Opinion

By Jay Leeson, Published Aug. 5 in the Dallas News WITH GOV.

By Ted James, Region 6 South Central Administrator U.S. Small Business Administration THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT (IRA) will lower prescription drug, health care, and energy costs.

BY GARY BORDERS ‘Farmer’s Almanac’ predicting a white winter As Texas gets at least a temporary reprieve this week from the heat, with a nice round of rain blanketing much of the state, the Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting January will bring significant snowfall to the state. The periodical, founded in 1818, develops its extended forecast “using a 204-year-old mathematical formula focused on sunspot activity, planet positions, and tidal actions of the moon.” The almanac’s website claims its forecasts are 80-85 percent accurate.

IT’S BEEN 173 DAYS SINCE Russia escalated attacks on Ukraine… 173 days that families, children, the elderly, have lived under constant bombing of their homes, at train stations, just walking down the street.

By Gene Policinski, Freedom Forum Senior Fellow for the First Amendment There may be no worse assault on our freedom of speech than a law that would permit the government to tell us to “shut up” when it comes to discussion and debate on a major social issue of our time – and to punish us if we don’t. Freedom of speech under the First Amendment is rooted in the concept of a “marketplace of ideas,” where information and robust, uninhibited exchanges are protected to ensure all can speak and be heard.

BY GARY BORDERS Texas gas prices lowest in nation While gas prices nationwide dropped below $4 per gallon average last week, the state boasts the lowest prices in the country at an average of $3.49—50 cents below the national average, according to AAA Texas. “Retail gasoline prices in Texas fell for the eighth consecutive week,” said AAA Texas spokesperson Daniel Armbruster.

BY GARY BORDERS DSHS gets nearly 15,000 monkeypox vaccines The Texas Department of State Health Services has received and distributed 14,780 doses of the monkeypox vaccine to local health departments and DSHS regional offices. Another 27,000 doses could be made available by the Strategic National Stockpile.

By Chris Tomlinson, Business Columnist, The Houston Chronicle Reprinted with Permission RIGHTWING ACTIVISTS have found another three-letter acronym to generate rage against teachers, a routine tactic two conservative billionaires have used for years to gut Texas public education. The new bugaboo is Social and Emotional Learning or SEL for short.

Canadian River Art Center students Angel Martinez, Merissa Jimenez, and Adrian Avila each submitted entries for this year’s Backto- School Special Edition cover page. All three artists displayed their distinctive styles in these works and gave us a glimpse into their own thoughts as the start of the new school year approaches.

NANCY CATHERINE EZZELL was a devoted wife and partner to her husband, with whom she served as co-editor of this newspaper. She was a working mother of six children, the last of whom was born in 1954.