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On Sunday, Aug. 13, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village will be celebrating Ukrainian Day in a big way.

David Makowsky, director of the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, said its a fantastic day to come out and enjoy Ukrainian culture with the family.

While they celebrate Ukrainian Day each year, this year will be special, according to Makowsky.

In honour of Canadas 150 birthday, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village is opening a special exhibit they call Where We Came From.

Where We Came From is a youth art exhibit which had more than 400 submissions, from which, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village selected the best examples from multiple categories.

Its a chance for the youngest generations of Albertans to share their families story of making Alberta home, Makowsky said.

He said there will be a concert at 2 p.m., featuring Ukrainian dancers, and a number of multicultural organizations contributing to the concert, as well. Therefore, the concert will include Romanian and Polish dancers, Euphoria Band, Korinnya Choir of Calgary, and the Prince Charles Fiddlers.

Its an opportunity to share the spotlight, Makowsky said. Were very proud of that.

The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village will also be opening five buildings for the public to discover in the Galician Settlers Farmstead for Ukrainian Day. The opening ceremony is scheduled for 9:15 a.m., and Makowsky said it is a great chance for visitors to learn more about the Ukrainians who came from the crown land of Galicia before the First World War. Visitors will be able to see the culture, tradition and costumes that made the Galician settlers so unique, Makowsky said.

Makowsky continued: Ukrainian Day is an opportunity to look back at the past.

What else can visitors expect from attending Ukrainian Day at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village?

Food, Makowsky said.

There will be a pancake breakfast running from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., as well as traditional and more contemporary Ukrainian dishes later on.

Its just a great day for visitors from Sherwood Park and from the greater Edmonton area to drive 25 minutes down the highway to come visit us.

Make sure to arrive early, however, Makowsky warned, calling Ukrainian Day their busiest day of the year.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Makowsky recommends getting there around 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. for the full experience.

There are more than 345,000 Albertans of Ukrainian descent, and the city of Edmonton has the largest percentage of Ukrainian population out of any large city in Canada.

Some have been here for generations, and others are new arrivals, but Makowsky said he thinks Ukrainian Day is a great way to bring both groups together and celebrate Ukrainian heritage together.

robsont2@mymacewan.ca

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Celebrate Ukraine this weekend - Sherwood Park News

U.S. military experts are lining up on either side of a debate on whether to supply lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, a move that would mark a turning point in U.S. policy on Kyiv's 3-year-old conflict with Russian-backed separatists.

Supporters of the move, which is under active consideration by President Donald Trump's administration, argue that it is long overdue. The current policy of supplying only non-lethal military gear has neither deterred Russian aggression nor created an opening for cooperation with Moscow to resolve the conflict, they argue.

"I don't think Russia has given us a window for more positive cooperation on Ukraine," said Molly McKew, an independent analyst with consulting firm Fianna Strategies. "Maybe other places. But, I certainly don't see it.So, I think it's time to reconsider what our strategy has been and what that means.

"And ... Ukraine is not asking for foreign troops to come and stand beside them," she told VOA's Ukranian Service. "They're asking for the ability to fight the war in the way that they know they need to fight."

Watch: U.S. Considering Lethal Defensive Arms to Ukraine

Other advocates argue that sending a message of strength would be timely after Russia retaliated against U.S. sanctions by expelling U.S. Embassy staff from diplomatic property in Moscow and demanding their numbers be reduced by 755 people by September 1.

But opponents of the move worry that supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine could escalate the conflict and provoke retaliation from the Kremlin, which has already denounced the possibility.

"I think it would make much more sense to re-think some of the aid and capabilities that are being given ... and not plan them for a short-term fight, since major battles in the fronts are now passed," said Michael Kofman, a researcher at CNA Corporation, a private research organization.

He said the U.S. should "think much more about the medium and long term of the Ukrainian military and the kind of Ukrainian military we would like to help them build."

Kurt Volker, the Trump administration's special envoy to Ukraine, rejected the argument that lethal arms sales would provoke Russia during a July 25 interview with Current Time, a Russian-language network jointly operated by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and VOA.

"I hear these arguments that it's somehow provocative to Russia or that it's going to embolden Ukraine to attack," he said. "These are just flat out wrong. First off, Russia is already in Ukraine, they are already heavily armed. There are more Russian tanks in there than in Western Europe combined. It is a large, large military presence. And, there's an even larger military presence surrounding Ukraine from Russian territory."

Analysts on both sides agree that Russia's overwhelming military advantage over Ukraine means the supply of U.S. weapons would provide more of a political and morale boost for Kyiv than a defense one.

Nevertheless, Moscow is likely to raise the issue with Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, when it gets the chance. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the special envoy is expected to visit Russia for talks on Ukraine in the near future, although U.S. officials have yet to confirm the trip.

