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Adam Lambert Brought Cher To Tears With Spectacular ‘Believe’ At Kennedy Center Honors

Adam Lambert sings in tribute to Cher at 2018 Kennedy Center Honors

Last night, CBS aired this year’s Kennedy Center Honors which recognizes those in the performing arts for a lifetime of achievement.

This year’s honorees included Cher, Reba McEntire, composer Philip Glass and jazz legend Wayne Short.

And, for the first time, the Kennedy Center honored a groundbreaking work of art: Hamilton. The blockbuster Broadway musicals creators – Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbuehler and Alex Lacamoire – received special honors for their work.

Many spectacular performances were thrown down during the telecast, but it was the tribute to Oscar & Grammy winner, Cher, that left the audience wiped out.

Whoopi Goldberg, in a sequin dress perfect for the moment, took to the stage to offer spoken tribute to the goddess.

Little Big Town rocked a medley of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “I Found Someone” and “Baby Don’t Go;” the indomitable Cyndi Lauper laid down her take on “(If I Could) Turn Back Time” as well as dueting with Adam Lambert for a show-closing “I Got You Babe.”

Cyndi Lauper (screen capture)

But Adam Lambert’s intimate-to-soaring performance of Cher’s iconic “Believe” was ‘the’ moment of the night.

Set in an orchestral soundscape, Lambert turned the 1998 dance hit into an stunning, emotional pop anthem with diva-worthy vocals building to the American Idol alum’s signature high notes.

Cher took to Twitter after the telecast to express her feelings about the tribute.

“Tried 2 write Feelings About Adam Lambert Singing Believe In Words, but Cant seem 2,” Cher shared on Twitter. “When Your senses are Overwhelmed All Can you feel with your [heart].”

“I Was Shocked AND Over The MOON When Cindi (Lauper) came out Rocking the house,” the diva continued. “Shocked Because SHE TOLD ME SHE WAS IN LA, & Over The Moon Because My Friend CINDI Is One Of Our ‘Great’ Singers. When Adam & Cindi Sang Together It=Heaven. ‘Little Big Town’ Were Adorable, & Harmonies. Amanda Was Genuine & Dear & When Whoopi Came Out In ”Cher Outfit” She brought Down House.”

Lambert tweeted back, “It was a total honor!!!! You’re a goddess!”

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News Round-Up: December 26, 2018

Do not forget to watch the Kennedy Center Honors tonight on CBS at 8pm as Cher, Philip Glass, Reba McEntire, and Wayne Shorter receive the 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors. Hamilton co-creators Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbuehler, and Alex Lacamoire receive a special Honors for groundbreaking work.
The 2018 Kennedy Center Honors air tonight on CBS at 8pm

Some news items you might have missed:

• Do not forget to watch the Kennedy Center Honors tonight on CBS at 8pm as Cher, Philip Glass, Reba McEntire, and Wayne Shorter receive the 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors.

Hamilton co-creators Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbuehler, and Alex Lacamoire receive a special Honors for groundbreaking work.

• An unhinged Catholic priest claimed Satan designed the Pride flag.

• Legal pot was a popular Christmas gift in California this year as cannabis businesses reported up to 5x normal foot traffic in the days leading up to the holiday.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi trolled Donald Trump and his infamous wall telling USA Today he’s now shifted from a concrete structure to “a beaded curtain or something.”

• The transgender teen who was bullied by an assistant principal in a bathroom speaks to the press about the hideous experience.

• A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll asked Democratic and Independent voters who would excited them the most in the 2020 presidential race.

“Someone entirely new” garnered 59%, followed closely by former Vice President Joe Biden (who is the exact opposite of that) at 53%.

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Police Report: There’s Video Evidence In The Sex Assault Case Against Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

The sexual assault case involving Oscar winner Kevin Spacey includes video evidence of the actor touching the alleged victim’s pants, according to MassLive.com.

As reported earlier this week, Spacey is scheduled to be arraigned in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on January 7.

The former House of Cards star faces one count of indecent assault on a person over the age of 14 after being accused of groping an 18-year-old in a Nantucket bar in the summer of 2016.

The alleged victim is the son of local news anchor Heather Unruh, who came forward last year with the story.

MassLive obtained the State Police report after it was filed with criminal complaint in Nantucket District Court.

It’s worth noting that the alleged assault was reported to police on October 31, 2016, a year before the onslaught of accusations against Spacey that eventually led to his firing from the hit Netflix series House of Cards and being replaced in the film, All the Money in the World.

Among the details revealed in the police report:

The teen was employed at the bar where the alleged incident took place, known as the Club Car, as a bus boy.

He asked a coworker to introduce him to Spacey after his shift.

While chatting, the teen told Spacey he was 23-years-old and the actor offered to buy him a drink.

