Latest news with #Charlotte
Wales Online
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
BGT's Jonathan and Charlotte's now - from tragic split to new careers and weight loss
BGT's Jonathan and Charlotte's now - from tragic split to new careers and weight loss Opera duo Jonathan and Charlotte have been on a rollercoaster since finding fame on Britain's Got Talent back in 2012 The pair competed together on Britain's Got Talent in 2012, but where are they now? (Image: ITV/ Ken McKay ) Britain's Got Talent has been a launching pad for opera talents over its 18 years, with names like Paul Potts and Susan Boyle emerging from the show. A teenage operatic pair captivated the audience in 2012, leaving Simon Cowell shocked as he uttered "Seriously?". At the tender ages of 17 and 16, Jonathan and Charlotte stunned the judges with their rendition of 'The Prayer. ' In classic Simon Cowell fashion, he suggested Jonathan should "dump" Charlotte to further his chances, but the two decided to stick together, even switching the order of their act's name for their journey to the live final. They eventually were runners-up to Ashleigh and her dog Pudsey, much to the dismay of their fans. Charlotte expressed her astonishment at the success: "Oh my God, we came second out of 70,000 people, it's incredible, it's been amazing." For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter . Subsequently, it was revealed that Simon Cowell was deliberating a £1 million record deal with them under his Syco label. Jonathan and Charlotte went on to drop their debut album 'Together' in September 2012, reinterpreting songs by artists including Elton John, Muse, and Queen into Italian. After touring Europe and releasing another record and selling over a quarter of a million albums. the duo parted amicably in February 2014 when solo opportunities came knocking from Sony Classical. When they announced the news, Jonathan and Charlotte expressed their gratitude in a statement on their website, saying: "We have had the most exciting journey together ever since meeting at West Hatch High School in 2006 and are so happy for each other." The offer of solo record deals from Sony Classical was met with excitement as they looked forward to returning to the recording studio. They expressed their gratitude to their fans, saying: "For those that voted for us, bought our CDs and saw us in concert – thank you. We hope to see you soon at our own shows. Love Jonathan and Charlotte." Charlotte has continued her career in the performing arts, shifting her focus towards musical theatre productions. Her notable performances include Carousel in Concert at The Royal Festival Hall and a role in the original West End cast of The Heathers. Recently, Charlotte gained popularity on TikTok with a video recalling her Britain's Got Talent audition. The caption read: "Simon Cowell hated me but then he got me Kurt Geiger's for xmas." In the video, she joked about people recognising her as 'Charlotte from Jonathan and Charlotte', confirming "probably because I am". Content cannot be displayed without consent In early April, Charlotte took to the stage in Todrick Hall's new musical, Midnight. Reflecting on the experience in an Instagram post, she said: "This show has been one of the most fulfilling and rewarding shows I've ever worked on. "I've laughed and cried every day, watched the most talented humans create, and been giddy to see what would happen each day." Meanwhile, Jonathon is currently immersed in producing his next album following a global tour, as well as delighting audiences in his hometown of Essex. Following their separation, he soared to the top of the Classical Artist Album chart with his debut solo album, 'Tenore'. Content cannot be displayed without consent In a heartfelt social media update, he expressed gratitude towards his supporters for engaging with his music, which has fuelled his passion and enabled his career as a singer. He stated: "Your kindness in allowing me to explore all kinds of music and your superlative taste in good tunes has led the way! !". Jonathon has recently made headlines with his remarkable five-stone weight loss achievement. Having previously acknowledged his lack of self-discipline, he has shared: "I've still got a lot to lose but I'm making my way. I feel stronger and healthier than I have in 10 years, which is a lot. "This year I've made an active choice. I've felt I've lacked the discipline a lot. When I was out in America it's fast food everywhere." He recounted his challenging start to the year and his progress since then, saying: "I was in a terrible state in the start of the year and I've been able to claw my way back doing light exercise. Article continues below "For a long time I was just experiencing life, letting life live me, trying to find the next pleasure. Taking control of your own life, grabbing the world with your hands, feels amazing."
