For sixteen years, Greg Middents sat behind the bench as a Justice of the Peace in Grayson County, Texas, serving citizens who often arrived in court during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. But the courtroom was only part of the story. Middents' life and career have taken him from North Texas to Washington, D.C.; from congressional campaigns to presidential campaigns; and eventually from a Texas courthouse to the Florida Keys.

MillHouse Foundation and Cotton Mill Partners, Ltd. invite art lovers to spend the weekend at Summer ArtFest, a juried indoor art festival held August 29–30, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days at the historic McKinney Cotton Mill.

Zora Frances Greenway was born July 15, 1928 in Ladonia and raised in the New Harmony community, near Ladonia. She became a medical doctor and served as a Baptist medical missionary in Africa for 35 years while keeping ties with the Ladonia community.

In addition to crowning a new millionaire, Choctaw Casino & Resort – Durant also held its bonus drawing for $250,000, where Mitchel W. from McKinney, Texas, was the winner. This new addition will take place on each million-dollar drawing day, one hour after the grand-prize drawing. To keep the excitement of the promotion going, Choctaw Durant has added one final drawing on August 30 where all entries earned during the summer will be collected and used to select winners from each Choctaw Rewards Club Tier Level.

The City of Bonham Animal Shelter invites the community to come together for its Tail End of Summer Adoption & Supply Drive on Saturday, August 29, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the City of Bonham Animal Shelter, 500 Industrial Dr., Bonham, Texas 75418.

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers. Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer and polymath. He was born in Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science. He studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion, and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of the pendulum and "hydrostatic balances." He was one of the earliest developers of the thermoscope and the inventor of various military compasses. With an improved telescope he built, he observed the stars of the Milky Way, the phases of Venus, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, Saturn's rings, lunar craters, and sunspots. He also built an early microscope. Galileo's championing of Copernican heliocentrism was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that his opinions contradicted accepted Biblical interpretations. Galileo defended his views in Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632), which appeared to dispute and satirize Pope Urban VIII, thus alienating both the Pope and the Jesuits, who had both strongly supported Galileo until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest