secure any loose objects if you're in that warning area. right now the rain coming in to the mountains, not too heavy at this hour. we see this abundant moisture, including severe storms over the deep south and parts of mississippi. we'll see you when it gets here, coming up. current temperatures are in the lower 40s right now. a look at your evening planner coming up in a few minutes. >> larry: we have new details tonight of an incident touched off racial tensions in transylvania county last fall. >> darcel: it involves three young men, two of them brevard high school students. now the fbi has opened an investigation. >> larry: ashlea, the fbi has been conducting interviews there for the last few weeks, right? >> ashlea: that's right. agents have been in the area

from there, the attorney general's office will decide what comes next. authorities say three young men, all brevard high students, walked in to a largely black neighborhood wearing ski masks, caring knives and rope. >> from the students' information from them, this had been an ongoing thing. it had been building to a climax. >> reporter: the three young men were going in search of a classmate, who is black. all three were arrested in the end. and months later, the fbi is in town. >> we feel it should have been classified as a hate crime because of everything that it involved. and all the circumstances surrounding it. >> ashlea: the naacp head said he's had two meetings with

opened the investigation after an anonymous tip came in. >> we took it very seriously and acted accordingly. so we cooperated with the fbi. gave them all the information that we had. >> ashlea: school officials say they've handed over all the information they had on the case and cooperating fully. >> schools in general reflect what's going on in society many times. fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon the situation. >> ashlea: now tonight there is no timeline on whether the attorney general's office will issue a decision anytime soon in this case on whether to move forward or not. i'm ashlea surles, news 13. >> darcel: an expert testifies a murder defendant was mentally ill when he shot and killed a man at a rosemund convenience store. richard o'shields also took the stand again today.

revenge. mathis was charged with involuntary manslaughter of o'shields' son. which o'shields said was not enough. a stroke days after his son's death, ptsd and alcohol, there's little chance o'shields could have planned the murder. >> when you walked in to the dollar general store and you saw him out of the corner of the eye, you immediately knew it was toby mathis, the man you intended to kill. >> i didn't intend to kill. >> it's sort of unusual, one, that a person of his structure, psychiatric, would be able to do that. >> darcel: in exchange, dr. corbin acknowledged that neither stroke nor heart problems makes

>> larry: deputies say that reynaldo tappia was last seen in nebo. please call the sheriff's office if you have any information. an update tonight on a story we've been following. sam gardner, a western carolina student born with cerebral palsy has been approved for social security benefits. last summer sam contacted news 13 after he had been denied twice and was struggling to pay for his education. sam appealed the third time and won a federal court hearing earlier this month. he will now get the call this weekend that his disability payments are finally approved. he plans to return to school in the fall. >> darcel: fire destroys a polk county couple's home and now they're urging commissioners to do something so they can afford fire insurance. larry and jenny stepps home went up in flames saturday. their official fire station is 22 miles away.

miles from a home, the homeowners say insurance premiums go up. >> i called the insurance company and they was going to insure it for $500 a year until they found out i was in polk county and seven miles from the fire department, the price went up and i couldn't afford to keep the insurance. >> darcel: henderson county has a much closer station that would enable area homeowners to qualify for affordable insurance. >> larry: haywood county is the first to gather emergency workers from all across north carolina. workers are gathering all week in training classes at lake junaleska creating scenarios and developing strategies to handle them. it's all designed so first responders could react as effectively as possible. >> darcel: right now asheville

making changes to help relieve the affordable living crisis. an urban planner is offering new options. hope, what type of new options? >> hope: darcel, that urban planner just wrapped up talking about how we can increase housing density in asheville. he says we can do it by adding more cottages and more multi-family homes. he also said we could add tiny homes. while asheville has seen unprecedented growth over the last few years. >> they can take their home with them. >> hope: builders at wishbone tiny homes have found an efficient way. but now they want to see more homeowners plant roots within city limits and build more of these tiny homes in a foundation. >> we have seen property values escalate around in here. so we're very happypy to see this

slice of land. little smaller house. >> hope: that's where the tiny homes could make a difference for singles, couples or small families looking to liver affordably. >> i think tiny homes are going to be one piece of the puzzle. >> hope: but there are existing city wide laws that prevent it. >> you have to recognize that land costs are the biggest obstacle to affordable housing in the city of asheville. so if we make the minimum lot size smaller when you're creating the tiny footprint of a tiny home, then it makes it affordable. >> you have odd or small shaped lots that otherwise wouldn't be useable or buildable, now they're talking about creating zoning that would allow tiny homes to go in them. it's a win-win. you get to use a piece of land