The teen admitted to having 4-5 beers before Spacey reportedly suggested switching to whiskey saying, “Let’s get drunk.”

As the evening progressed, singing songs at a piano, the boy mentioned his girlfriend of five months to which Spacey alleged responded to by talking about the size of his penis.

Spacey reportedly asked the boy to go back to the where house he was staying, which the teen says made him uncomfortable.

Later, standing in group of people at the piano, Spacey allegedly began touching the teen’s leg, then unzipped his pants and touched him without consent.

The police trooper wrote in the report the teen was uncertain how to handle the situation as he knew he could get in trouble as he was under legal drinking age and he was drinking at work.

The boy admitted to police that he didn’t say anything nor did he walk away during the assault.

As the touching went on for some minutes, he took out his phone and captured video of Spacey groping him via Snapchat and sent it to his girlfriend. The girlfriend has confirmed receiving the video.

Eventually, Spacey went to the bathroom and Unruh’s son told a woman in the bar he thought Spacey was being inappropriate. He then ran home and shared the story with his sister.

The police report notes that the son has attempted to play down the incident, but his sister and mother both feel that response has been a ‘coping mechanism.’

Unruh’s son eventually went to the police and an investigation began.

Interviewing members of the Club Car staff, no one reported seeing any assault although two employees recalled the teen and Spacey chatting. And one remembered the boy looking “pale, blank and a bit frightened.”

As Instinct reported, the day the charges were announced, Spacey tweeted out a link to a bizarre YouTube video. The tweet was his first in a year.

Spacey delivered a monologue to the camera as his former House of Cards character, ‘Frank Underwood,’ saying in part, “But, you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence, would you?”

In the heat of the #MeToo movement last year, Spacey was accused by actor Anthony Rapp (RENT, Star Trek: Discovery) of inappropriate behavior at a holiday party decades ago when both were appearing on Broadway. Rapp was 14 at the time of that alleged incident.

Spacey responded to Rapp’s accusation by saying he was ‘horrified’ by the story but didn’t remember it. He then offered an apology to Rapp characterizing the episode as what must have been “deeply drunken behavior.”

He also used the apology to finally come out as gay after years of rumors.

During the following weeks, more than a dozen more allegations of sexual misconduct involving Spacey were reported.

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Stock Market Bounces Back As Dow Regains Over 1,000 Points

Stock market rebounds after four-day losing streak

Via The Washington Post:

Stocks on Wednesday climbed back from their epic Christmas Eve plunge as all three indexes posted big gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average roared more than 1,050 points in late afternoon — the biggest point gain in history — as stocks snapped a four-day losing streak that had placed the 10-year bull market on the edge of death on Monday.

Wednesday’s preliminary 4.96 percent climb in the S&P is the best Dec. 26 on record, replacing the 3.06 percent gain record set in 1973.

It was the largest daily percentage gain for market since March 2009.

In that the markets prefer stability versus uncertainty, many noted the rebound occurred on a day Donald Trump had not tweeted.

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Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova Tweets & Deletes Regarding Trans Athletes

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova (image via Twitter)

For almost 40 years, tennis legend Martina Navratilova has been a vocal champion for human rights and the LGBTQ community.

But recently, the 18-time Grand Slam champ made a rare misstep as she took to Twitter to complain about transgender athletes in sports.

“You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women,” Navratilova tweeted. “There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”

Navratilova’s remarks drew quick condemnation from trans activists, and the tennis icon quickly deleted her tweet.

Even after the deletion, though, the criticism continued. Dr Rachel McKinnon, who won a women’s event at the UCI Masters track world championships, wasn’t satisfied.

A Canadian cyclist and transgender activist, McKinnon was identified as male before transitioning in her 20s. Her win at the Los Angeles event this past October sparked controversy.

On Twitter, McKinnon denounced Navratilova’s “pro-trans’ tweet and added, “Genitals do not play sports.”

As Cyd Zeigler at Outsports notes, several sporting organizations have addressed the issue of trans-inclusion to give trans women the opportunity to compete as women without having gender-reassignment surgery. The International Olympic Committee made that shift three years ago, and he NCAA has had such a policy since 2011.

Navratilova eventually stepped back after Renee Richards, a pioneer in transgender athletes, weighed in.

“Ok – I take it back,” wrote Navratilova. “Clearly I don’t know what u [sic] am talking about. So once again – I will defer to Renee Richards as she certainly knows what she is talking about. I will find that tweet and delete it. All I want is fairness. Thank you.”

There’s no doubt in my mind Navratilova had zero bad intentions when she shared that tweet. I do think it’s telling of a champion that she publicly admitted to stepping back and committed to educating herself on the issue.

