Latest news with #Kalina
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'I could prove them wrong': Victoria Kalina exposes Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' politics after shock exit reflects on life after
Victoria Kalina has transitioned to New York City to pursue her Broadway dreams (Image via IG) Victoria Kalina, once a standout face of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Netflix's America's Sweethearts, is now chasing her dreams far from the turf of AT&T Stadium. The fan-favorite veteran, who left the squad after season 1 of the docuseries, has since traded Texas for New York City—and she's not looking back. From cheerleader fame to chasing Broadway: Victoria Kalina 's leap of faith Victoria Kalina's exit from the DCC was one of the most emotional moments in the Netflix series. Despite four seasons on the squad and aspirations of being named a group leader, Kalina was told it wasn't likely she'd get the role. Rather than stay another year without that title, she bowed out on her own terms. 'Yes, I could prove them wrong and yes I would love to, but I don't need to,' she said on-camera. 'I know I proved them, like, over and over, time and time again. I don't need to do it again.' While her departure surprised many, Kalina quickly embraced a new direction: pursuing her childhood dream of becoming a Radio City Rockette. In a June 2024 YouTube video, she shared her decision to move to New York. 'I've always known that after cheering for the Cowboys I wanted to continue my dance journey in New York City,' she said. 'I just hop in and train my little hiney off.' The rejection that didn't break her spirit In spring 2025, Kalina auditioned for the Rockettes—but didn't make the cut. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like One of the Most Successful Investors of All Time, Warren Buffett, Recommends: 5 Books for Turning... Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Click Here Undo by Taboola by Taboola Still, she remained undeterred, sharing on Instagram: 'This year is a 'not now' for the Rockettes but I can't wait to continue to push this next year.' Rather than retreat, Kalina leaned into training harder. She now teaches at NYC's Ripley-Grier Studios and takes classes at Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway, fully immersing herself in the professional dance world. 'Spectacular moments, spectacular dancing and a spectacular experience to keep the momentum going,' she wrote of her 10-month journey in the city. In interviews, Kalina has spoken candidly about embracing vulnerability and authenticity. Her story resonates with fans because she's not pretending everything is perfect—she's showing the grind behind the glitter. 'New York City and everything that has come together so far has been just so smooth. It's meant to be,' she told Glamour. Also Read: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' Dayton Bramhall says she 'did everything right' — but still got cut twice: is the system rigged against her? While she may no longer wear the DCC uniform, Victoria Kalina continues to inspire with her honesty, determination, and passion for the stage. Game On Season 1 continues with Mirabai Chanu's inspiring story. Watch Episode 2 here.
CBC
02-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Living with celiac disease: When a single crumb can hurt you
When Ana Amezcua's family moved from Mexico to Canada in 2019, she never anticipated what would soon unfold with her daughter René, who was just five years old. "We noticed that within a week she started being always sick, like with a lot of fever, she couldn't stand up out of the bed, she lost a lot of weight," said Amezcua, who lives in Moncton. "We were going to the ER, but apparently she had nothing." That was when she remembered a TV show she had watched that talked about celiac disease and then everything started to make sense. Since moving to Canada, the family's diet included more wheat products, which would trigger someone who has celiac. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that primarily affects the small intestine when the person ingests gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye. Symptoms differ from person to person, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation. Some common symptoms include abdominal pain, cognitive impairment, migraines, fatigue, skin rash, joint pain and vomiting. According to the foundation, celiac can also lead to long-term health conditions, such as heart disease, liver failure, small bowel cancers and neurological symptoms. Amezcua began advocating for her daughter to get tested for celiac, and when she got the positive result, everything changed. Eating at home was safe. Amezcua, who is a certified chef, adapted her cooking to René's needs. But when she was anywhere else, there was always the fear that, even if a food appeared to be free of gluten, it could still be cross-contaminated, which could still cause extreme sickness. She said restaurants will often say they are celiac safe, but her daughter could still get sick if her food shares a countertop or frying pan with an item that contains gluten. Aislynn Slupsky, also a Moncton resident, has experienced similar challenges since her daughter, Kalina, was diagnosed at the age of four. She said her family had to get entirely new pots, pans, a toaster and even dedicated cutlery to ensure Kalina didn't get sick. WATCH | 'It didn't even cross our mind': Even Play-Doh is off limits for kids with celiac disease 1 day ago Duration 0:46 And when Kalina started school last year, that came with its own set of challenges. Slupsky found out that Play-Doh contains wheat and her daughter wouldn't be able to participate in the class activity, unless she found an alternative, because it was too risky if Kalina were to touch her mouth after playing. It was something that hadn't crossed her mind until she was confronted with the situation. While most people understand that people with celiac can't have bread products, many non-bread products also contain gluten, such as soy sauce, some types of vinegar, certain taco seasonings, some blue or cottage cheeses and many types of ice cream. Slupsky has had to tell Kalina not to take food from other people, but it's not always easy to explain why some kids can have things and she can't. "Some adults don't like to be told what to do, so imagine a five-year-old," she said. "She hasn't really known any difference, because, you know, she was four when it all started, but you can definitely see the frustration in her whenever friends get to participate and she doesn't." The isolation in school settings can be one of the hardest parts of having the disease — as was the case for Amber MacDonald when she was diagnosed with celiac in Grade 11. The 23-year-old Miramichi resident said that she often felt left out in school, as if she were a burden on her school and even society as a whole. After her diagnosis, MacDonald realized that grabbing a bite at the cafeteria or sharing a treat with her classmates was something she took for granted. She remembers a day that her school had a pancake breakfast as a way to promote school spirit. "To sit in a cafeteria surrounded by the entire school eating this pancake breakfast and being able to share in this moment altogether, and being one of the only ones sitting there without … it was just kind of an uncomfortable feeling." MacDonald said she hopes that the knowledge of celiac disease continues to grow, so people realize that being gluten-free isn't just a fad for those who suffer from celiac and they aren't being dramatic when it comes to cross-contamination. "I will live with this for the rest of my life, and the only way for me to live a life that is not in excruciating pain is to eat an entirely gluten-free diet," she said. "Having that one crumb or eating at that one restaurant that doesn't have great rules and regulations for cross-contamination would genuinely cause me weeks and weeks and weeks of pain and potentially long-term damage that might cause serious health issues down the road."
