Opinion

A 200-page report from the Department of Homeland Security faulted U.S. Border Patrol agents who rushed to the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, concluding they “failed to establish command and had inadequate training” in one of the deadliest classroom attacks, The Dallas Morning News reported.

It took some time, but a set of new laws and rules passed by the Texas Legislature in 2023 went into effect on Sept. 1, the Houston Chronicle reported. Prominent among these are the SCOPE Act, or Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act, which tightens restrictions for online users younger than 18.

I’ve been listening to old crooners on Pandora lately, and one of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs is “The House I Live In.” Sinatra performed the patriotic song in an 11-minute movie short that was made in 1945, shortly after the conclusion of the war. In the short, Sinatra steps out of a recording studio into an alley, where he confronts a group of kids chasing a smaller boy.

A 26-page report from the Texas Comptroller concludes that the state needs 306,000 additional homes, a shortage that has sent housing costs soaring, The Texas Tribune reported. Homebuilding hasn’t kept up with the booming economy as millions of new residents have moved here over the past decade, leaving more than half of the state’s homeowners and renters struggling to find and keep affordable housing.

All anybody needs to know about a free economy is alive and well thanks to social-media flea markets, such as Facebook Marketplace. While procrastinating every morning, I review this site looking at cars, lakefront homes and a wide variety of highly entertaining items people are trying to hock.

Here’s a story that is growing bigger by the day: Cyber scams are on the rise. My elderly family member fell for a common scam a few weeks ago: His screen appeared be locked by “Microsoft” and he was urged to call the number the phony security alert displayed.

The dog-day heat wave has sent power demands to new records, the Austin American- Statesman reported. With much of the state enduring an excessive heat warning, power demand peaked at 85,559 megawatts last week, breaking a record set last August.

Welcome to another installment of Things You Should Do Before a Wild Saturday Night Consists of Cruising the Aisles at Walgreen s for Prune Juice and Denture Adhesive! After ten years of traveling with my family for summer vacation to the coast of Alabama (yes, they have a coast – and it has nothing to do with Nick Saban), we were finally able to catch a scheduled practice of the worldfamous U.S. Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Team at nearby Pensacola Naval Air Station.

CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS As Texans endure the dog days of summer, experts say deaths related to heat in Texas and nationwide are likely undercounted, the Texas Standard reported. With climate change causing warmer days and nights, last year was the hottest on record in Texas.

Texas public schools received more than $19 billion in pandemic relief funds over the last four years, but that pipeline of cash will largely end on Sept. 30, The Texas Tribune reported.