Jodie Valade
Editor, Digital News and EngagementJodie Valade has been a Digital News and Engagement Editor for WFAE since 2019. Since moving to Charlotte in 2015, she has worked as a digital content producer for NASCAR.com and a freelance writer for publications ranging from Charlotte magazine to The Athletic to The Washington Post and New York Times. Before that, Jodie was an award-winning sports features and enterprise reporter at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. She also worked at The Dallas Morning News covering the Dallas Mavericks — where she became Mark Cuban's lifelong email pen pal — and at The Kansas City Star. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master of Education from John Carroll University. She is originally from Rochester Hills, Michigan.
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“Clean comedy” has become Tara Brown’s defining trademark in her seven years of performing. She’s turned her reputation into the Clean Comedy Brunch, a family-friendly show that will be performed at Charlotte's The Comedy Zone on Aug. 8.
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Actor's Theatre of Charlotte is taking its 33rd season outdoors for three musicals that its hoping will become like a music festival. The first, "Rock of Ages," started Wednesday and runs through Aug. 21.
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Just 376 Mecklenburg County residents who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 have reported confirmed "breakthrough" cases of the coronavirus, Mecklenburg County's health department said Friday.
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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper says he will allow the state’s remaining mask restrictions to end Friday even as COVID-19 infections are spiking. But he also urged residents and school districts to follow updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about wearing masks inside and said some state employees will have to verify vaccine status or undergo regular testing and wear masks.
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The Tokyo Olympics officially are underway, after a year's delay because of the coronavirus pandemic. Several athletes with Charlotte-area ties are in the Games this summer. Here are a few to keep an eye on during the next two weeks, and when you might catch them on TV.
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Evy Leibfarth has been kayaking and canoeing in whitewater for her entire life. Now, the 17-year-old from western North Carolina will paddle in the Tokyo Olympics. The prodigy found her passion and talent in the sport at an early age.
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Charlotte’s artist-in-residence program at the Immersive Van Gogh exhibition is triple the size of similar programs staged in other cities for the national touring show. That’s thanks, in part, to how well Charlotte ticket sales have gone. But it’s also because Bree Stallings, Blumenthal Performing Arts' director of artistic experiences, simply asked.
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Girls Rock Charlotte — which aims to build community among girls and gender diverse youth by summer camps that in the span of one week brings teenagers together to form a concert — has branched out into film.
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If you're a Beatles fan, this weekend will be your version of heaven in Charlotte. FabFest will feature not only a Beatles tribute band, but a daylong celebration of everyone's favorite foursome. This weekend also features an art show about bubbles and the opening of a Biblical story told on stage.
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A Rock Hill police officer has been fired and charged with third-degree assault and battery, and charges have been dropped against one of two men involved in a physical struggle with police that was caught on a Facebook Live video two weeks ago, York County officials announced Thursday.