ridor Commission, in partnership with the Erie Canalway Heritage Fund, awarded $43,700 in grants to assist organizations with canal-related education, preservation, and tourism projects.
Seven organizations from Albany to Buffalo received funding, including one in Western New York: The Buffalo Zoo (Buffalo), Albany Institute of History and Art (Albany), Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum (Chittenango), Erie Canal Museum (Syracuse), New York Folklore Society (Schenectady), Schenectady Museum & Suits–Bueche Planetarium (Schenectady), and The Public Broadcasting Council of Central New York/WCNY (Syracuse).
“Distributing grants is critical to helping organizations develop new programs or advance their missions, especially in tight economic times,” said Judy Schmidt Dean, Commission Chair. “We are thrilled to be able to fund these worthy projects in 2012.”
“We are extremely proud to be named one of the recipients of these grants,” said Dr. Donna M. Fernandes, Buffalo Zoo President/CEO. “Our goal with the Delta Sonic Heritage Farm is to depict life on a small family farm located along the Erie Canal in the 1850s. Support from the Erie Canalway Heritage Fund, and our partnership with the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, will allow us to develop programming that combines environmental education with Canal history to engage thousands of school children each year.”
The Buffalo Zoo, in partnership with the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, received $5,500 to develop a new education program to focus on the interconnectedness of people, the local environment, and the Erie Canal, both past and present. The program will challenge students to consider how the Erie Canal affected (and continues to affect) not only people and society, but also domestic animals, wildlife, and natural habitats in New York State.
“With the help of these federal funds Western New York’s rich Erie Canal history comes to life in a fun, interpretive way for families,” said Congressman Brian Higgins. “I commend the Historical Society, the Zoo and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission for creating this partnership that will educate future generations of the Erie Canal’s critical role in the great rise of our region.”
“What a unique learning experience students will have through this program,” said Tom Blanchard, Chair of the Erie Canalway Heritage Fund. “Providing this type of hands-on learning for youth will help bring to life the rich Erie Canal history that is all around us in Buffalo.”
SEE BELOW FOR FULL 2012 GRANT PROGRAM AWARD DESCRIPTIONS; PHOTO AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor spans 524 miles across the full expanse of upstate New York, encompassing the Erie, Cayuga-Seneca, Oswego, and Champlain canals and their historic alignments, as well as more than 230 canal communities. Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission, in partnership with the National Park Service, collaborates with government agencies, communities and organizations to protect and promote the canal corridor for all to use and enjoy. The Erie Canalway Heritage Fund is dedicated to charitable, educational, and civic purposes within the confines of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.]]>
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Trump’s blunders ‘raise the risk of global conflict’ as enemies ‘gang up’: analyst
After a series of diplomatic blunders, President Donald Trump and America's reputation loss could "raise the risk of global conflict" and come at a major cost, including "mischief or worse" from enemies.
In an opinion piece published Monday, Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kluth describes how a good reputation can be difficult to obtain or maintain, and Trump "has squandered whatever credibility America had left in foreign and security policy."
Following his rambling speech last week in front of the United Nations and his struggle to see the difference between "personal chemistry" with President Vladimir Putin and diplomatic action, Trump has effectively put both adversaries and allies on edge, wrote Kluth.
"Inklings of danger are everywhere," Kluth writes. "America’s partners are becoming more anxious and making alternative arrangements for their security: Saudi Arabia just signed a defensive pact with Pakistan after watching an Israeli strike against its Gulf neighbor Qatar, which is allied to, but got no help from, the United States. America’s adversaries keep testing the resolve of Trump and the West, as Putin is doing in eastern Europe. Or, like Xi Jinping in Beijing and Kim in Pyongyang, they’re recalculating bellicose scenarios in secret. Other countries, like India, are wary of committing to America and keeping all options open, even clutching hands with Moscow and Beijing."
