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WITH LUKE CLAYTON

When Should You Adjust Your Investment Mix?

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar singled out financial firms under a 2021 state law that prohibits most state entities from contracting with companies that have reduced or cut investments in the oil and gas industry.

Experiential gifts shift the emphasis from tangible items to building memories through experiences. Various studies have indicated that the memories gained through experiences may surpass the exhilaration and happiness of receiving a material item. What’s more, experiential gifts may be something that people can share together - expanding the possibilities of gift-giving even further.

By Carey Kinsolving

It has been nearly 8 months since my mother passed away. Don’t worry. This won’t be a sad or depressing conversation between us, a couple of virtual best friends. If anything, I plan on bringing a smile to your face today. Sure, it may be laced with regret or fraught with the realization of life’s tendency to cut deeply while flying by at frightening speed. I hope, when we’re finished talking, you’ll call your mom, if you’re fortunate enough to still have one. If not, know that there is safety and comfort in our numbers, we who are motherless, fatherless, or both. Perhaps you will look through old photographs or watch a home movie or two. Maybe you’ll sniff back a few tears and call your adult children to say, “Humor me. I just wanted to hear your voice. Trust me, you should commit mine to memory, too. One day, you’ll be glad I told you to do this.” I am unsure of my big feelings today. Are they so close to the surface of my heart because we have all thrown caution to the wind? As of late, we seem to be screaming powerful F bombs at the viruses and the poxes and the heat. We have taken to the streets again, armed with weapons of loneliness and the need to replenish all the hugs we missed out on for so long. It has been good to see people. Along the way, so many of you have shared a Marsha story with me. They all have things in common, these tall tales of my mother. They are spicy. They are generally hilarious. They are so Marsha. Just last week, I ran into an old friend of my late daughter. We parted with hugs, promises to stay in touch, and one question from her to me. “Remember the time your mom made that sign?” Oh, Lordy. I had forgotten about the sign. Grab a cup of coffee. If you were here, I’d offer you some homemade banana bread. See, there’s no rushing a really good story. And, this is one you don’t want to miss.

Certain people feel right at home in the great outdoors. With the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair, rock scramblers and kayaking buffs simply can’t get enough of being outside in the elements.

Texas wine-grape vineyards were seeing belowaverage yields and aboveaverage quality following a challenging 2022 growing season, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service experts.

As we traverse through life, I think most of us ponder and wonder about our purpose - the reason for our experience on the planet at this particular time. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of me? (Gulp.)

They called us the TV generation. Because that was pretty much all we had. No smartphones. No computers. No internets.

With the school year comfortably underway, the Forney Education Foundation has “started” school as well. Not that FEF took the summer off for vacation. Instead we were busy helping the students in Forney ISD. The Foundation was involved in the Summer STEAM camps by providing lunch to camp instructors and student workers every Thursday for 6 weeks, as well as reimbursing 83 students who qualified.

According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer mainly occurs in middle-aged or older women. In fact, the median age at the time of a breast cancer diagnosis is 62. Though it’s possible for women far younger than 62 to be diagnosed with breast cancer, the ACS reports that only a very small number of women younger than 45 are diagnosed with the disease each year. Despite the average age of onset being over 60, breast cancer is highly treatable. The World Health Organization notes that breast cancer treatments routinely achieve survival probabilities of 90 percent or higher. However, those probabilities decline considerably in lower-income countries where access to screening and other medical services is limited. For example, the WHO notes that five-year survival rates for breast cancer routinely surpass 90 percent in highincome countries like the United States and Canada. However, those rates are as low as 40 percent in South Africa, where early detection of the disease is less likely than it is in wealthier nations. That disparity in survival rates underscores the need for greater resource allocation in lowerincome countries, but also highlights the effectiveness of screening and other measures in high-income countries where women are taught to report any abnormalities with their breasts.

Ask Paige Vadnais, the new student regent for Stephen F. Austin State University’s Board of Regents, to list the things in life most important to her, and she will quickly respond, “My family and my dogs, whom I also consider family.”