Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

May 17, 2025

The clouds have been slow to disperse lately across Upstate New York, a trend that may persist if long-range forecasts are accurate.

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Ramon van Meer is a small business owner and a data guy who wanted to see if people’s lived values matched what they said. So he came up with a real-world experiment to test whether people would, in fact, be willing to pay more for an American-made product than for an identical product made outside the U.S., as he often hears.

The results weren’t encouraging. And they were exactly what you would expect.

“We wanted to believe customers would back American labor with their dollars. But when faced with a real decision — not a survey or a comment section — they didn't,” he wrote in a blog post that went viral.

His company, Afina, which makes filtered shower heads, found that sourcing and making the product entirely in the U.S. would necessitate raising the sale price by 85%, so that’s what Afina offered customers on its website — a Chinese-made item for $129 or a U.S.-made version for $239. “When somebody has to pay for it, that's the actual real data,” van Meer told Business Insider.

The result: After several days and more than 25,000 visits to the company website, Avila sold 584 shower heads made in China. Number of U.S.-made units sold: 0.

LIFE AFTER DEATH: Major League Baseball this week amended its rules to allow for the reinstatement of individuals from the permanently ineligible list after death, opening the way for such figures as Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, which has barred anyone who has a lifetime ban. Both Rose, the all-time leader in hits, and Jackson, one of the great stars of the early 20^th century, were given lifetime bans related to gambling — Rose for betting on the sport, Jackson for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series. “Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose's removal from the list. (The son of the late Bart Giamatti, the commissioner who died shortly after suspending Rose, vehemently disagreed, telling USA Today, “It’s a serious dark day for baseball. For my dad, it was all about defending the integrity of baseball. Now, without integrity, I believe the game of baseball, as we know it, will cease to exist.”) Rose, who died in September, maintained his innocence for years before admitting he bet on the game while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Rose and Jackson will be considered for induction by the hall of fame’s Classic Era Committee when it next meets in December 2027, and each needs 75% of the committee's votes (12 of 16) to be elected for induction in 2028. 

SIGNING OFF: Liz Bishop grew up in the Albany, N.Y., area, and never left, getting her first gig at the local CBS affiliate while still attending the University at Albany. She covered weekend sports, a rare assignment for a woman at the time but indicative of her willingness to tackle a challenge. She was a pioneer in other ways, as well — part of the first all-woman newscast, broadcasting the first transcontinental live remote to the Capital Region, covering the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. A longtime news anchor at the station that hired her in college, Bishop is the winner of numerous industry awards and was Inducted into the New York State Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame in 2016. She announced this week she is retiring after more than 50 years in local TV journalism, with the station airing a special tribute on May 30.

HELP WANTED: Employers with aging workforces and a dry pipeline for reinforcements are investing in developing ever-younger pools of talent, with recruiters from trades such as plumbing, electrical work and welding dangling signing bonuses and helping drive renewed interest in shop classes in many U.S. high schools. “The idea of growing your own talent has gotten more critical in recent years, when you have fewer and fewer people going into this industry,” a service and body shop director told The Wall Street Journal, adding that beginners at his shop can make around $50,000 a year, rising to six figures within five years. And don’t look now, but accounting is headed for an employment cliff, with an estimated 340,000 having already quit in the past five years and 75% of those still on the job expected to retire in the next decade. Gen Z is starting to pick up the slack, their eyes seemingly on the six-figure job opportunities the profession offers.

The Troy, N.Y., waterfront basks in the glow of a May sunset, the Hudson River flowing past on its journey to Albany and points south. John Bulmer

RAISING GLASSES: Women in the U.S. are drinking a lot more than they used to, fueling concerns about health impacts, including the potential that alcohol use is contributing to the rise in breast cancer rates. A number of factors are likely at play, including that women are more likely to attend college, where drinking is common; that they have more discretionary income; and they are marrying and having children later in life. The industry certainly has noticed, marketing directly to women in ways it never used to. 

BURIED TREASURE: A young boy idling on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario discovered what may be a section of wreckage from the 1856 voyage of the schooner St. Anthony, lost while en route from Chicago to Buffalo with a load of grain. Lucas Atchison’s metal detector picked up a spike on the beach, and as he and his dad dug deeper, they found more spikes attached to wood. "Then Dad told me, 'Lucas this is a shipwreck,'" the boy explained. "When I woke up that morning I did not expect to find a shipwreck!" They alerted the authorities, who took a while to get the permits they needed for a full excavation, which revealed what are believed to be frames from the side of the ship.  