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
2025 Season Opener Countdown: 99 Days To Go
In this series, we'll be counting down until opening kickoff by running through the Panthers roster by jersey number. Today's piece looks at the current and historical players to have ever donned No. 99 for the Carolina Panthers. Current Player: Shy Tuttle Shy Tuttle (6'3', 300lbs) was originally undrafted out of Tennessee following the 2019 NFL Draft. He was then signed by the hated New Orleans Saints, where he spent four solid seasons. The local kid (he attended North Davidson High School in Lexington, NC) returned home in 2023, signing a three year deal for up to $19.5 million with $13 million guaranteed. Advertisement Though the Panthers would hoping he could take the next step, his production has been very similar to his seasons in New Orleans. This is the final year of his contract, so Tuttle, who will turn 30 during this season, will be playing for a new contract. Whether that is in Carolina or elsewhere remains to be seen. The return of Derrick Brown and the addition of young pass rushers Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen should help take some of the burden off of Tuttle this season. Previous Players to wear number 99: Matthew Ioannidis, Kawann Short, Frank Kearse, Edward Johnson, Ma'ake Kemoeatu, Brentson Buckner, Alvin McKinley, Chuck Riley, Ray Seals Of the previous Panthers to wear 99, the best known are definitely Kawann Short and Brentson Buckner. Short wore 99 from 2013 to 2020, while Buckner sported it from 2001 to 2005. Both players were key cogs in NFC Championship defenses, Buckner in 2003 and Short in 2015. Let's hope Shy Tuttle can join that list soon. More from
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scottie Scheffler Drops Unexpected Pick While Predicting 2025 NBA Finals
Scottie Scheffler Drops Unexpected Pick While Predicting 2025 NBA Finals originally appeared on Athlon Sports. American professional golfer Scottie Scheffler is one of the most successful names to attend the University of Texas. Advertisement Scheffler spent four seasons competing on Texas' golf team, where he helped the Longhorns to three Big 12 championship wins and three NCAA championship final appearances. He also took home the 2015 Phil Michelson Freshman of the Year award in 2015. What he's accomplished following his collegiate career is even more impressive. Scheffler is currently sitting at No. 1 in the official world golf ranking. Some of his highest achievements include PGA Tour titles, two Masters Tournament wins and a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Scottie Scheffler poses for a photo with the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the PGA Championship golf tournament at Quail Dedmon-Imagn Images On Friday, Scheffler made headlines by discussing a different sport. He spoke with Dallas Morning News about the upcoming 2025 NBA Finals and showed dedication to his hometown team. Advertisement The Texas native was asked to give his NBA Finals prediction and confidently picked the Dallas Mavericks. Although the Mavericks did not reach the postseason, Scheffler felt the need to stress the importance of receiving the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft. His unwavering support to the Mavericks is shocking to some as many fans are still upset with the Luka Doncic trade to the Los Angeles Lakers. Scheffler is instead choosing to find the silver lining. The Mavericks are expected to select Duke star Cooper Flagg with the top pick in the draft. Related: Can Tre Johnson be the answer for Charlotte Hornets in 2025 NBA Draft? This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on May 31, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
CMPD: Two homicide investigations underway in north Charlotte
CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Two people were killed in separate overnight shootings in north Charlotte, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Shortly after midnight on Saturday, officers responded to the 9300 block of Broken Pine Lane about an assault with a deadly weapon with injuries. When they arrived, they found someone with a gunshot wound who was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. Less than two hours later, and about nine miles south, officers responded to the intersection of North Graham Street and Craighead Road about another assault with a deadly weapon with injuries. When they arrived at the scene, they found the victim in a vehicle with a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead. Suspect gunned down after reportedly shooting a Monroe police officer Police have not released any more details on either homicide or whether they are connected. Anyone with information on either incident can call a homicide detective at 704-432-8477 or Crime Stoppers at 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How huge health funding cuts in Washington 'put lives at risk' in communities
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy. Gone are specialists who were confronting a measles outbreak in Ohio, workers who drove a van to schools in North Carolina to offer vaccinations and a program that provided free tests to sick people in Tennessee. State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big — and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities — are being hollowed out. 