Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

August 23, 2025

Sovereignty, ridden by exercise rider Neil Poznansky, is the overwhelming favorite to deliver veteran trainer Bill Mott, right, his first Travers Stakes victory today. Skip Dickstein  

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

If you love a good party, a big crowd, traffic(!) and a race track steeped in history, join tens of thousands of attendees this weekend at Saratoga Racecourse for the 156^th running of the Travers Stakes, the highlight of the summer racing season.

This year’s event — the “DraftKings Travers” — features Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Sovereignty, whose trainer, Bill Mott, raised some hackles in the spring when he declined to run the horse in the Preakness Stakes, thus eliminating any possibility of a Triple Crown quest that might have attracted more attention from casual fans. A victory by Sovereignty, the huge favorite in a field of only five, would be Mott’s first in the Travers.

The Travers, the oldest stakes race in the country for three-year-old thoroughbreds, was first run at Saratoga when Abraham Lincoln was in the White House. It’s named for William Travers, a Wall Street lawyer and New York sophisticate whom John Morrissey enlisted in 1863 to help found Saratoga Race Course. Travers served as its first president.

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC: The historic Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, N.Y., is in the midst of a $17.5 million renovation, its first major interior work in two decades. Workers are installing a new HVAC system that will allow the 150-year-old venue to hold events in the summer, as well as flexible community space beneath the main hall that will include classrooms and a lounge and a soundproof rehearsal, performance and recording space. Work in the main hall and audience areas will be finished by December. The Music Hall is renowned for its remarkable acoustics attributed to its narrow, "shoebox" shape, tall ceiling, original wooden seats and thick plaster walls.

THE BOSS: Nearly 50 years after his death, Dan O’Connell continues to fascinate Albany and political historians. O’Connell was the legendary political boss who built a Democratic machine that has held sway in Albany, N.Y., for more than 100 years, the longest uninterrupted rule of any city in America. He was coy and circumspect, perhaps owing to having been pinched for gambling and having his phone tapped by the state’s Republican governor, Thomas E. Dewey. Though he controlled hundreds of jobs, thousands in contributions, and millions in municipal contracts, he was man of particularly modest tastes, according to a review of itemized receipts and other items found recently in the archives of the Albany Institute of History & Art and reviewed by Paul Grondahl, the esteemed biographer of O’Connell protégé Albany Mayor Erastus Corning.

CASHING THEIR CHIPS: Winnie Greco, a volunteer for New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ foundering reelection campaign who served as a major fundraiser for Adams in the Chinese-American community until coming under FBI scrutiny, handed a reporter a potato chip bag full of cash following a campaign event this week. Her lawyer says the incident is being blown out of proportion: “In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. And that’s all that was done here. Winnie‘s intention was born purely out of kindness.” The would-be “bag woman” is one of nearly a dozen top city officials who have resigned from their positions while under investigation or because they were troubled by the city’s dysfunction, reports The New York Times. On Thursday, a number of indictments portraying “a city for sale” were unsealed against another chief advisor to the Mayor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who is accused of using her authority to enrich herself, family members and friends. Charged alongside Ms. Lewis-Martin were her son Glenn Martin and former State Senator and Adams Administration official Jesse Hamilton.

TESTING BOUNDARIES: Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 to, among other things, prohibit discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, or national origin” in the sale or rental of housing. In the current political climate, a couple of guys in Arkansas are betting they can flout the law without consequence, developing a community called Return to the Land that is strictly for white, heterosexual people. They believe now is the time to press their belief that their community qualifies for an exemption in the Fair Housing Act allowing private associations and religious groups to give preference to their own members. “Return to the Land needs to strike while the iron is hot,” wrote Eric Orwoll, the community’s co-founder and spokesperson. “I would rather the precedent is set and the discussion is had while there’s a relatively favorable cultural and legal climate for it. So if we’re going to fight this battle — and it’s a battle that’s going to be fought at some point — it better be now.” No legal action has been taken, though a spokesman for the Arkansas attorney said the office is “continuing our review of this matter.”

Lake George, a shimmering jewel in the Southern Adirondacks, is one of the cleanest, most swimmable water bodies in the country, thanks to a combination of its natural features, lack of industrial and agricultural runoff, and protective efforts by groups like the Lake George Association. Luke Dow

A SQUIRREL’S TALE: It’s hard to forget the kerfuffle that ensued after the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation last fall seized and euthanized an internet-famous squirrel named Peanut. The DEC certainly hasn’t forgotten. The agency was so shaken by the vitriol it received — described by a Gothamist reporter who reviewed voicemails and correspondence as “a tidal wave of death threats and bomb scares” — that it didn’t conduct routine inspections of deer and bear kills and has lagged in enforcement of the state’s environmental laws. “ We were essentially handcuffed to do our jobs after that,” Matthew Krug, vice president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State and an active DEC officer, told Gothamist. Through early August, the DEC executed 20 search warrants in 2025, according to the agency. In 2024, DEC officers and investigators executed at least 85 search warrants. 