CBC
27-02-2025
- CBC
Fugitive Ryan Wedding's ex-wife named in money laundering, kidnapping probes
It would be a Valentine's Day to remember. Nine years to the day after Canadian snowboarder Ryan Wedding flew down the slalom course at the Olympic Games in Utah, he was about to get married. But this was no ordinary celebration. At age 29, Wedding was already a convicted drug trafficker, serving his sentence at a mega-prison in Texas. On Feb. 14, 2011 — while still incarcerated — he said "I do" with a B.C. businesswoman whose name would later surface at a trial for a violent kidnapping and extortion in Vancouver. The relationships Wedding had been forging in prison would place him at the crossroads of Mexican drug cartels and Iranian-linked money laundering networks. Those connections appear to have acted as springboards for his rise in the criminal underworld. Now listed as one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, the Thunder Bay, Ont., native is accused of running his own murderous drug-smuggling ring with ties to the notorious Sinaloa cartel. And while former associates and perceived rivals have turned up dead, Wedding's whereabouts remain unknown. Using public records including U.S. and Canadian court documents, a CBC News investigation has pieced together some key elements in Wedding's transformation from an Olympian to an alleged drug kingpin with nicknames like "Giant" and "Public Enemy." Parts of his story have never been reported before. Wedding's wedding He didn't come off as the type looking for a commitment of the romantic kind. As Wedding stood trial in California in 2009 for a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy, an FBI investigator couldn't help but notice the six-foot, three-inch, 240-pound former athlete had "girlfriends" coming and going. But what also struck Brett Kalina, a now-retired supervisory special agent, were Wedding's plans for the future. Kalina had arrested Wedding outside a Hampton Inn, in a sting operation after he had flown from Vancouver to Los Angeles to buy 24 kilograms of cocaine. And the contacts Wedding then made at San Diego's Metropolitan Correctional Center only served to embolden him, Kalina said. The FBI monitored Wedding's calls behind bars and "he regularly made comments like 'I'm meeting people, I'm learning,' " Kalina told CBC News. "We knew what he meant." "And he did meet the right people." Two years later, Wedding married an Iranian-born woman while incarcerated at Reeves County Detention Center in west Texas, according to U.S. prison records and a copy of the marriage licence. In a telephone interview, the woman said Wedding told her his conviction was only because he'd been "at the wrong place at the wrong time." She says they haven't spoken in recent years and that she's since remarried. "I don't want to be associated with these people," she said. CBC News is not naming the woman as she is not charged with a crime. Her name, however, has appeared in at least two Canadian police investigations tied to drugs and kidnapping. She denies wrongdoing. The latter case saw reputed drug trafficker Sulaiman Safi kidnapped from a Vancouver restaurant in October 2011 and held at gunpoint over missing cash. A B.C. court heard Safi had agreed to a money laundering scheme directed by a woman whose unnamed clients needed to move "roughly $2 million per week" into the U.S. WATCH | Where is Ryan Wedding? FBI getting tips on ex-Olympian, accused drug lord Ryan Wedding's whereabouts 4 months ago Duration 2:07 After $400,000 of that cash disappeared, Safi was ordered to meet the woman's associates at the Denman Tap House overlooking English Bay. Cell phone records suggest Wedding's wife was listening in for 15 minutes. "It had zero to do with me," the woman insisted. She says a friend who was at the meeting had called her earlier and hadn't hung up. Two men led Safi to a loading dock, where he was blindfolded, handcuffed and whisked away in a black SUV. With a Glock pressed to his forehead, Safi was told "these guys want their money now or you are going to die today," he later testified. Undercover officer infiltrates crime ring By February 2014, Wedding had been out of U.S. custody for more than two years and was — at least on paper — broke. He filed for bankruptcy and said in a sworn statement he was unemployed. While B.C. bankruptcy records show Wedding was leasing a new Ford F-350 pickup truck and living with his wife in a gated condo complex in Coquitlam, he declared neither of them had any income. Publicly, he was only receiving "financial support from family members." "I, due to being in prison for several years, unable to work and contribute to the household, was unable to fulfil my financial obligations as they became due," Wedding wrote. But that wasn't the whole story. According to the RCMP's Operation Harrington — a two-year probe into cartel-linked cocaine imports to Canada — Wedding was, by around then, moving up in Montreal's underworld. All of it came to light in April 2015 when the Mounties announced charges against him and more than a dozen others, including drug trafficker Philipos Kollaros. An undercover officer, identified in court only as "Joe" had infiltrated their crime ring by posing as a drug importer