'Nobody wants to go swim in a community pool and come out of it with a rash or a disease from it. Nobody wants to walk out their door and take a fresh breath of air and start wheezing,' said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. But local health officials say they now have no choice but to do a lot less of it. The Trump administration is cutting health spending on an unprecedented scale, experts say, including pulling $11 billion of direct federal support because the pandemic is over, eliminating 20,000 jobs at national health agencies that in part assist and support local public health work. And it's proposing billions more be slashed. Together, public health leaders said, the cuts are reducing the entire system to a shadow of what it once was, threatening to undermine even routine work at a time when the nation faces the deadliest measles outbreak since at least the 1990s, rising whooping cough cases and the risk that bird flu could spread widely among people. The moves reflect a shift that Americans may not fully realize, away from the very idea of public health: doing the work that no individual can do alone to safeguard the population as a whole. That's one of the most critical responsibilities of government, notes James Williams, county executive in Santa Clara County, California. And it goes beyond having police and fire departments. 'It means not having babies suffering from diseases that you vanquished. It means making sure that people have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information and decisions that help their longevity,' Williams said. 'It means having a society and communities able to actually prosper, with people living healthy and full lives.' Keeping communities healthy saves lives — and money Just outside a Charlotte, North Carolina, high school in March, nurse Kim Cristino set out five vaccines as a 17-year-old girl in ripped jeans stepped onto a health department van. The patient barely flinched as Cristino gave her three shots in one arm and two in the other to prevent diseases including measles, diphtheria and polio. Like many other teens that morning, the girl was getting some shots years later than recommended. The clinic's appearance at Independence High School gave her a convenient way to get up to date. 'It lessens the barriers for parents who would have to be taking off from work and trying to get their kids to a provider,' Cristino said. The vaccinations also help the community around her. The teen won't come down with a life-threatening disease and the whole community is protected from outbreaks — if enough people are vaccinated. The Mecklenburg County department, with 'Protecting and Promoting the Public's Health' emblazoned on its van, is similar to other U.S. health departments. They run programs to reduce suicides and drug overdoses, improve prenatal health and help people stop smoking. They educate people about health and test for and treat diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Some, including Mecklenburg, operate medical and dental clinics too. 'You come to work every day and think: What's going to be my challenge today? Sometimes it's a new disease,' said Raynard Washington, Mecklenburg's director. 'That's why having a backbone infrastructure is so important.' What they do is cost-effective, experts have found. For every dollar spent on childhood immunizations, the country is estimated to save $11; on tobacco cessation, $2-$3; on asthma control, $70. Disease prevention is unseen — and ignored Critical care can be glamorous — surgeons, cardiologists and cancer doctors can pull off breathtaking medical feats to save lives at the last possible moment. Prevention work is low key. It's impossible to identify who was saved because, if it goes well, the person never knows when they've fended off a mortal threat with the invisible shield of public health. 'People don't appreciate it,' said Dr. Umair Shah, former health director for Washington state. 'Therefore, they don't invest in it.' State health departments are funded by a varying mix of federal and state tax money. Some states deliver services in a centralized way while others provide resources to local departments, which generally also get money from counties, cities or towns. Some large cities get direct federal funding for their health departments. Mecklenburg — a large department with around 1,000 workers serving 1.2 million people — has an annual budget of around $135 million, while some metro hospitals have operating expenses in the billions. About 70% of the department's budget comes from local funds, which helps fill gaps in state and federal money. But Mecklenburg is still strapped for cash and resources. At times, employees work 12- to 14-hour days, especially during outbreaks. Nurse Carmel Jenkins recalled responding to mpox exposures at a day care center — arriving before 5:30 a.m. to alert the children's parents and working late into the evening. 'Even though there may be limited resources, we still have a service to provide,' said Jenkins, a director of clinical services for the department. 'We don't mind going above and beyond to be able to do that.' Chaos in Washington puts 'lives at risk' In March, the Trump administration pulled $11 billion from state and local health departments without warning under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist and public health critic. The cuts abruptly ended COVID-era grants, which had also been approved for non-COVID work including vaccination and disease detection, tracking and testing. A week later, thousands of people were laid off at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many had worked closely with state and local health departments to provide information, grants and other support. The sudden, one-two punch delivered a serious blow to the system, public health leaders said in interviews, court filings and public testimony. A Kennedy spokesman said in an email that America remains unhealthy compared with other developed nations and HHS is reorganizing what he said were 'broken systems' and reprioritizing resources to 'centralize programs and functions that will improve our service to the American people.' 