somebody gets a new home. >> hope: city council members didn't take any action on whether they would approve those recommendations. but they did give a thumbs up to go forward. it would go to a public input process. with new members here on the council, at least they got the ball rolling. hope hanselman, news 13. that's a good one. >> darcel: best way to cut your taxes. coming up, what an expert says you can do to minimize the bill to uncle sam. >> larry: have you ever seen one of these? it's a species of salamander living right here in the mountains. find out the warning wild life

what's all this nonsense about balls? pink balls, blue, yellow, red. it's hard to keep the whole thing straight. and all these so-called deals? well, they come with a lot of deal breakers. like when you leave the city the signal goes weak. u.s. cellular built a network to give you a stronger signal where the other guys don't. and as for deals? how's $300 back for every line you switch? $300! no ball nonsense. get $300 per line and a stronger signal,

>> larry: this tax season, some people could be missing out on big savings by overlooking some

>> darcel: news 13's frank fraboni, investigates in tonight's reality check. how much are we looking at? >> frank: that depends, darcel. everyone's situation is different. but we came up with the five best ways that could save you hundreds, even thousands of dollars. this year the irs has increased ira and 401(k) contribution limits. >> that's a good one. >> frank: mickey dale is at the cpa firm johnson, price, sprinkle. he helped us run down the best ways to save. >> especially if the company is making matching contributions, because if you're not contributing and the company matches even a portion of it, you're giving up money. >> frank: for example, a single

10,344 dollars in taxes. if they contribute $5,000 to a retirement account, their tax drops. a $763 savings. another smart strategy, itemized deductions deductions. >> you have to have deductions over 12,600 dollars i think it is. >> frank: some of the most popular deductions, mortgage interest and mortgage insurance premiums. then there's your filing status. married filing jointly or filing single. >> for any married couple, thankfully the software helps, but we always look to see. and it just depends upon their circumstances. >> frank: usually a joint filing works best. but filing separately could lower your adjusted gross income

to phase out. those are tax deductible contributions and withdraw for qualified expenses is tax-free. dale says a little tax planning could also save. rounding out our top five to save taxes, real estate taxes. >> you could defer and pay two years' worth in one year. where you're paying some in january and in december. >> frank: we found other ways to help cut your taxes this year. for a complete list, go to our website and click on news links. if you have a story you'd like us to investigate, you can write us at reality check at wlos.com. larry. >> larry: well another night of rain ahead of us with a possibility of severe after effects. >> darcel: karen, you're tracking what all we can expect tonight.

we're talking lightning, heavy rain, gusty winds. evening planner should definitely include the umbrella. picking up as we head towards midnight. we don't cool down much.

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now your news 13 skywatch weather. >> karen: we have a storm system moving in overnight on in to wednesday. the biggest issues out of this are going to be heavy rain that could lead to flash flooding and very gusty damaging winds. now we have a much lower chance of isolated tornados. and then we could see a little bit of light snow in the highest elevations. everybody in our region under a flash flood watch through tomorrow afternoon. right now, though, we are looking at a very deceiving radar. light rain around the region. but we do see some heavier rain making a move in to georgia. this is going to continue to

eventually in to our region later on tonight on through tomorrow morning. right now in asheville, light rain, 44 degrees. it is a little bit breezy. winds out of the south at 7. in the upstate, 46 degrees with that light rain falling and a good breeze out of the northeast around 10 miles per hour. as we put this one future cast in to motion, we can see by midnight, we're going to have a warm front moving through our region. we're actually going to see our temperatures go up in the wee hours of the morning. along with rain picking up. by that early morning commute, we can see heavy rain on that one computer model over the mountains and the upstate. we have that possibility of strong to severe storms and very gusty winds to begin your wednesday morning on through the afternoon. but by noon, much of the rain should be off to the east of us. we still have more, though. and any additional rain on top of what we've already had is

high water issues. we go through a wet afternoon. and then on in to the evening, we have cooler air moving in. by 6 o'clock, we begin to see a little bit of this rain maybe changing over to a rain-snow mix at the highest elevations. as we go through tomorrow night into thursday morning, we're looking at very light snow in the highest elevations. little to no accumulations. it's going to remain windy and it's going to begin to get quite cold. hour by hour future cast. by 8 o'clock, nothing much. still spotty light showers. but we see some heavier rain begin to move in to the upstate. the rain picks up overnight. by 7 o'clock, here we go. that line of storms moving through the region. we get a break by lunch time. scattered showers beginning that change over tomorrow evening. additional rain fall totals. we could see an additional one to two inches of rain as these storms move on through our region.