And although Trump is not the first president to struggle with navigating U.S. reputation among foreign nations, it puts America at an unfortunate future disadvantage.
"Against this backdrop, anybody watching US policy for the past decade, from friendly Europe to adversarial China, already had reason to doubt US credibility. What Trump has done in his second term is to remove the doubts and confirm the loss. Allies now know they can’t trust America, while adversaries are ganging up and recalculating their plans for mischief or worse.
It's unclear what will happen in the future; a damaged reputation jeopardizes diplomacy.
"These responses to America’s loss of credibility will raise the risk of global conflict," Kluth writes. "The danger will go up even more if the US, under this or a future president, panics and decides to overcompensate in reestablishing its reputation, with a demonstratively hawkish turn that could tip into war. If America and the whole world are becoming less safe, it’s because Donald Trump’s foreign policy is, literally, in-credible."
‘Never felt more betrayed’: MAGA rebels over Trump’s ‘treasonous’ Qatar base in Idaho
After years of advocating "America First," President Donald Trump's administration, the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Friday, "I'm also proud that today we're signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho."
It led to a swift meltdown from some of the president's top allies.
Constitutionalist and MAGA influencer "The General" was furious, calling it outright "treason."
"We are in the middle of rolling out military across the entire USA and then bringing in a non-NATO country military into the USA is TREASON. U.S. and Qatar sign deal to open a Qatari 'air force facility,' in the U.S., at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho," he wrote on X.
"Is this what 'shared defense goals' means now — or just the latest way our politicians get paid to sell out our country?" asked Amy Mek, the editor-in-chief of RAIR, an organization that advocates for the U.S. to return to a country run by Judeo-Christian values. "Twenty-four years after foreign nationals trained in our flight schools flew planes into our buildings, our leaders are inviting their financiers to train inside our bases. This is what happens when you gut national-security training, scrub every mention of Islam, jihad, and Sharia from the manuals, and let Obama- and Biden-era bureaucrats turn counterterrorism into cultural sensitivity class. We’re being led by officials who no longer recognize or refuse to name the enemy they’re inviting into our own backyard.'
Close ally to President Trump, Laura Loomer, lamented the news after advocating that the administration declare the Muslim Brotherhood an international terrorist organization.
"Well, I guess this isn’t going to happen since we just gave the Muslim Brotherhood an air base in Idaho. So much for my decade worth of hard work trying to protect Americans from the threat of Islamic terror," said Loomer about the new base.
"No foreign country should have a military base on U.S. soil," she also said. "Especially Islamic countries. I have never felt more betrayed by the GOP than I do now watching Islamic jihadists get away with implementing Sharia law in the US and now they are getting their own airbase where they will train to kill Americans."
She went on to warn that it would make America less safe by setting up "for America to be attacked by Islamic savages from Qatar, the biggest funders of Islamic terror in the entire world. So much so, the Saudis and Emiratis find Qatar to be TOXIC. I need to see how much more of my life I am going to dedicate to a party that won’t address the threat of Islam in the West. The betrayal stings. WE ARE LOSING OUR COUNTRY!"
Content creator and influencer Red Eagle Politics denied the reporting.
"We aren’t giving Argentina a free $20 Billion handout, and we aren’t building an Air Force Base for Qatar in Idaho. The amount of dishonest lunacy on this app is reaching new heights," he wrote on X.
Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin, a Democrat, pointed out that Idaho Republicans "have been crowing about" legislation similar to that his state enacted "blocking foreign ownership of land in their state."
Dan Caldwell, former senior advisor to Hegseth, wrote on X that it wasn't that big of a deal.
"The freak out around this is of course totally unwarranted since this is actually a pretty common practice with countries that buy and operate a lot of U.S. military aircraft. Singapore has a similar facility and detachment for its F-15 training unit at this very same airbase," he said.
Caldwell is one of the DOD aides who was forced out amid Hegseth's Signalgate scandal. He has denied any wrongdoing.