'These cuts are not about abandoning public health — they're about reforming it,' spokesman Andrew Nixon said, adding: 'We reject the implication that HHS has turned its back on urgent health threats.' HHS justified the grant cancellations by saying the money was for COVID and the pandemic is over. But most of the cuts were in areas that are especially important given today's health threats. The biggest chunk, more than $8.9 billion, involved epidemiology and laboratory capacity related to infectious diseases, while another $2 billion was related to immunizations. In some places, the cuts are on hold due to a federal judge's order in a lawsuit by states. But elsewhere, cuts are continuing. In Mecklenburg, for example, 11 community health workers lost their jobs, meaning less outreach to groups like the Hispanic community. All eight employees dedicated to the mobile vaccine program were laid off. In Columbus, Ohio — one of several communities in Republican-led states suing over the cuts — the health department had to lay off nine disease intervention specialists. This left it operating at 25% capacity in its disease tracing and investigation work just as it prepared to address a measles outbreak. Kansas City, Missouri, will not be able to do its own testing for infectious diseases because the cut came just as the city was about to buy $500,000 worth of equipment. And Nashville had to end a program offering free flu and COVID tests and cancel plans to buy a van to deliver vaccinations. The cities complained the cuts had created 'severe budget uncertainty' and forced them to redirect their limited resources 'to respond to the resulting chaos.' CDC staff cuts are also having a ripple effect on state and local departments. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing will no longer benefit from an early intervention program run by states after everyone who worked on the program at CDC was laid off. The team in the Office on Smoking and Health, which funds state tobacco hotlines that help people quit, was let go. So was the CDC team that worked to reduce drownings, partly through funding low-cost swimming lessons in local communities. Drownings kill 4,000 people a year in the U.S. 'The experts who know the things that can be done to help prevent the No. 1 cause of death from children ages 1 to 4 have been eliminated,' Connecticut state health commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani told a Democratic congressional hearing in April, referring to drownings. She said the abrupt and disorganized nature of the cuts leaves her department scrambling as officials try to understand what is being cut and to close important programs on the federal government's impractical timelines. 'The current uncertainty puts lives at risk,' she said. Public health funding is going bust — and about to get worse The new cuts are especially damaging because health departments are funded differently than other government agencies meant to protect the public: Funding pours in during emergencies and slows to a relative trickle when they subside. Mecklenburg's Washington notes the contrast with fire departments, which are kept ready at all times, not scrambling to find firefighters and fire trucks when houses are already burning. With health departments, 'there's a long-established pattern of boom-and-bust funding,' said Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky's public health commissioner and past president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. A temporary surge of money during the pandemic allowed some health departments to expand and strengthen programs. In Alabama, the influx of COVID money allowed the state to reopen a health department in largely rural Coosa County that closed a decade ago due to a lack of money. In California's Santa Clara County, a COVID-era lab grant paved the way for a new science branch with nearly 50 positions. But by early this year, most of that money had disappeared, along with other COVID-era grants across the nation — some because they ended and some because the government rescinded them. Departments were again left brittle and vulnerable. 'We're facing funding cliff after funding cliff after funding cliff,' said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County's health director. 'What really worries me is I felt that we had finally built the infrastructure in the public health department. ... We were still pretty trim, but we weren't just, like, bones.' In Chicago, one-time COVID grants made up 51% of the health department budget, and their ending will push staff numbers below the pre-pandemic level of 588 — slowing responses to outbreaks and forcing officials to scale back food safety, violence prevention and other programs. In Mecklenburg, the department lost 180 employees as COVID funds dried up. It also lost a wastewater monitoring partnership with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte that helped the county react quickly to changing COVID variants and could have also been used to detect new threats like bird flu. The cuts are not over. The Trump administration has proposed cutting billions more from CDC's budget, enough to cut the agency's spending in half. CDC sends about 80 percent of its budget to states and local communities. Michael Eby, director of clinical services in Mecklenburg, said the relentless cuts to the system leave departments unable to respond to new pandemics and old diseases returning across the United States. 'Without the appropriate funding, we can't properly address these threats,' he said. 'We're at risk of them getting out of control and really causing a lot of damage and death to individuals that we could have saved, that we could have protected.' ___ Ungar reported from Charlotte and Louisville, Kentucky, and Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press reporters Mary Conlon in Washington and Kenya Hunter in Atlanta contributed to this report. ——— The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