"It will be interesting because Mr. Volker has been in a number of capitals already including Kyiv, Paris, Berlin, London," Lavrov said. "We would be interested to see what impression the U.S. special envoy has on the current state of affairs."

During a trip to Ukraine last month, Volker visited front-line areas in the east where Ukrainian troops have been in a stand-off against Russia-backed separatists for the past three years.

He blamed Russian aggression for the violence, which has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014, when Russian forces seized Ukrainian military bases in Crimea, annexed the Black Sea peninsula, and began covert support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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Experts Debate Pros and Cons of Lethal Arms for Ukraine - Voice of America

Jamoneisha Merritt, 11,went to sleep Sunday night, near another young girl she believed to be her friend. Now the young girl doesnt know what she looks like anymore.

Her shoulders and neck are scarred and bulbous. In one photo from a hospital bed, Jamoneishas eyes are shut, her face pink from a layer of skin vaporized by scalding water.

Shes still beautiful to her mother.

Jamoneisha was allegedly attacked by another girl at the sleepover in the Bronx, N.Y., with a cup of boiling water, her mother Ebony Merrittsaid to local media stations.

Merritt told NY1 that her daughter, who she affectionately calls Monie, is wounded not just physically but emotionally after the 12-year old poured the water over Jamoneisha as she slept. Now she is recovering in serious but stable condition, according to police.

Merritt told local media Jamoneisha is not ready to see the full extent of her potentially lifelong injuries, so she has limited her daughters ability to look at herself.

[Texas family says teen killed himself in macabre Blue Whale online challenge thats alarming schools]

A New York Police Department statement released to The Washington Post said the 12-year old girl was arrested Monday night and charged with second-degree assault.

She dont understand why they did that to her. She thought they was her friends, Merritt told the station. I was told that they didnt like her. And they just been bullying her. Merritt also took to Facebook to tell other parents to discourage children about following social media challenges.

It was not immediately clear if the alleged attackertold police she was inspired by Internet videos.

My Mini-Me God got her that's my twin she's a strong young woman mommy said that it's nothing to a giant God got them evil Devil's

Posted by Ebony Merritt onMonday, August 7, 2017

Yolanda Richardsontold the local NBC affiliate that hercousin Jamoneisha and the other girl arguedthe night before the attack.

[The other girl]told her if she goes to sleep they were going to do something to her, Yolandasaid.

Merritt believes her daughter is the victim of a social media-fueled prank called the hot water challenge, a potentially dangerous dare in which teenagers and kids boil water and throw it on an unsuspecting victim.

Kiari Pope, an 8-year old girl from Florida, died in late July, months after she drank boiling water from a straw after her and a cousin watched a video of a similar act on YouTube,the Associated Press reported. Her mother, Marquisia Bonner, said Kiari had problems breathing aftera tracheotomy removed scar tissue from her windpipe.

The pair of incidents arewrinkles of an old digital phenomenon kids egged on by social media missions created on thedark cornersof the Web, provoking them to do something incredibly dangerous to themselves or others.

Suicides, assaults and accidents have been traced back to Internet fads like the blue whale challenge, which purportedly asks participants to complete a list of mundane and dangerous activities ranging from watching a horror film and self-mutilation.

One Texas teenager allegedly killed himself last month as part of the challenge, his parents say.

Other apparent criminal acts do not have a clear connection between online challenges and real world violence. The so-called knockout game, which called for kids to attack unsuspecting people from behind in an effort to knock them unconscious, sent parents, teachers and cable news into a frenzy.

[The complete history of Slender Man, the meme that compelled two girls to stab a friend]

It was also found to mostly be a hoax, a scary sounding and Facebook-ready phenomenon grafted onto random assaults, a report found.

ButJamoneishas life-altering burns are very real. And her mother has reason to believe digital taunting transformed into real violence, she told NY1.

Theyve been on Snapchat. Its been going on several times. The girl admitted it. I dont like her. I wanted to do it,' she said.

Jamoneishas family, who could not be reached by The Post, has been at her bedside through the recovery process, in an update with NY1.

She seemed to still have the same energy like nothing aint change her. Shes still smiling, joking. laughing, yeah shes doing good though, Starshanae Nixon,Jamoneishas cousin, told the network.

Tell my family I love them: Video captures a near-death shooting of a police officer

A Snapchat video showed a crying infant in a refrigerator. Two babysitters have been arrested.

The most horrific case: A mom intentionally left her kids in a hot SUV, police say. They died.

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An 11-year old was doused with boiling water at a sleepover. Her mother blames an online challenge. - Washington Post

"What's your judgment as to the chances they'll fire these things off?" Kennedy asked Dwight Eisenhower, a retired Army general whom he'd once derided as a "cold bastard."

