Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

April 19, 2025

A majestic bald eagle keeps watch along the Hudson River just south of Fort Edward, N.Y. Gordon Ellmers

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

As the seasons of Easter and Passover intersect in these troubling times, our wish for you is to persevere. Embrace the coming season of hope and renewal. Just as the days grow longer, may good will around us grow stronger, bolstered by the many who work each day to make the world better, safer, more equitable, more humane, and more caring. And may joy find a lasting home in your heart. Chag Pesach Sameach and Happy Easter.

WISDOM OF THE AGED: It’s been a quarter-century since Roger Rosenblatt, then a young pup of 60, wrote the national bestseller “Rules for Aging,” a humorous, practical guide for navigating one’s golden years. He’s just finished a sequel and previewed it in an essay for The New York Times. Rule No. 1: “Nobody is thinking about you. Nobody ever will. ... Others are thinking about themselves. Just like you.” He’s also a fan of making younger friends (“They’re bright, enthusiastic, informative and brimming with life, and they do not know when you’re telling them lies”), getting a dog (“No creature on Earth will ever find you more fascinating than your dog does”) and recognizing, “everyone’s in pain. If you need an excuse for being kind, start with that.”

PLAY TIME: Speaking of aging with grace, the Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw was credited with the astute observation, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” It’s evident that women from around the world who gathered in South Africa for the Grannies International Football Tournament (GIFT) took the advice to heart. For four days in early April, NPR reports, teams from seven countries converged to compete, many of the athletes having been denied the opportunity as younger women, either because of discriminatory practices or because they were otherwise occupied. “We play, we move, we travel,” one South African player said. “It's going to take us a long time to get old.”

BUILDER OF FAITH: When he was hit by a tram in Barcelona on June 7, 1926, Antoni Gaudí was not recognized. Perhaps because he had led a life of austerity, he was taken to a hospital for the poor. Three days later, he died, and it became clear that he was the architect who spent more than four decades working on the Sagrada Familia basilica. In 2010, Pope Benedict said: “Gaudí, by opening his spirit to God, was capable of creating in this city a space of beauty, faith and hope, which leads man to an encounter with Him who is truth and beauty itself.” Now, Pope Francis has declared him “venerable,” a step toward sainthood. The cathedral has been under construction since 1883 and the work continues.

LINCOLN’S LEGACY: On the 160^th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, former Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz reflected on the leadership of “the greatest American president,” who understood the path to achieving great things was seldom a straight line and who “combined moral vision with strategic genius, a rare mix for any political leader.” “We live in a time when cynicism often passes for wisdom and performative outrage drowns out genuine strength,” Wolfowitz writes in The Wall Street Journal. “Lincoln reminds us that greatness isn’t found in posturing but in perseverance. Not in sound bites, but in sacrifice.”

MAPPING A DISASTER: The Titanic remains an object of fascination more than 100 years after its demise in the North Atlantic, when 1,500 people lost their lives. The latest bit of news, courtesy of a full-sized digital scan of the wreckage and an exact 3D replica, confirms survivor accounts that engineers continued feeding coal to the ship’s boilers even as it was plunging beneath the waves, their heroism allowing the lights to stay on as long as possible so people could be guided to safety. The scan shows close-up details, the BBC reports, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg that tore holes in the ship’s hull, consistent with reports of survivors that ice came into some people's cabins during the collision. It will take experts years to fully evaluate and draw conclusions from the scan.

High school artist Brandy Boyce of South Glens Falls, N.Y., was awarded Best in Show in last year’s Hyde Collection High School Juried Art Show for “Cemented Doves, 2024,” colored pencil on paper. 

HOMEGROWN TALENT: The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y., is renowned for its collection of masterworks by Rembrandt, Picasso, El Greco and others. But right now, the museum is celebrating the next generation of artists — high school students from a wide swath of Upstate New York. For 34 years, The Hyde has hosted the High School Juried Art Show, one of the longest-running exhibitions of its kind in the country. This year, it received more than 600 submissions from 292 students representing 18 regional schools. One hundred thirty works are on display, 105 at the Hyde and 25 at Glens Falls Hospital, allowing the impact of the students’ work to reach farther into the community.

MULTI-TALENTED: Even casual baseball fans remember the exuberant excellence of Ken Griffey Jr., who’s seventh on the all-time home run list and may be at the top were it not for injuries that cost him the equivalent of more than three full seasons. Renowned for his good eye at the plate — he walked 1,534 times in his career — Griffey is proving to have just as good an eye with a camera, as indicated by some of the memorable shots he captured last week as a credentialed photographer for the Masters Tournament, including the emotional aftermath of Rory McIlroy’s victory on the 73^rd hole.

HOME WORK: Spooked by uncertainty and in some cases simply embracing the perceived security, ambitious newcomers to the job market are increasingly showing interest in joining family businesses, decisions that are coming at a time when the older generations who own the vast majority of America’s businesses are fretting about succession planning. Some young people are hesitant to join the family business due to concerns about nepotism or a desire to make it on their own, The Wall Street Journal reports, but others see it as a way to build wealth and continue a family legacy. There are pitfalls, of course, particularly when children are given responsibilities they aren’t prepared for. “I want them not to struggle trying to achieve an American Dream that I believe is harder to get than ever,” the co-owner of a family auto-parts business told The Journal. “I no longer need to work. I could retire. I could sell. But my brother and I want to continue to grow the company so our children can take it over and do better than we did.”

SIGNS OF LIFE: A molecule detected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on a planet 124 light-years away is produced on Earth by decaying phytoplankton and other microbes, suggesting a possible “biosignature,” or sign of life, on the planet, known as K2-18b. 

