Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

May 10, 2025

Glens Falls, at the foothills of the Adirondacks, is a city on the rise once again with a new downtown market and events center and commercial and residential development. (Dannica Campbell)

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

To all the mothers who keep the world on its axis, thank you and Happy Mother’s Day.

Well, the buzz over Sovereignty’s compelling victory at the wire in the Kentucky Derby lasted all of about two days, before trainer Bill Mott made the call to skip the Preakness Stakes and forego the chance to pursue the sport’s 14^th Triple Crown.

It’s a setback for the sport and its fans, and certainly we hope the horse is ready to run in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga next month, as Mott indicated was the goal. The possibility of a Triple Crown carries its own air of magic and drives interest in horse racing much as a handful of great Olympians can entice viewers to make biennial journeys through sports that are otherwise invisible to them.  

The historic thoroughbred track at Saratoga, which is accustomed to accommodating tens of thousands, will stand in again to host the Belmont Stakes while the race’s own historic home, Belmont Park, is rebuilt.

The 2025 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival takes place June 4-8, to be followed a month later by the first July 4^th Racing Festival at Saratoga (July 3-6) and the traditional summer meeting, July 10-September 1. Saratoga Springs will once again host its wildly popular Belmont on Broadway event on June 4^th.

ONE OF US: The world now knows Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope by birth and a truly global figure. He was educated at Villanova University, the Chicago Theological Union and in Rome, and served for years in Peru and most recently at the Vatican. But as a Chicagoan by birth, the big question, after what direction he might choose for the church and 1.5 billion Catholics, is which baseball team he supports.  Many speculated that his devotion to those who suffer might suggest a natural affinity for the Cubs. But there was one more surprise in this week of surprises:  “Hey Chicago, he’s a Sox fan,” announced the scoreboard at Rate Field.

PRIDE OF PLACE: For 30 years, Glens Falls was known far and wide as “Hometown, U.S.A,” the nickname a national magazine bestowed in 1944. In the 1970s, then-Glens Falls Mayor Ed Bartholomew decided it was time for a fresh look, and Glens Falls became “A City on the Rise,” a nod both to the Adirondack Balloon Festival and a broad economic and cultural expansion. Glens Falls was, after all, the new home of professional sports and entertainment in the Capital Region, with the Glens Falls Civic Center, the Adirondack Red Wings and the Glens Falls Tigers. Now, Glens Falls is preparing for another big moment — the opening of a new Market and Events Center on South Street. The new facility — to be named in honor of the late Mayor Bartholomew — is one of the first major Downtown Revitalization projects to come to fruition in New York State. “It really is incredible to see the very creative way the Downtown Revitalization Initiative has really been implemented in Glens Falls,” New York Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said. Glens Falls is planning to mark the moment on May 16 with a ribbon cutting and reception followed by a South Street Block Party.

Jenna Cuilla this week became executive director of the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation.

LEADERSHIP CHANGE: For the first time in more than two decades, the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation has a new executive director. Jenna Cuilla took over this week for Leslie Cheu, a highly successful leader in the Capital Region nonprofit world who retired after more than 23 years. Cuilla had worked the past 15 years for the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region. The Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation provides grants to nonprofits working in community development, youth development and arts and culture. It has distributed more than $18 million to nonprofits in those program areas since 1999 in Rensselaer and Albany counties. “We are thrilled to welcome Jenna and look forward to supporting her in her stewardship of the foundation,” said Sheila Mendleson, president of the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation's board of directors. “She has a deep understanding of the Capital Region and its nonprofit and philanthropic community, and we were delighted when she accepted the opportunity to join us.”

LEAVING LEGEND: Warren Buffett, the iconic billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, announced he would be retiring by the end of the year and handing the reins to a long-designated successor, though Buffett will stay on as chairman. Buffett, who’s 94, built Berkshire Hathaway from a struggling textile mill to one of the largest diversified companies in the world. He made the announcement to thunderous applause at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Neb., where he also warned that the ongoing trade war is bad for business and that “trade should not be a weapon.” His friend, billionaire Bill Gates, also made news this week, announcing the Gates Foundation would be terminated in 2045, several decades earlier than expected. This means the Foundation is committed to 20 more years of generous aid, more than $200 billion in total, targeting health and human development.

ON ALERT: Officials in Iceland are keeping a wary eye on volcanic activity in the southwest of the country that may be just the beginning of centuries of new subterranean movement. The country, famously volcanic, has been experimenting with different tools to protect communities and other built environments that may be at risk. Along the U.S. West Coast, new research suggests, coastal towns in Northern California, Oregon and Washington are vulnerable to inundation if, as is possible, an earthquake causes massive shoreline loss. And in East Africa, a new ocean is in the process of emerging. Movement of the Earth’s plates have been shaping and reshaping landscapes through all of time, though, it must be said, few events are as impressive as the one that resulted in the Mediterranean Sea.

