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Summer is fast approaching, and so is outdoor concert season. If you’re aching to spend warm nights in the company of friends listening to good music under the stars, you’re in luck. The options for outdoor music in the Triad are numerous. Several small towns host regular, free concerts and larger cities like Raleigh, Durham, and Greensboro have multiple outdoor music series showcasing  everything from chamber music to R & B, and from hip hop to bluegrass.

State lawmakers in the Senate have tentatively passed a bill that would allow installment loan companies to charge customers higher interest rates and fees.

Republican Senator Rick Gunn is a sponsor of the bill. He says the lending industry hasn't had a rate increase for a long time, and that customers would also be held responsible under the measure.

"Customers need to understand their need to make their payments on time, and according to their contract," says Gunn.

Thousands of employees at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem will be affected by several cost-cutting measures. The hospital is planning to freeze some hiring, reduce retirement contributions and ask employees to voluntarily take furloughs.

  The North Carolina Renewables Program, instated in 2007, requires utility companies to produce a percentage of sales from efficiency efforts or renewable sources. The program has since pushed North Carolina up in solar farm research and also created jobs during a recession. Efforts to repeal the program have recently been introduced to the House and Senate, claiming that the programs will have a negative impact on the economy.

Last Friday, Carlos Warner called one of his 11 clients in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and offered to help negotiate the end of a hunger strike that detainees are holding. But the client, Fayiz al Kandari, declined his offer, and asked why the U.S. Army will not talk directly to them.

Elizabeth Spencer’s most famous book is called “The Light in the Piazza.”  It’s the story of an American girl who falls in love with a man in Italy.  And it’s been adapted to a movie and a stage musical.  But Elizabeth has created a large body of work, though none is quite so famous. There’s a new documentary based on Elizabeth Spencer’s life called “Landscapes of the Heart: The Elizabeth Spencer Story.”

President Barack Obama has tapped a North Carolina elected official for a federal post for the second time this week.   On Wednesday, he nominated Charlotte congressman Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. 

Eleven new members are set to join the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.  Thursday night's induction ceremony and banquet marks the museum's 50th anniversary. 

Hall of Fame executive director Don Fish says the class of 2013 includes hockey legend Ron Francis, who retired a year before the Carolina Hurricanes won their first and only championship.

"It changed the face of sports in North Carolina," Fish says.