Opinion

Dear Annie: I am a 48-yearold male living at home with my folks and older sister. We are a close-knit family and do things together often.

The public schools in the state of New York doled out $29,284 per pupil in “current expenditures” in fiscal year 2022, said a report published this week by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

© 2024 Creators Syndicate Social Security Administration Services: The People Speak In last week’s column, I shared the results of a survey I conducted with my readers in which I asked you to rate the service you got from the Social Security Administration using the ubiquitous star system: 5 stars for good service down to 1 star for poor service. I got more than 200 responses.

Dear Annie: I am also a parent of a child who lost his battle with addiction in 2022. There are so many of us with difficult stories to share.

A favorite quote from the recent campus conflicts comes from Adam Young, a freshman at the New School in New York. After student trespassers were arrested and hauled to police headquarters, he complained, “This is not OK ... We’re 18 years old.”

“This may be Biden’s Vietnam.” Bernie Sanders’ warning couldn’t be starker. The campus protests that have raged for weeks feel like 1968 in miniature.

The national media consider themselves essential in educating the electorate, so what happens when the electorate does not consider them a trustworthy guardian of democracy? The Associated Press and the American Press Institute just released a poll on the 2024 election and found only 14% of their sample expressed “a great deal of confidence in electionrelated information they receive from national sources.” By contrast, 46% have little or no confidence at all in the information they receive from national news organizations. About half of Americans, 53%, say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election.

If there’s one thing that has defined my nearly decade of political reporting experience in Oklahoma, it’s been budget turmoil and shortfalls. In 2014, I hadn’t even had time to unpack before drama exploded over a $171 million budget hole and angst from state agencies told to cut their already shoestring budgets by 5%.

Dear Annie: You recently said you rarely get letters praising mothers-in-law. Well, here is one! I grew up in an abusive family with a mother who has severe borderline personality disorder and refuses to get medication or therapy.

Homelessness is a growing issue in the United States, with the number continuing to rise following the Covid pandemic. Homelessness has a ripple effect on the community. It reduces healthcare, increases crime rates, lowers workers in the workforce and uses thousands of taxpayer dollars.