The “Art for All” exhibit at The Hyde in Glens Falls, N.Y., brings out the creative talents of people with neurological and other challenges.

ART FOR ALL: The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y., is opening an exhibit of artwork by local people with neurological challenges. The Hyde offers classes to help people with brain injuries, developmental and learning disabilities, medical, socio-economic and other challenges to promote creative self-expression and build skills and personal connections under the guidance of Hyde educators. In this, the second year of the program, people ages 16 to 50-plus created original art that is now on display in the “Art for All” showcase through May 18. The program is a collaboration among The Hyde, AIM Services, and Community, Work & Independence, Inc.

SHOTS FIRED: The inexplicable has happened again to a driver in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an incident reminiscent of a fatal shooting two years ago in a rural Upstate New York driveway, a DoorDash driver was shot and wounded recently, allegedly by the elected highway superintendent of a small town north of New York City. The driver was having trouble locating the correct address for his food delivery. The highway superintendent, John Reilly, allegedly shot the driver after ordering him to get off his property. Reilly is facing three felony charges.

OFF THE RAILS: A 47-year-old American, evidently needing a closer look at the Colosseum in Rome, instead ended up with an intimate view of the spikes he impaled himself on when he tried to climb a security fence. A Chinese student in Japan, undeterred by having succumbed to altitude sickness and needing rescue on his first venture to Mount Fuji, went back hoping to find his phone and other items he left the first time. He left the second time as he had the first. And a mother from the Midwest went viral for using a racial slur toward a 5-year-old, followed by a profanity-laced tirade in front of her own child. The video helped her raise half a million dollars in donations she solicited to help her and her family relocate. A local NAACP chapter also used the incident to raise funds, securing more than $320,000 as of last weekend.

HISTORICAL CITATION: NASA models tracing the position of the Earth, moon and sun through history show a solar eclipse that would have been visible in Jerusalem occurred on Friday, April 3, 33 AD, a day that many have come to refer to as the day Jesus was crucified.

LIVING TO TELL: Five people on a small plane that crashed in a central Bolivian swamp survived by sitting on top of the plane for 36 hours as alligators watched them. Leaking fuel from the wreckage may have kept the alligators back.

FIELD OF DREAMS: A newly opened $130 million soccer stadium, the anchor of a mixed-use development in Pawtucket, R.I., offered a glimpse at the future that may await optimistic soccer fans in Albany, N.Y.

FAREWELL, RITE AID: Rite Aid said it would close its remaining stores in New York as its goes through a second bankruptcy in as many years. The company is working with customers to make sure prescriptions are transferred.

NEVER SAY FOREVER: An estimated one-third of American adults have at least one tattoo, and it seems that a lot of those folks recently have been regretting their choices. Tattoo removal — an arduous, painful process — is gaining in popularity, helped by advancements in laser technology and a subset of celebrities who are flaunting their choices to go clean. 

LATERAL MOVE: John Alite, a former Gambino crime family enforcer-turned-mob turncoat, was sworn in this week as a councilman representing the sleepy New Jersey borough of Englishtown.

FOUND AND LOST: A woman who left her young family in Wisconsin 62 years ago, evidently to escape an abusive marriage, was found living in another state by a detective developing new leads in the case. “I could sense that she obviously had her reasons for leaving,” he told The Associated Press.

ANOTHER ONE DOWN: For the second time in just over a week, a multi-million-dollar fighter jet was lost overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea. The two aviators aboard the F/A-18F Super Hornet ejected before the plane, which failed to engage the catch wire upon landing, tumbled into the sea.

DAVID SOUTER traced his family lineage to the Mayflower and shared ancestors with several U.S. presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt and the Bush family. Unlike most of his high school classmates, he went to college, at Harvard, intending to study theology but soon deciding to pursue law, and went on to Oxford. He was virtually unknown when President George H.W. Bush chose him to replace the retiring liberal lion of the court, William Brennan. Souter had been confirmed to a federal judgeship only two months earlier and had barely moved into his chambers in Boston. By the end of his second year on the Supreme Court, Justice Souter had surprised the president who appointed him and left conservative Republicans bitterly disappointed with his migration from right to left. He retired at the unusually young age of 69, and returned to New Hampshire where he liked to read, sail, hike the White Mountains and visit with friends. He was 85.

“Instead of saying to Laura, hey, excuse me, please step back, that’s when he put his hand on her. And, you know, you just don’t do that. That’s a big no, no.”
— Chris Quinn, editor of The Plain Dealer, after a police officer physically prevented a reporter from interviewing a public official at a state commission meeting in Ohio.

HIDDEN BALL TRICK: A Yankees fan and his young daughter, sitting on his shoulders, took their turn as viral sensations this week when she put her hands over his eyes as he was tracking a foul ball, making a routine catch somewhat less so.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

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

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