with access to smuggling ships. Kollaros introduced Wedding to Joe as the "man in charge" and, in turn, Wedding openly described himself as a cocaine importer. They discussed in detail a plan to smuggle $25 million worth of cocaine using Joe's boat, through the Caribbean and onto Newfoundland. The cocaine would then be loaded onto trucks bound for Montreal. "They are not small fry," Quebec Court Judge Yves Paradis said of the criminal network. "The evidence shows that this business is part of their lifestyle. They are involved in the drug trade at a high level." And eventually, it caught up with them. Kollaros was gunned down in Montreal's Little Italy, months after pleading guilty to the conspiracy. Another target of the probe, Jahanbakhsh Meshkati, was shot dead in Burnaby, B.C., before charges could be laid. Both killings remain unsolved. As for Wedding, the Mounties had a warrant for his arrest on charges of trafficking and conspiracy to import cocaine — but he was already gone. Now 43, he's been on the run ever since. Last year, Wedding and another 15 alleged accomplices were indicted by a federal grand jury in California after a cross-border investigation dubbed Operation Giant Slalom, as a nod to Wedding's previous career. The RCMP said the group was responsible for "commissioning murders across North America, and laundering significant proceeds of crime." Wedding and his top lieutenant, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, are accused of orchestrating at least four "execution-style" killings in Ontario including the mistaken-identity shootings of an Indian couple in November 2023. Hezbollah, Mexican cartel nexus It was around the time of Operation Harrington, that Wedding's ties to Iranian-linked money laundering networks and to the infamous Sinaloa cartel were coming into focus. Prior to his first trafficking arrest, Wedding had used the "cultural" money-laundering network of an Iranian-Canadian co-defendant to move $100,000 for the purchase, according to evidence at trial. Operation Harrington later uncovered drug smuggling routes involving Venezuela's Margarita Island, long considered a training hub for the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Last year, DEA intelligence chief Carrie Thompson even warned Congress about a "clear connection between the drug trade and the financing of terrorist organizations and rogue state actors, including the Iranian regime." Harrington also revealed that Iranian criminal networks — which included Meshkati, the Wedding associate who was killed in Burnaby — were involved in "massive cartel operations." Meshkati was also known for his "encrypted Blackberry businesses," according to a report last year co-written by former U.S. State Dept. official David Luna. Indeed, encrypted Blackberry chats proved a throughline in multiple investigations, including the case involving Wedding's wife and Safi, the kidnapping victim. U.S. prosecutors have linked Wedding to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel which, under then-leader Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán, made inroads in B.C. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Andrew Hogan wrote in his book Hunting El Chapo that he'd been "caught off guard by [Guzmán's] deep infiltration of Canada." (The group was recently designated as terrorists by the Canadian and U.S. governments.) What's more, Hogan wrote, "Chapo's men had connections with sophisticated Iranian organized-crime gangs in Canada." Years later, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada told reporters the "Wedding criminal enterprise … was connected to cartels, specifically the Sinaloa cartel, which offered them protection in Mexico to carry out their operations." Estrada told CBC Wedding could be hiding out anywhere in the country, or elsewhere in Latin America. The National Post reported in 2019 that the RCMP believe Wedding has ties to the cartel "via a spouse." Ex-wife named in police probe As for Wedding's ex-wife, her name again surfaced in a 2020 Calgary police investigation of illicit cannabis sales online. Officers searched two properties in B.C. and seized nearly 18,000 pot plants. According to a claim filed in court by B.C.'s director of civil forfeiture, $109,000 of "unlawful proceeds" from the cannabis operation was used to pay down a mortgage linked to Wedding's ex-wife. Court documents show she and the other defendants are suspected of money laundering and using proceeds of crime to buy the properties. "It was resolved," the woman told CBC News. "It wasn't even anything to do with money laundering." Records show two civil cases were closed without the now 45-year-old woman admitting wrongdoing. She and two firms linked to her handed over $97,500 to the province's Civil Forfeiture Office (CFO) in connection with one address in Abbotsford, B.C. Another property in Vancouver was sold, with more than $470,000 forfeited in court. A third civil matter is still pending, according to a spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. The RCMP declined an interview request. A spokesperson said in a statement "efforts to seek the arrest of Ryan Wedding remain underway." The FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and extradition.
