Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

May 31, 2025

Preparations are well under way at Saratoga Race Course for the 2025 Belmont Stakes Raving Festival. Skip Dickstein

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

For a few weeks each summer, historic Saratoga Race Course thunders to life, featuring some of the world’s best thoroughbred racing and drawing thousands of fans who are there at least as much for the spectacle as for the sport. Thanks to the ongoing renovations at Belmont Park, Saratoga is hosting a second year of bonus competition: a five-day racing festival capped by the 157^th running of the Belmont Stakes next Saturday.

And if that’s not reason enough for excitement, there’s word that the Belmont may return to Saratoga for a third year in 2026.

The 2025 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, featuring 27 stakes races, begins Wednesday. If you’re accustomed to visiting Saratoga during the traditional summer meet and planning to attend any of the Belmont festival, the rules are a bit different. There’s no outside alcohol permitted, for example, and spectators will not be allowed to watch morning workouts at the main track.

The weather forecast for the week is spotty, though it’s looking good for the weekend, which itself would qualify as big news — the Capital Region has not had a completely precipitation-free weekend since before Thanksgiving.

The Belmont Stakes Racing Festival isn’t the only bonus racing at Saratoga this year. The July 4^th Racing Festival, also typically held at Belmont, will feature another four days of racing, July 3-6. The seven-week summer meet starts July 10.

HEALTH SCARE: Cuts to Medicaid as passed by the U.S. House and now before the Senate would devastate health care in rural Upstate New York, a coalition of active and retired healthcare professionals, caregivers, business and community leaders, Medicaid recipients, and other concerned citizens is warning. The Healthcare Coalition for the North Country is working to limit the impacts by making the potential consequences clear in meetings and correspondence with elected officials, among others. Deep cuts to Medicaid could lead to the closures of rural hospitals, nursing homes and clinics that are reliant on Medicaid reimbursements and result in vast healthcare deserts in the region. State officials have said the proposed cuts could lead to 1.5 million New Yorkers losing health insurance in the next 10 years. “If I didn’t have Medicaid I’d be out on the streets,” JoAnn King, a 77-year-old resident of an endangered nursing home in the Adirondacks, told New York Focus. “I worked a long time, never been in trouble, loved my country all my life. To the politicians threatening to cut Medicaid, shame on yourselves!”

POWERFUL PORTRAIT: The late Alice Green was an outspoken force for civil rights and social justice for decades, founding the Center for Law and Justice in 1985 to advocate for prison reform and provide resources for formerly incarcerated individuals, among other causes. Her sudden death last summer at 84 left a crater in the community. Her story came to the attention of Robert Shetterly, a 79-year-old artist from Maine who made Green No. 281 in a two-decade portrait project titled, “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” Her portrait was unveiled this week to audience acclaim at the Alice Moore Black Arts and Cultural Center in Albany, named for Green’s grandmother, and will be displayed with 42 other Shetterly portraits through July 20 at the Albany Institute of History & Art.   

RAISING HISTORY: The State Museum in Albany will soon play host to an extraordinary discovery. In 2010, archaeologists excavating the World Trade Center site in New York found the remains of an 18th-century wooden gunboat buried deep beneath Manhattan’s historic landfill. Likely built near Philadelphia in the early 1770s, this Revolutionary War-era vessel once patrolled shallow waterways before being abandoned along the Hudson River. Preserved for over 200 years in oxygen-poor soil, the ship measured about 50 feet long and featured a raised deck. A team of students and researchers from Texas A&M University’s Center for Maritime Archeology and Conservation is cleaning and reassembling the pieces so the gunboat can serve as the centerpiece of an exhibit on America’s 250th anniversary.

When it comes to springtime relaxation, few activities beat a peaceful paddle on calm waters. Nancie Battaglia

WORKING HARD OR HARDLY WORKING? A member of the New York State Assembly is sponsoring legislation aimed at implementing a four-day workweek for state employees, with a broader aim of making four-day workweeks the standard for all employees. “My experience as a nurse has shown me how overworked many members of our community are,” Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest of Brooklyn told television station WKBW. “The five-day workweek is a relic, and it’s time to evolve to better match the needs of our bodies, families, and communities.”

HEAVY WORKLOAD: U.S. Army Capt. Travis Chewning-Kulick, a native of Central New York who commands a bomb squad, set a world record for fastest mile run while wearing a 50-pound bomb suit, covering the distance in 7 minutes, 4 seconds. “Running in the bomb suit is not a pleasurable experience,” Chewning-Kulick told syracuse.com. “Your range of motion is severely restricted and the jostling of the armor plates and the helmet on top of your head really throws off any sort of rhythm you can get into.” Let’s hope the measurement for his mile was more accurate than the measurement of the Atlanta Marathon, which was 554 feet short. The error cost 80 finishers a chance to apply for the 2026 Boston Marathon, which requires entrants to post a qualifying time unless they’re running as a fund-raiser.

NEWSTALGIA: A paper route was, for many kids, a first job that reinforced the importance of punctuality and good customer service, even it also meant warding off the occasional dog and summoning all the fortitude an 11-year-old could muster to bug chintzy subscribers to pay their bills. The rewards were a few hard-earned dollars a week and fingertips that were perpetually stained and smelled of newsprint. It’s been a long time since kids delivered newspapers in meaningful numbers — no newspaper in New York State relies on youth carriers — and the state is foreclosing the possibility of a comeback, prohibiting kids under 14 from doing the work.

