Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

September 27, 2025

A view of Blue Mountain Lake from the beautiful grounds of the Adirondack Experience.

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Fall may be the most beautiful time of the year in the Adirondacks. As a bonus, it’s also the season of imaginative outdoor activities of all kinds. This weekend, for example, take in the Great Adirondack Moose Festival in Indian Lake (you may even spot a moose), or head to Whitehall, N.Y., to practice your Sasquatch calling.

It’s Adirondack Marathon weekend in Chestertown and Schroon Lake, Oktoberfest at Whiteface Mountain, OkTupper Fest in Tupper Lake, Oktoberfest in Glens Falls, Apple Fest in Speculator, FallFest in Ticonderoga, Thistle Day in Argyle, the no-octane regatta in Bolton Landing, the Autumn Leaves Car Show in Granville, and the Giant Pumpkinfest in Saratoga Springs, among other events. Or take in Adirondack Americana live music in Brant Lake or a theatrical cemetery tour in Glens Falls.

Meanwhile, the Adirondack Experience, the museum on Blue Mountain Lake, invites all who are new to outdoor activities to attend free workshops, games, demonstrations, and presentations to help them safely enjoy the woods and waters of the Adirondacks. Check out all the activities.

TAKING A SHORTCUT: The Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), the state agency that operates the Lake Placid Olympic & Paralympic Training Center as well as several ski mountains and is tasked with attracting world-class sporting events to its facilities, has promised to remediate and restore land it altered recently to build a course for a World Cup mountain-biking race. Restoration will occur after the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series on October 3-5 at Whiteface Mountain and Mt. Van Hoevenberg. ORDA did the work without obtaining necessary permits, infuriating environmentalists. As they point out, you basically have to get pulled through a knothole to build anything in the Adirondacks. “You would not see this level of trail construction anywhere else in the forest preserve — that sort of terrain manipulation,” the executive director of Protect the Adirondacks told the Adirondack Explorer, adding that if the project were on private property, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation “probably would shut them down. They would probably be issued a cease and desist order.” ORDA Chairman Joe Martens blamed bad communication and said, “We were anticipating the work plan approval. We shouldn’t have gotten ahead of it.”

HE DONE IT: New York’s Capital Region was riveted this week by the investigation and subsequent discovery of two bodies buried in the backyard of an Albany home, but as sensational as all that was, nothing topped the jaw-dropping moment when Lorenz Kraus, the son of the deceased, confessed to local TV anchor Greg Floyd on camera that he had killed his parents and buried them. As surreal as that was, you have to give a ton of credit to the station, CBS-6, for how it handled the situation, from news director Stone Grissom inviting Kraus to the station and personally frisking him, to Floyd’s deft questioning, to the decision to pre-empt the entire 6 p.m. newscast — ads included — to air the full interview. Kraus was arrested in the station’s parking lot. Floyd, a six-time Emmy winner who is retiring later this year, told the Albany Times Union, “While the interview is getting a lot of attention, it’s important to remember that two people — children of World War II, as their son described them — lost their lives here. Today I am thinking of them.”

THWARTING A THREAT: Hats off to the U.S. Secret Service. In an operation that sounds like Tom Clancy could have invented, agents detected and dismantled a massive hidden telecom network that was capable of crippling cell towers, jamming 911 calls and essentially throwing Manhattan into a communications blackout just as nearly 150 world leaders were gathering there for the U.N. General Assembly. The network was uncovered as part of a broader Secret Service investigation into telecommunications threats targeting senior government officials, according to investigators. Stay tuned; feels like there will be more to this story.

SIGHTS UNSEEN: Shocking videos have a way of showing up in social media feeds and eliciting a response, often without the viewer’s consent. An assistant professor at the University of Colorado writes that repeated exposure to disturbing imagery diminishes well-being and offers practical tips for blocking sensitive content on various platforms. “Research shows that repeated exposure to violent or disturbing media can increase stress, heighten anxiety and contribute to feelings of helplessness,” she writes. “These effects are not just short-term. Over time, they erode the emotional resources you rely on to care for yourself and others.”

