Day: December 25, 2018

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II wove personal reflections into her annual Christmas message, offering the customary wishes for peace and saying she hoped she had attained a measure of wisdom during her 92 years.

“Some cultures believe a long life brings wisdom,” Elizabeth said in a pre-recorded message broadcast Tuesday. “I’d like to think so. Perhaps part of that wisdom is to recognize some of life’s baffling paradoxes, such as the way human beings have a huge propensity for good and yet a capacity for evil.”

On a lighter note, the queen noted that 2018 was a busy year for her family: two weddings, two new babies and another due next year.

“It helps to keep a grandmother well occupied,” she said.

The annual message was broadcast to many of the 53 Commonwealth countries after the queen and senior royals attended a church service on the outskirts of one of her country estates.

Elizabeth and other members of the British royal family received cheers from a Christmas crowd when they arrived.

A chauffeured limousine delivered the 92-year-old Elizabeth to St. Mary Magdalene Church, while younger royals walked from nearby Sandringham House.

Prince Charles led the way, followed by his sons: Prince William and his wife, Catherine, and Prince Harry and his pregnant wife, Meghan.

Harry and Meghan, who are expecting their first child in the spring, walked arm in arm next to William and Catherine. Many in the crowd wished them “Merry Christmas” as they strolled to the church in the English countryside on a cold, wintry morning.

During the service, the congregation sang the traditional carols “O Little Town Of Bethlehem,” ″Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

After the 45-minute service, people gave them flowers as they headed back for a traditional Christmas lunch.

The queen’s husband, Prince Philip, who is 97 and largely retired from public life, did not attend the service. Charles’ wife Camilla, who is recovering from flu, also missed church.

William and Catherine’s three children — Prince George, 5, Princess Charlotte, 3, and 8-month-old Prince Louis, also stayed home.

Prince Andrew, the queen’s son, arrived by car with his mother. Princess Eugenie, another of the queen’s grandchildren, arrived with husband Jack Brooksbank.

Britain’s royals usually exchange small gifts on Christmas Eve, a practice popularized by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The queen typically frowns on extravagant gifts, and many of the presents are novelty items.

When the queen was younger, Christmas meant a brisk family walk through the woods on Christmas or an excursion on horseback.

Elizabeth made her first Christmas Day broadcast on the radio in 1952, the year she ascended to the throne. She made the move to television in 1957.

She has broadcast the message each year since, with the exception of 1969. The queen felt the royal family had gotten enough TV exposure that year while allowing unusual access for a TV documentary.

That year, the message only appeared in writing.
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 A stray bullet crushed Iraly Yanez’s aspirations of becoming a professional dancer eight years ago as it ruptured two of her vertebrae and left her paraplegic.

But now the young Venezuelan dancer is pursuing her lifelong passion in a wheelchair — and hoping to put her career back on track — thanks to a contemporary dance company that is helping disabled people perform.

Caracas based AM Danza works with 50 young Venezuelans who are pursuing their passion for dance despite limitations like broken spines, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or blindness.

Yanez, 34, joined the group three months ago and recently performed in her wheelchair in an emotional hour-long show that the dance troupe put together for its followers.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime” Yanez said after the contemporary dance review, “Ubuntu,” was held in one of the Venezuelan capital’s most prestigious theatres. “I can’t allow external issues to affect me any longer.”

During the show, disabled dancers performed alongside fully abled professional dancers to demonstrate that art knows no barriers. Some members of the audience shed tears.

Dancers with limited mobility in their legs lifted their crutches in the air in unison. A dancer hoisted Yanez from her wheelchair and lifted her above her shoulders to perform complex moves.

“Dancing is all about passion” said AM Danza’s director, Alexander Madriz. “You have to enjoy your possibilities and use your body to express emotions.”

Madriz has worked for two decades with dancers who have disabilities and says that thanks to them he has learned that corporal expression has no limits.

“Not everything has to be the perfect lines and symmetry that you see in contemporary classical dance” he said.