But Navratilova and McKinnon each took one last swipe back at each other:

(h/t Outsports)

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Billy Porter Claps Back At Kevin Hart & Homophobic Language

Billy Porter (photo: Lizzy Sullivan)

Tony Award winner and Golden Globe nominee for the acclaimed FX series Pose, Billy Porter, slammed comedian Kevin Hart over past homophobic language in a new interview with Consequence of Sound.

Hart recently had to step down from hosting the upcoming Oscars after past tweets using homophobic slurs came to light.

Porter wasn’t having it.

“People think that words don’t matter. I’m going to get into this Kevin Hart thing for just a second. Because it’s not about you having a joke. That’s not what it’s about…

“I say to Kevin Hart, and I say to D.L. Hughley, I say to those people who think that they don’t need to apologize for shit and dig their heels in their toxic masculinity: But you want your rights! You want people to stop shooting your children in the back? But yet still, you turn around and oppress other people the same way you’re being oppressed.

“Fuck that. Fuck you. We’re done.”

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Trump Skips Troop Visit On Christmas

Donald Trump skips visiting military this Christmas

Donald Trump broke with tradition this year as he became the first president since 2002 to not visit military service members on Christmas.

While the Trumpster did place calls to troops serving around the world, he did not make any visits to wounded warriors or active military on Christmas Day.

More from NBC News:

Based on a check of NBC logs, President Barack Obama visited troops at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, in Kaneohe Bay, every Christmas he was in office, from 2009 to 2016.

Before him, according to a check of news releases, President George W. Bush visited wounded warriors at Walter Reed from 2003 to 2008. He did not visit troops at Christmas in 2002, in the run-up to the Iraq War, or in 2001.

In recent months, Trump has taken heat from critics for not visiting troops in an active combat zone, after canceling a trip to an American military burial ground outside of Paris last month due to weather and skipping the traditional Veterans Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery just two days later.

In related news, The New York Times reports that Trump’s infamous bone spurs diagnosis, which kept him from being drafted during the Vietnam War, may have been a favor by a podiatrist who rented office space from Trump’s dad at the time.

The doctor’s daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, told the Times, “I know it was a favor.”

“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” Elysa Braunstein said. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”

All of this continues to cloud Trump’s relationship with the US military.

In addition to the lack of troop visits and the draft dodging rumors, Trump has also insulted Gold Star families as well as Sen. John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War.

The news did not go unnoticed:

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Mariah Carey Breaks All-Time Single Day Streaming Record

Mariah Carey ruled Christmas Eve on Spotify as her now-iconic holiday hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” broke the all-time record for the most streams in a single day.

Mariah Carey ruled Christmas Eve on Spotify as her now-iconic holiday hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” broke the all-time record for the most streams in a single day.

Chart Data broke the news that Mimi’s blockbuster single was streamed more than 10.8 times on December 24.

The previous record was 10.4 streams of XXXTentacion’s “Sad!” on June 19, one day after he was shot and killed in South Florida.

“All I Want For Christmas Is You,” released in November of 1994, is now eligible for 5x Platinum status in the US.

The highest charting holiday-themed single in six decades, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” currently ranks 7th on the Billboard Hot 100.

Carey herself seemed to be surprised by the record-breaking news:

Just imagine work you did 24 years ago could still be earning big bucks.

We all know that artists make money, depending on their recording contracts, every time someone purchases their music.

Additionally, since Carey co-wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” with producer Walter Afanasieff, she makes bank every time it’s played on the radio, used in a movie or commercial or streamed.

And that can add up.

Business Insider reports the Grammy Award-winner has made over $60 million from the holiday hit alone since its release.

Some songs can become so associated with a certain time of year, they become perennial money makers.

For instance, each spring as warm, sunny weather emerges from winter, “Walking On Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves, returns to the airwaves with the 1985 track earning an estimated $1 million each year.

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Study Shows Alcohol & Coffee Leads To Longer Life

According to a new study, I’m going to live forever.

Well, almost.

According to ABC7 in Chicago, a new University of California-Irvine study indicates that “consumption of moderate amounts of alcohol and coffee is linked to living a longer life.”

The caveat here is that one little word, “moderate.

“The 90+ Study,” begun in 2003, looked into the habits and lifestyles of 1,700 nonagenarians -referred to as “the oldest-old” age group – to determine “what is key to living to your 90th birthday and beyond.”

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Trump To 7-Year-Old: “Are You Still A Believer In Santa?”

(image via Twitter/FLOTUS)

As Donald and Melania Trump fielded a few NORAD Santa tracker calls on Christmas Eve, the Donald said to a 7-year-old named Coleman: “Are you still a believer in Santa Claus? Cause at 7 it’s marginal, right?”

America, I give you your president.

Merry Christmas!