ALL SET: Stephen “Demo” DeMaria has had an uninterrupted half-decade of success in show business. That his name likely doesn’t ring a bell is a reminder that success doesn’t always happen in the spotlight, though in DeMaria’s case, failure might have meant blooper-reel infamy. Literally from the beginning of Saturday Night Live, nearly 1,000 episodes, audiences at home and in the studio have watched the entertainment unfold on sets DeMaria helped build, usually with very little lead time. He even helped build seats for the studio audience. Now the foreman of a 50-member team of builders, the 87-year-old is saying goodbye after tonight’s season finale and season wrap party. “I gotta shake Lorne Michael’s hand,” DeMaria told Gothamist. “He gave me a future for 50 years.”

FOR THE BIRDS: The 600 members of the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society do what they do because they love birds and nature. They certainly aren’t in to be cause célèbres, which became the case in recent days with news that The Hartford, the chapter’s venerable insurance carrier, was declining to renew its insurance policy because of the chapter’s work in environmental advocacy and its affiliation with the national Audubon Society. (Full disclosure: Our Jim Murphy’s wife, Laurie, is a member of the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society). After some blowback, including in its home state, The Hartford reconsidered, but the chapter had moved on. “If that’s their attitude toward us, I would rather insure with someone who is friendlier to our industry,” the chapter’s volunteer president told the Adirondack Explorer.

MAKE AMERICA HIGH AGAIN: Dr. Casey Mears, President Trump’s choice for Surgeon General, suggested in a 2024 book that people should consider taking illegal psychedelic drugs as therapy, and credited taking mushrooms with helping her find a romantic partner.

INCOMPARABLE HARM: In the interests of domestic bliss, we note the observations this week of a leading telehealth psychologist who warns that using comparative language in an argument — why can’t you be more like so-and-so?! — corrodes relationships by suggesting that the recipient isn’t good enough and planting the seeds of insecurity.

THE FUN COMMITTEE: The Adirondack Park Agency, already dealing with questions about its workplace environment, is back in the news after its top attorney was allegedly involved in a physical altercation with another patron at a Saranac Lake bar following an event organized by the agency’s “fun committee.”

ESTATE SALE: The Wall Street Journal takes its readers on a tour of Whitney Park, the Adirondacks estate of the late Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson that covers an area more than twice the size of Manhattan and is coming on the market for $125 million. Proceeds of the sale will benefit the town of Long Lake, N.Y.

JIMMER’S NEXT JAM: Jimmer Fredette, the Glens Falls, N.Y., native who recently announced his retirement from professional basketball, will remain part of the game, accepting an appointment as the first managing director of USA Basketball’s 3x3 national team, for which he played in the 2024 Olympics before being injured.

OH, BROTHER: Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of murdering their parents in 1989 in a case that attracted considerable national attention, are eligible for parole now that a judge has reduced their sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life. The brothers could present their case before a parole board as soon as next month.

VERY REMOTE WORK: Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, in custody in The Hague and awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was elected mayor of Davao, a city of nearly 1.8 million people, in a landslide.

A WELCOMED DECLINE: The federal government reported this week that 30,000 fewer people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2024 than in 2023, a 27% year-over-year reduction that was by far the largest annual percentage drop in the 45 years that such data have been tracked. Fatal overdoses are still the leading cause of death for people 18 to 44.

THANK YOU to the more than 1,300 runners and walkers who were registered last weekend for the 13^th annual Mother-Lovin’ 5K Run/Walk, a Mother’s Day tradition in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., that benefits Kelly’s Angels, an organization that supports Capital Region children affected by life-threatening illness or other adversities.

JOSEPH BORRELLI joined the New York Police Department in 1959, rising to Chief of Detectives before his retirement in 1995. JoBo, as he was known, worked on a lot of high-profile investigations but is best remembered for the “Son of Sam” case, which made national news and terrified New Yorkers in 1976 and ’77. David Berkowitz, who would murder six people and wound seven others in a series of night-time attacks at secluded spots, first revealed himself in a letter addressed to Borrelli, then a captain, that was left alongside the bodies of two victims in April 1977. Berkowitz was arrested four months later. Borrelli spent two years in the Army and played minor league baseball before joining the NYPD, where he also led the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was 93.

“It turns up at Harvard at precisely the moment where Harvard is under attack as a private institution by a state authority that seems to want to tell Harvard what to do.”
— Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at Britain’s University of East Anglia, on news this week that what Harvard thought was a cheap copy of the Magna Carta was, in fact, a rare version from 1300 issued by King Edward I. The Magna Carta established the principle that the monarch was not above the law and protected fundamental rights, such as due process and a fair trial. 

MAKE THAT A DOUBLE: An elected member of a town council in Central New York allegedly rear-ended another vehicle last weekend, and while police were investigating, his girlfriend drove to the scene and approached the officers, leading to her arrest. Both were charged with DWI.

Some of the linked material in Facing Out requires a subscription to read.

Principal Author: Bill Callen.

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

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