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES: With the 250^th anniversary of nation’s founding fast approaching, the U.S. Department of Education announced a partnership with more than 40 organizations to create programming around civics that, the department said in a statement, “is dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America's founding principles in schools across the nation.” The department also announced that it would begin a program to award grants “to promote a civic education that teaches American history, values, and geography with an unbiased approach.” Meanwhile, a report from a company that analyzes election data and trends found that Democratic voter enrollment is cratering among white men under 30. While white Gen Z women are enrolling as Democrats in line with historical norms, only 29% of young white men are enrolling as Democrats; that number historically is about 49%. About 66% of young nonwhite men had usually enrolled as Democrats, but the report noted Democratic voter registration now sat at 54%.

The soft light of sunrise greets a new day where British troops surrendered to American forces after the 1777 Battle of Saratoga, a major turning point in the Revolutionary War. John Bulmer

HOMEWARD BOUND: More and more big companies are making it clear they want their office workers back in the office, but five years after COVID sent them scattering to work from home, average office attendance has barely budged, The Wall Street Journal reports. Companies are struggling to enforce mandates, and many managers tasked with making sure their employees are in the office would rather not be there either — nearly half of senior managers said they would take a pay cut to work from home, according to a survey this summer of 1,500 salaried U.S. employees from BambooHR. “There’s a lot more pressing things for companies to be worrying about right now,” said Beth Steinberg, a longtime tech-industry human-resources executive. 

SHE’S GOT PIPES: When she was just 16 years old, Ally Crowley-Duncan told her mother “she was going to make the bagpipes relevant,” Justine Crowley-Duncan told The Wall Street Journal. That was around the time Ally was winning her high school talent show in Latham, N.Y., with a bagpipe rendition of “Crazy Train,” beginning a journey that has taken her, at 29, to the top of her profession. Now an enormously popular online star, “Ally the Piper” headlines festivals across the country with her blend of blend classic rock, heavy metal and Celtic sounds.

DREAM ON: The eight key components of what is commonly referred to as the American dream —  the ability to retire comfortably, afford health care, own a home and a car, raise a family, travel, care for pets and have a wedding — will cost $5 million to achieve over a lifetime, according to a new analysis. At $1.6 million, retirement was the biggest expense, followed by owning a home. Owning a car, believe it or not, costs about $25,000 more over a typical lifetime than raising two kids and putting them through college.

LIFE-SAVING RESEARCH: A Texas mother desperate to figure out why her healthy 6-year-old was suddenly fighting for his life used a Google search and email to connect with a specialist who performed a risky neurological procedure, from which the boy recovered in time to celebrate his 7^th birthday.

HEADACHE: Doctors are reassuring patients that Tylenol and vaccines are safe after President Trump, at a White House news conference, warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol because of the unproven claim it could cause autism in their children.

NO YOGURT FOR YOU! Chobani, the Greek yogurt maker based in upstate New York, is facing calls for a boycott after announcing a partnership with Planet Harvest, a company co-founded by Ivanka Trump with a goal of reducing food waste.

RETRACING HISTORY: The Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief, a 73-foot replica of the vessel that took the initial voyage on the canal in 1825, is recreating the journey, stopping at 28 canal sites as it makes its way from Buffalo to Manhattan, where it is scheduled to arrive October 26 to mark the waterway’s bicentennial.

LOST TREASURE: A 3,000-year-old bracelet that belonged to an ancient pharaoh was stolen from Cairo’s famed Egyptian Museum and then melted down for gold to make into other jewelry. The four people arrested were cursed, preliminarily, by contemporary Egyptians who value their nation’s ancient heritage.

“We have been going to that Walmart for about 3½ years, and normally the reaction is ‘That’s pretty cool’ or ‘That is awesome that you have a pet alligator, man!’”
— Wesley Silva, after learning that he no longer would be able to shop in Walmart with Jinesioshi, his 7-year-old, 5-foot-long alligator.

BOXED UP: A New York City-based entrepreneur, unimpressed with the pizza quality in the state’s capital city, is installing a pizza vending machine in the lobby of an Albany office building, where customers can watch through glass as their pizza is cooked. He told the Albany Times Union he hopes to install 30 to 40 additional machines in the Capital Region and eventually to take his idea national.

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

Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Contributors: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Jim Murphy, Amanda Metzger, Kristy Miller, John Brodt 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