Now, as North Korea presents fresh nuclear danger, those types of consultations appear to be history.

President Donald Trump, six months into his presidency and facing simmering tensions in Asia, has not only ignored his predecessors, he's rekindled his deep-seeded animosity for the man who handed him the nuclear codes.

This week, as Pyongyang issued threats to launch missiles at Guam, Trump retweeted a series of messages that criticized Obama, including an unscientific Twitter poll that had been inactive for days.

"Who is a better President of the United States," the poll asked, using the hashtag #ObamaDay to note that the state of Illinois will now mark August 4, the former president's birthday, as Barack Obama Day.

Trump also retweeted two messages on Wednesday evening, one from a Fox News show and another from John Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations, that knocked Obama.

Their spat is conducted from afar; Trump has not spoken with Obama since the pair parted ways on January 20. Before that, their face-to-face conversations were limited to a meeting in the Oval Office and pleasantries over coffee ahead of Trump's swearing-in.

Trump's tussles this week with an increasingly hostile North Korea only serve as a reminder of those brief conversations with Obama. In the Oval Office the week he won, Obama warned North Korea would present Trump with his gravest global challenge. Trump later suggested he and Obama discussed the matter further during a shared limousine ride from the White House to the US Capitol on Inauguration Day.

It was the last time they spoke.

"This President has a very unusual obsession with his predecessor and constantly comparing himself to President Obama," Derek Chollet, former assistant defense secretary under Obama. "This is not a president who seems to be singularly focused on what is a genuinely a global security threat in North Korea."

"I think he has got to be shaking his head," Chollet said of the former president. "Clearly, he tried in raising this issue with President Trump by singling it out in their meeting in the Oval Office last year."

Speaking from his golf club here on Thursday, Trump maligned Obama's stance on North Korea, suggesting Obama had ignored an issue that he is intent on confronting.

"You look what happened with Obama. Obama -- he didn't even want to talk about it. But I talk," Trump said on the steps of his clubhouse. "It's about time. Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to do it."

Much of Trump's initial governing agenda has focused on reversing Obama's legacy, either on climate change or trade or diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Trump has grown frustrated in areas he hasn't been able to separate himself from his predecessor, according to a senior administration official. He's lashed out at his national security council for presenting strategies in Afghanistan and against ISIS that aren't markedly different from the previous administration's. When his team insisted he re-certify Iran's compliance with the multi-nation nuclear deal, Trump balked and took the disagreement public.

Obama, it seems, is never far from Trump's mind, at least based on his public comments and his statements on Twitter.

"I inherited a mess," Trump said in February during the only solo press conference of his presidency. "It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess."

Abroad, too, Trump has slammed Obama.

Standing next to Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump blamed Obama for Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, saying that he did nothing to counter their attempt to help Trump and damage Clinton.

"Barack Obama, when he was president, found out about this, in terms of whether it was Russia, found out about it in August," Trump said. "Now the election was in November. That's a lot of time. He did nothing about it."

Trump's disdain for Obama, according to those close to him, was cemented when the then-President took aim at the reality TV star during the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, mocking Trump as a conspiracy theorist whose most consequential decisions are whether to fire people on his TV show.

Omarosa Manigault, a former contestant on NBC's "The Apprentice," Trump's reality show, told PBS in 2016 that she thought at that time that Obama was "starting something that I don't know if he'll be able to finish" by publicly slamming Trump during that event.

Manigault, now a White House aide, said "every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump" when he wins.

"It's everyone who's ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him," she said. "It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe."

See the rest here:
200 days in: Obama still on Trump's mind - CNN

Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said Thursday that the U.S. has consistently failed to curtail North Korea's nuclear ambitions, even during the Obama era.

"You can call it a failure," Rice told CNN. "I accept that characterization of the efforts of the United States over the last two decades."

Rice, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for eight years before transitioning to the role of national security adviser, said the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has now vexed four successive American administrations, both Democrat and Republican. She said each administration has tried a range of measures, from sanctions and pressure, cooperation with China, and "other methods that we shouldn't speak about on television," to no avail.

"The fact of the matter is, that despite all of those efforts, the North Korean regime has been able to succeed in progressing with its program, both nuclear and missile," Rice said. "That's a very unfortunate outcome. But we are where we are. And we now need to decide how to proceed."

Rice advocated in a Thursday morning opinion piece in the New York Times that President Trump should tamp down his rhetoric and learn to live with a nuclear North Korea.

"History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War," she wrote. "It will require being pragmatic."

Trump has retweeted views on Twitter that argue former President Barack Obama is to blame for the current escalated tensions with Kim Jong-Un and the perception that the U.S. is vulnerable to a nuclear attack.

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Susan Rice concedes Obama-era strategy to curtail North Korea's nuclear program was a 'failure' - Washington Examiner