I DISSED A GIRL: Katie Perry is an Australian fashion designer with a namesake label who for years has protested that Katy Perry, the international pop superstar who just went to space, infringed on her trademark. Australia’s highest court is about to take up the case. “This is a tale of two women, two teenage dreams and one name,” one judge said. 

MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Kevin McMahon and Ross McMahon were born 45 minutes apart on May 26, 1960, at Jamaica Hospital in Queens. The infants were given consecutive birth certificate numbers and were both tagged “Baby McMahon.” Then they were sent home – with the wrong parents. An over-the-counter DNA test exposed the error 64 years later.

COMPETITIVE FAMILY: Sam Bregman, the district attorney for the county that includes Albuquerque, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of New Mexico, saying in his launch video that the state “is under attack.” His son, Alex, is the star third baseman for the Boston Red Sox.

HELPING HANDS: Residents of all ages in a small Michigan community formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books — one by one — to a new storefront about a block away. The “book brigade” of around 300 people passed each title from Serendipity Books’ former location directly to the correct shelves in the new building.

HILLS TO CLIMB: Corenne Black, a ranger for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in the Adirondacks, recently passed her 1,000^th peak summited and has no intentions of slowing down. “There’s always something new,” she told the Adirondack Explorer.

ROCK HEADS: Two men who were filmed destroying 140 million-year-old sandstone formations last year at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada are facing up to a year in prison and $100,000 fines after a federal jury found them guilty this week of injury and depredation of government property.

JOSEPH BOSKIN was a professor at Boston University and a humor scholar who was not an expert on April Fool’s Day but decided, what the heck. In March 1983, he was asked for an interview on the origins of April Fool’s Day and told an Associated Press reporter that it all began when Constantine, the Roman emperor, had been persuaded by a group of court jesters that they could run the empire better than he. Constantine was amused and appointed a jester named Kugel king for a day. “King Kugel” declared that April 1 would forever be an annual holiday dedicated to absurdity, and it stuck. “I figured he would catch on,” Professor Boskin said of the reporter, Fred Bayles. “Instead, he asked how to spell Kugel.” On April Fools’ Day, Bayles’ article appeared in newspapers around the world. Boskin was 95.

WINK MARTINDALE began what would become a long and iconic show business career as a 17-year-old disc jockey in his hometown of Jackson, Tenn. A few years later, while working at a station in Memphis, he phoned Elvis Presley’s mother to ask that he visit the station the next time he was in town, leading to what would become the singer’s first interview. He continued a series of radio jobs after moving to Los Angeles and became a national figure as the host of TV game shows including Tic-Tac-Dough, High Rollers and Trivial Pursuit, among others. During an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Martindale revealed why he enjoyed hosting, saying, “I like people, and you get to meet so many different people in the world of game shows. I enjoy finding out what makes people tick. As you play a game, you see why one person is more successful than another. But I just love working with people, and I love talking. I could sit here and talk all day.” He was 91.

ELAINE PASCAL went on a blind date in the early 1960s with Steve Wynn. After they married, both joined his father’s East Coast bingo parlor business. Soon Steve spotted opportunity in Las Vegas. He bought a small stake in a now-defunct hotel and casino. For the next 50 years, the Wynns opened one Las Vegas casino after another, building resorts that combined gambling with entertainment, shopping and spectacle: The Mirage and its volcano, Treasure Island’s pirate battle, the Bellagio with its fountains. Elaine Wynn’s passion was turning Las Vegas into a city worth living in — not just making money in. She took over Wynn Resorts after her ex-husband left amid a storm of sexual misconduct and rape allegations in 2018 and spent her final years burnishing her reputation as both a world-class collector and champion of public art. She was 82.

MARSHALL RAUCH, grandson of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, founded a small company that used winding technology to crochet thread and kite string. One day in 1963, a caller inquired whether Rauch’s company could wrap shiny rayon thread around papier-mâché balls. A factory engineer figured out a way to do it. Rauch Industries eventually billed itself as the world’s largest maker of Christmas-tree ornaments, with production of more than a million shiny balls a day. People often asked Rauch, who also served 24 years in the North Carolina Senate, whether it was odd that a Jewish man had such a big role in Christmas decorations. He had a standard reply: “I felt right at home because a Jewish fellow started it all.” He was 102.

“My mom, she’s a single mother. She works really hard to take care of me and my sister, and so I think this pulls a lot of stress off her shoulders. I think it eases the burden for me to go into school (where) I’m not putting so much weight on my mother.”
—  Calvin Mar, an incoming freshman at the University at Albany, after learning he was the recipient of a $60,000 Inspire Scholarship from the Garden of Dreams Foundation, presented to him by New York Knicks superstar Karl-Anthony Towns.

WHAT A DOPE: A teacher in Buffalo, N.Y., was placed on leave after accidentally giving THC gummies to two students during a swim class. According to a police report, the teacher admitted giving the gummies to the students but said he did not know they were infused with THC, the chemical that gets cannabis users high.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen

Contributors: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Kristy Miller, Jim Murphy, Amanda Metzger, John Behan and Gordon Ellmers.

FACING OUT is what we do. We help companies, organizations and individuals work effectively with their most important external audiences – their customers, their shareholders, their communities, the government and the news media.  www.behancommunications.com

Facing Out features news and other nuggets that caught our eye, and that we thought might be of value to you, our friends and business associates. Some items are good news about our clients and friends, others are stories that we hope will leave you a bit more informed or entertained than you were five minutes ago. As always, we welcome your ideas and feedback. 

Let’s make it a conversation: mark.behan@behancom.com