Giddings Times & News • Due to a lack of clear language in the Texas Local Government Code, Lee County Precinct 4 is currently without an acting constable despite having recently elected a candidate. The wording in question does not provide a clear statement on when a candidate’s qualifications, or lack thereof, disqualify him/her from taking office.

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from statements made online by our Texas Senator Lois Kolkhorst Monday night: No excuses. Just the facts because you/ we deserve it! No lie… It’s going to be another long night and another long tomorrow; another long day, another winter storm.

Texans from Lubbock to Longview shivered under singledigit temperatures as their week began, with snow and ice creating dangerous road conditions throughout the state. Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for all 254 Texas counties and urged residents to stay alert to changing weather conditions. The Texas Division of Emergency Management deployed resources from various state agencies to prepare roadways, assist motorists, remove downed trees and perform search-and-rescue operations if necessary. State officials with both the Electric Reliability

It got a little cold this week. Some people are calling it a once-in-a-generation storm.

To the Editor: Joe Biden ordered at more than a Billion dollars, a 10ft fence topped with razor wire to keep “home grown terrorist” from breaching the Capitol again; to protect the “law makers from such home-grown thuggery. Even called on the National Guard from each state; some 27,000 well-trained armed men.

To the Editor: I bet he is asking, “Do you miss me yet?” We didn’t want to see him go. Our former President of the United States is now an American citizen.

We are such creatures of habit and heaven forbid if one has to alter a well-established routine. This pandemic is adding to our dependency on doing the same things at the same times each day. We are in for a massive amount of frustration when we can boldly walk out of the house without a mask at any time of the day and stroll down the aisle of the grocery store without using the cart as a shield from someone likely to breath on you. This is going to require another level of adjustment.

On Feb. 16, 1817, a Boston teenager with a hand-cranked press produced the first printed words in Texas history – the longwinded manifesto of a doomed expedition.

I was about nine years old at the time. In the winter one of the main chores for my brother, George, Jr. and me was to feed our herd of cattle in the open pasture. Usually we had baled hay in the barn but when the hay supply got low, we alternated by feeding the cows some corn tops. Corn tops consisted of the top part of the corn stalk that was cut right above the ear of corn while the stalk was still green and standing in the field.

The number of people in Texas hospitalized with COVID-19 has declined more than 28 percent in the past month, according to the Texas Department of Health Services. As of Feb. 7, Texas hospitals were treating 9,957 COVID-19 patients, down from nearly 14,000 a month ago. The number of new cases in the past week was 123,239 — a 22 percent drop from the record high of 158,922 the week of Jan. 10, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.