Madriz, 47, said that the students’ love for dance has helped them overcome the numerous obstacles faced by disabled people in Venezuela, where public transport is still mostly inaccessible to people on wheelchairs and ramps on sidewalks and public buildings are few and far between.

In addition, like everyone else in Venezuela, they have to cope with rampant medical shortages and hyperinflation that has devastated their incomes.

Yanez says that on weekdays she can spend up to three hours waiting for one of the few wheelchair-friendly buses that pass through her humble neighborhood in the suburbs of Caracas to take her to AM’s dance studio.

But that doesn’t seem to diminish her will to train.

She said that the dance company has allowed her to come to terms with the accident that changed her life and make feel like she can now “fly through the sky.”

The ballerina was hit by a stray bullet on New Year’s eve in 2010 as she entered her home in a crime-ridden slum. That was the end of her dancing until she joined AM Danza in September.

As 2018 comes to a close, Yanez says she is looking forward to participating in more performances.

In the kitchen of her small apartment, she glanced at a drawing of dancers posted on the refrigerator by her 10-year-old niece, who also now practices ballet.

“She’s one of the reasons that I am keeping up my struggle” Yanez said. “I see her, and I also see myself.”
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Kevin Spacey has been charged with groping the 18-year-old son of a Boston TV anchor in 2016 — the first criminal case brought against the Oscar-winning actor since his career collapsed amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations over a year ago.

Spacey, 59, is due in court Jan. 7 on the resort island of Nantucket to be arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said in a statement Monday. Spacey could get up to five years in prison if convicted.

A criminal complaint was issued by a clerk magistrate at a hearing Thursday, O’Keefe said.

Shortly after the charge became public, Spacey posted a video on YouTube titled “Let Me Be Frank,” breaking a public silence of more than a year.

In a monologue delivered in the voice of Frank Underwood, his character on Netflix’s “House of Cards” who was killed off after the sexual misconduct allegations emerged, he said: “Of course some believed everything and have just been waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all; they’re just dying to have me declare that everything they said is true and I got what I deserved. … I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the thing I didn’t do.”

He added, “Soon enough, you will know the full truth.” The three-minute video ended with a burst of cliffhanger music.

A spokeswoman for the actor did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Former news anchor Heather Unruh came forward in November 2017 to say the actor stuck his hand down the pants of her son, who was 18 at the time, and grabbed his genitals at the Club Car Restaurant on Nantucket in July 2016. Her son fled the restaurant when Spacey went to use the bathroom, Unruh said at the time.

Unruh said her son didn’t report the assault right away because he was embarrassed.

“The complainant has shown a tremendous amount of courage in coming forward,” Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer for Unruh’s son, said in a statement Monday. “Let the facts be presented, the relevant law applied and a just and fair verdict rendered.”

Spacey remains under investigation on suspicion of sexual assault in Los Angeles for an incident that allegedly occurred in 2016. Prosecutors declined to file charges over a 1992 allegation because the statute of limitations had run out.

He has also faced accusations of sexual misconduct from his time as artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre.

The two-time Oscar winner was among the earliest and biggest names to be ensnared in the #MeToo movement that was sparked by sexual assault and harassment allegations against Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein in October 2017.

His first accuser, actor Anthony Rapp, said Spacey climbed on top of him on a bed when Rapp was 14 and Spacey 26. Spacey said he did not remember such an encounter but apologized if the allegations were true. Spacey also used the statement to disclose he is gay.

Other accusers followed Rapp’s lead. 

Spacey was subsequently fired from “House of Cards,” the political drama in which he starred for five seasons, and his performance as the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty was cut from the completed movie “All the Money in the World” and reshot with actor Christopher Plummer. Some other projects he was involved in were shelved.

The case against Spacey represents a rare criminal prosecution in the #MeToo era. Weinstein is awaiting trial in New York, but many other cases have been too old to prosecute, and some accusers have declined to cooperate with authorities.
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