COOPER’S UPSTATE: It’s been 200 years since James Fenimore Cooper traveled through the Glens Falls and Lake George, N.Y., areas and literally stumbled upon a Hudson River cave that inspired his most famous work, “The Last of the Mohicans.” It’s a sweeping historical romance nominally about Lake George, Glens Falls and Fort Edward at the time of the French and Indian War and more broadly about the impact of European colonization on native Americans. The work was well-received by academics but scorned by some contemporaries. Mark Twain judged Cooper guilty of multiple literary offenses. But it has stood the test of time.  "It is impossible to overstate the extraordinary influence that James Fenimore Cooper has exerted on modern letters,” says The Wall Street Journal’s Donna Sanders. "He stands alongside Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe as forefather of a literary tradition that illustrates the unique complexities, joys and challenges of American life.”  Cooper himself was fascinating. Raised in the frontier town his father owned, Cooperstown, N.Y., he enrolled in Yale at 13 but was expelled in his third year. He found work as a sailor on a merchant marine vessel and rose to the rank of midshipman in the fledgling United States Navy, a promotion conferred by Thomas Jefferson. In the year that “Mohicans” was published, Cooper decamped to Europe, he said, to earn more money, provide an education for his children, improve his health, and observe European manners and politics firsthand. Unhappy there, he returned to the United States, and in 1834, to his Cooperstown family home, where he continued to write. He died in 1851.

REALLY? If you thought the latest manufactured culture war battle over the Cracker Barrel logo seemed like insignificant outrage in search of an offense, check your eye-rolling. The value of Cracker Barrel’s stock dropped $94 million in a single day.

FOOD FLIGHT: A Justice Department employee, since fired, is facing a felony charge for throwing a sandwich at a federal officer on a street in Washington, D.C., prompting mockery of the U.S. Attorney who boasted after filing the charges. Meanwhile, Chipotle is experimenting with drones delivering takeout orders in Texas.

BORROWED TIME: A book checked out in July 1943 was returned to the San Antonio Public Library by someone who found it in a box of books he inherited from his late father. The book, a guide for parents to help children navigate personal relationships, will be displayed at the main library and then sold. At 3 cents a day, the late fee would be nearly $900.

DRINKING IS DECLINING… New Gallup polling may have alcohol producers reaching for the bottle. Just 54% of Americans say they drink alcohol, the lowest number in 90 years of Gallup polling. Declines were seen across all demographics, with two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds saying drinking even in moderation is bad for your health.

…EATING, TOO: A survey conducted by a company that provides payment systems to the hospitality industry found that 44% of U.S. diners say they’ve ordered children’s meals for themselves at restaurants, citing smaller portions as a key factor but also noting lower costs and simpler choices.

JUST NUKE IT: The Food and Drug Administration said people should avoid eating certain frozen shrimp sold at Walmart due to concerns that it may have been contaminated with radioactive material. The shrimp was sold in Walmart stores in 13 states, mainly in the south.

STEPPING UP: A group of foundations is committing $36.5 million to public media after Congress rescinded federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “Stations serving rural, small to mid-market and Native communities as well as documentary ecosystems are disproportionately impacted,” said ​​the president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  

TENNIS, ANYONE? As Saratoga preps for the Travers, some of the world’s best tennis players have gathered 200 miles south for one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world.  The U.S. Open begins this weekend. Keep an eye on Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Madison Keys.

JAMES DOBSON was a family psychologist when he founded Focus on the Family, a global Christian ministry that produced radio programs, television shows, and other published material for churches and homeschoolers and, according to its website, provides “help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.” His prominence as an author and radio host positioned Dobson for influence in top political circles, and he served on special advisory groups for presidential administrations including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump. As Dobson promoted traditional family values across civic life through Focus on the Family's programming, he helped launch Christian lobbying arms to defend the same ideals in Washington, including the powerful Family Research Council, and campaigned for bringing religious conservatives into the political mainstream. Dobson’s radio program at its peak was broadcast across 4,000 radio stations in North America. He was 89.

DANNY DONOHUE led one of New York’s largest and most influential labor unions longer than anyone else, serving more than 25 years atop the 250,000-member Civil Service Employees Association. A self-described “truck driver from Brooklyn,” he was beloved by the rank and file for his blunt and aggressive advocacy. He took his first statewide post with CSEA in 1988, and in 1994 won the first of seven terms as president of the union. Donohue also served as Vice President of the New York State AFL-CIO and as an AFSCME International Vice President. “His influence extended far beyond contract tables and legislative halls — he helped shape a generation of labor activists and inspired thousands to step up and lead,” CSEA wrote in a remembrance. “He was bold, unafraid to speak his mind and never hesitant to take on a fight when CSEA members were being treated unfairly.” He was 81.

“It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m really just a super-duper normal guy. They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”
— Mark Warren, a retired fire inspector from Anchorage, who was gifted a Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar by the Russian government a week after his interview with a Russian television crew went viral in Russia.

LIVING LARGE: Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula, the recipient of $850 million in taxpayer subsidies to finance construction of a $2.1 billion stadium for his team, annoyed fans when he was spotted aboard his 200-foot, $100 million superyacht in Newport, R.I.

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Principal Authors: Bill Callen and Mark Behan.

Contributors: Ryan Moore, Jim Murphy, Kristy Miller, John Brodt, Tara Hutchins, Luke Dow and Skip Dickstein.

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. 

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