs.

Know the symptoms too: salmonella usually brings diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps, starting anywhere from six hours to six days after exposure, and most healthy people recover on their own in about a week. But young children, older adults and anyone with a weakened immune system can get much sicker, so call your doctor if symptoms are severe or do not improve.

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