the lower 40s in and around asheville. they're actually going to come up during the overnight hour with a warm front moving through. and highs tomorrow, we hit them pretty early in the day. upper 50s, lower 60s before things begin to cool back down. 7 day forecast shows once we get through rather rough wednesday and a cold thursday, things begin to improve as we head towards the weekend. beautiful and sunny on saturday and sunday. although a little on the cool side. here's your upstate seven day forecast. very active tomorrow but then drying out beyond that. >> darcel: warm early part of the day and then temperatures dropping? >> karen: right. we have that warm front coming overnight and then that cool front coming through pretty early in the day. during the afternoon, we'll see our temperatures drop. which is kind of unusual. >> darcel: biologists with the national forest service are asking folks in western north carolina to help save the

they're the largest salamanders in the u.s. and they live in colder mountain streams. >> larry: i hear they can bite you. they're now considered a species of special concern, though. experts at the nature center say people can harm them just by venturing in to cold streams and overturning large rocks. >> be very careful about lifting rocks up from the bottom because that could be a habitat, that would be a home for our hellbenders. once they're disturbed, it's very hard for them to exist in a place where they don't have a home. >> darcel: hellbenders are important for our area, they're an indicator species. so they only live in the healthiest waters. >> larry: university of tennessee coaches hold a rare joint news conference.

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>> stan: the prep playoffs begin in basketball tonight. 45 mountain teams in first round play. we'll have highlights for a few of those games at 11 16 head coaches of both men and women's sports held a joint rare

they want to refute a federal lawsuit that alleges the school has violated title 9 regulations and created a hostile sexual environment. >> we don't want the stereotype that there's something out there that's not true. because everywhere, and it's not perfect now and it's never going to be perfect. but the fact is i can tell you this that the university of tennessee's athletic department is as good that i've seen anywhere i've ever been. >> our student athletes, our student female athletes have greater access to those resources than they've ever had. >> stan: torian brummond was named so-con player of the week. first time he's gotten the honor. followed that with 24, 12

shots against citadel. first round by. saturday against furman. unc asheville freshman dwayne sutton named freshman of the week. he had a career high 23 points with a bulldogs win. asheville at home thursday against liberty and saturday against coastal to wrap up their regular season. we've got north carolina at nc state. only losing by 12 in chapel hill earlier this year. tiger woods either as tremendous back pain or he's okay and hopes to return soon. what? the 40-year-old woods had a setback. after his latest back surgery,

but his rep said those reports are plsh >> karen: give it time and we're going to see our rain pick back up again. flash floods in effect for the entire region with an additional one to two inches of rain possible. we have a chance of severe storms early tomorrow. >> larry: turn on over to news 13 on my40. >> darcel: join us again at 11 for news 13 wlos.

captioning company" ? breaking news tonight. the state of emergency this hour. multiple tornadoes reported already. the devastating damage. we're on the scene. about to power right up the east coast, 45 million in the path. also breaking, the new surveillance images of the alleged uber gunman. where he was in the hours before the rampage. the race for the white house, and tonight, the showdown in nevada. donald trump lashing out at ted cruz. and what trump said when asked why he's not taking on marco rube roe. breaking news on the zika outbreak, right here in the u.s. tonight. authorities now confirming more than a dozen new cases of the disease sexually transmitted. late details coming in now. and the reporter on the field, the "dancing with the stars" favorite, tonight, suing

did they allow an alleged stalker to get the room next door to spy on her? good evening. and it's great to have you with us here on a tuesday night. and we begin with the massive and deadly storm system slamming the south, and about to move right up the east coast. several tornadoes striking already. and a state of emergency declared in multiple states, mississippi, alabama. and from louisiana tonight, these images coming in. a triple water spout there, forming in lake pontchartrain. one of those reported tornadoes in prairieville, louisiana, tearing up this shopping district. that storm on the move, heading up the ast. heavy rain, wind and right behind it, sleet and snow. several major cities in the path. a dangerous night ahead. and a travel nightmare tomorrow. we are on it all tonight, and abc's linzie janis leads us off from louisiana tonight. linzie? >> reporter: david, we're here in prairieville, where a reported tornado rippled apart this golds gym. it took off the roof, then