A DEAL’S A DEAL: Glenn and Azalia King were perfectly content running their 47-acre beef cattle farm in Central New York and living in the home where they raised their six children. The county had its eye on their land for a future industrial park, and after some initial resistance and haggling, the Kings made a deal: we’ll sell our property as long as we never have to move or pay rent or property taxes. The contract was signed and the money paid. Twenty years later, Azalia King is a 91-year-old widow who’s being told it’s time to move so Micron Technology can get started on its $100 billion chipmaking complex. Construction cannot start while she’s living there, the company said in a report to Onondaga County, which has the authority to seize the property through eminent domain. The family is negotiating, though one of her sons told Syracuse.com, “I don’t think at this point in her life Mom deserves to be displaced. Mom deserves to stay. They signed an agreement for life use.”

DUTY CALLS: Olivia Jaquith, a morning news co-anchor on TV station WRGB in New York’s Capital Region, became a national sensation when she stayed on the air after going into labor, her water having broken. Her baby, Quincy, arrived less than 24 hours later.

ARTS SEASON: The Lake George Music Festival, one of the nation’s foremost classical music artist retreats is gearing up for its 15^th season, with more than 65 artists scheduled to perform at the Carriage House at Fort William Henry beginning June 8. Schenectady, N.Y., wants to offer a summer concert series, as well, if officials there can get their act together. Aspiring musicians, meanwhile, are getting ready to practice their craft at venerable music camps in the southern Adirondacks.

SILENT, FOR NOW: Rock legend Billy Joel canceled his upcoming concert schedule after being diagnosed with a brain condition that affects hearing, vision and balance, but friends tell People the 76-year-old isn’t ready to retire. “He is happiest while performing,” a music industry source said. “Music is, has been and will always be his life. He’s not ready to retire.”

LET THERE BE LIGHT: Sunlight may help heal autoimmune diseases, which is potentially good news for the people of one Alaskan community where the sun will next set on August 2. UV phototherapy may be an effective treatment for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes, illnesses that are estimated to affect more than 350 million people worldwide. Treatments have been elusive.

ATTENTION GETTER: Endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh, who two years ago swam the length of the Hudson River to spotlight the river’s ecological recovery, became the first to circumnavigate Martha’s Vineyard, completing the 62-mile journey over multiple days as he battled nasty weather and 47-degree water temperatures. He did it to raise awareness about the plight of sharks.

RUSSIANS, STAY HOME: The International Olympic Committee said this week that Russian teams, including its powerful men’s hockey team, will be ineligible to compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, though individuals may be able to participate as “neutral athletes.” Similar sanctions were in place for the 2024 Summer Olympics, the first since Russia invaded Ukraine.

CHARLES RANGEL represented Harlem in Congress for nearly half a century, becoming the first Black member to chair the Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee in the House. He challenged and defeated another legendary Harlem politician, Adam Clayton Powell, in 1970. A founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rangel was among the most liberal members during his time in office, delivering his remarks in a memorably gravelly voice while working to bring relief to economically depressed areas through tax credits and other incentives. A veteran of the Korean War, he served in Congress until his retirement in 2017, having survived findings of serious ethics violations and censure by his colleagues that cost him his Ways and Means chairmanship. He was 94.

PHIL ROBERTSON turned a duck calling business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and that was before A&E came along and turned him into a national sensation with Duck Dynasty. The show, which focused on his family, made Robertson an icon, especially among conservatives and Christians who appreciated his outspoken and unapologetic views. A lifelong resident of north Louisiana, he stayed close to home to play quarterback at Louisiana Tech, starting ahead of some guy named Terry Bradshaw for two seasons before foregoing his final season to, naturally, spend more time hunting and fishing. Robertson’s family announced in December that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79.

RICK DERRINGER had a remarkable six-decade career in music that included teen stardom as the lead singer of the 1960s chart-topping “Hang on Sloopy,” now the official rock song of Ohio, his home state, and a favorite at Ohio State football games for decades. He followed that up with a smash solo hit in “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo” and was a high-profile presence on New York’s rock scene in the 1970s and ’80s while also working extensively as a session musician, playing on several successful albums and also producing “Weird” Al Yankovic’s first album. In his later years he worked extensively with singer Cyndi Lauper and wrote and produced many popular theme songs for wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan’s “Real American,” a favorite of politicians left and right. He was 77.

HARRISON RUFFIN TYLER was a chemical engineer who co-founded a successful water treatment company that generated $200 million the year before it was acquired by Danaher Corporation. As great as that is, his public persona was driven largely by the fact he was the grandson of America’s 10^th president, John Tyler, who took office in 1841. John Tyler was 63 when he fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler, who was 75 when he fathered Harrison Ruffin Tyler, whose family lineage also included Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia state senator and early advocate for secession before the Civil War. Tyler devoted his later years to historic preservation, including the Tyler homestead in Virginia. He was 96.

“Ask questions. Be curious. Life is more interesting that way.”
— Venture capitalist, political strategist, philanthropist and writer Bradley Tusk, offering a “new, non-religious Ten Commandments for kids” in the wake of a movement in some states to post the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

MUSHROOM CLOUDED: Two hikers have some explaining to do after calling 911 to report that a third member of their party had died while climbing Cascade Mountain in the Adirondacks, when in fact he was fine and they were under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The two were escorted to a waiting ambulance and a New York State Police unit.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Contributors: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Kristy Miller, Jim Murphy, Amanda Metzger, Skip Dickstein and Nanie Battaglia.

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