U.S. Department of Defense

Kaitlyn Samuels, the Disabled Girl Whose Therapy Was Denied by the Military's Insurer, Has Found Help in an Unlikely Place: Congress

We've written about Kaitlyn Samuels twice: Once last February when her parents went before a military judge to argue that Tricare, the Department of Defense's health insurer, should cover therapy costs for their severely disabled daughter, and again in October after Tricare ignored the judge's order ... More >>

Texas Republicans: "Sequester Shmequester!"

The $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday -- assuming Congress doesn't reach an alternative deficit reduction deal -- was designed to be so stupid and indiscriminately painful that any rational human being would do whatever possible to avoid it. But rationality is ... More >>

Here's What Texas Stands To Lose if Congress Doesn't Compromise By March 1 Deadline

The sequester, that "Damocles sword" hanging perilously above federal spending and set to fall March 1, was supposed to be an instrument so blunt, which would cut so deeply and indiscriminately, that the cost of not reaching a bipartisan compromise on debt reduction would become unfathomable. Now, ... More >>

A Navy Captain's Increasingly Absurd Fight Against Military Insurer to Pay For Disabled Daughter's Physical Therapy

When Kaitlyn Samuels was 4 months old, her parents, Mark and Jennifer, worried that she couldn't reach for her toys. Doctors initially assured them that it was probably normal, but after two months brought little improvement they ordered a battery of neurological tests that revealed Kaitlyn had a ve ... More >>

At UTD, a Study of PTSD in Soldiers, Focused on One of the School's Own

Mike Rials is graduating from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he was not only a psychology student but also a participant in a PTSD study testing the effectiveness of a new treatment combination. The three-year study at the Center for BrainHealth is financed by a $3 million grant from the ... More >>

Combat veterans fall prey to gambling addictions at an alarming rate — where's the military when the chips are down?

For Former Military Lawyer Colby Vokey, the Defense Never Rests

Once an outspoken judge advocate, Dallas' Colby Vokey was chased from the Marines, but he's still defending troops -- and still speaking his mind.

Disabled Girl's Treatment Coverage Depends on Definition of "Hippotherapy"

Mark Samuels, a captain in the Navy, and Jennifer, his wife, never imagined their first time in court would be fighting for healthcare benefits for their daughter Kaitlyn. The 15-year-old was born with an uncommon brain condition similar to cerebral palsy. She cannot communicate verbally and functio ... More >>

Top 10 Super Bowl Commercials Starring Food

This year, like most years, the multi-million-dollar-slinging advertising competition known as the Super Bowl was largely dominated by those in the motor vehicle category. But if you were paying close attention, somewhere between the David Beckham ogling, flipping back and forth from the Super Bowl ... More >>

Gulf War Syndrome Is Brain Damage Caused By Nerve Gas, Not Psychological Issues, UT Southwestern Study Proves

​There's no denying it now: Gulf War Syndrome, characterized by memory loss, lack of concentration, neuropathic pain and depression, is a physiological illness, not a psychological one. A UT Southwestern study, published in the journal Radiology, used a specialized MRI that specifically measu ... More >>

City Attorney, City Manager Insist They're Not Hiding Trinity Project Docs From Us

Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins​Just spent 20 minutes getting an earful from Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm and City Attorney Tom Perkins, who insisted, over and over, that the city's lawsuit over those Trinity River records has nothing whatsoever to do with our request to see "all the individual ... More >>

NBC News: "Friendly Fire" to Blame in Arlington Marine's Death in Afghanistan

U.S. Air Force/Roland BalikA U.S. Marine Corps carry team transferring Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith at Dover Air Force Base on Friday​On Thursday, the Department of Defense issued a release stating, simply, that Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy D. Smith -- a 26-year-old Arlington native -- died on Wedne ... More >>

Documentary About New Orleans' Killer Floods Draws Uneasy Parallels to Dallas.

In South Dallas Today, City Officials Cheer as the Drug Houses Begin Coming Down

Photos by Patrick MichelsCouncil members Carolyn Davis and Dwayne Caraway watched with community activists as the first of the Summer Breeze Apartments came down.​It's open season on drug houses in Dallas today, with the Texas National Guard kicking off its two-week Operation Crackdown campaign -- ... More >>

Resource Center Dallas Happy, For the Most Part, With "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Report

U.S. Navy Petty Officer Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeleyRobert Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at today's press conference​The Department of Defense today released its 247-page Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of ... More >>

The DARPA Initiative: SMU, DOD Partner Again, This Time on Prosthetics That Feel

​SMU and the Department of Defense are already partners on that paper-thin camera straight outta 1984 by way of Minority Report. Now the Hilltop sends word of its latest DOD partnership -- a $5.6-mil Neurophotonics Research Center that'll be run by Marc Christensen, electrical engineering chair in ... More >>

Eye See You: SMU and Department of Defense Find a New Use for Their Paper-Thin Camera

​In July of last year, and again last January, we mentioned SMU's partnering with the U.S. Department of  Defense to develop a powerful paper-thin camera that uses low-resolution sensors to create a hi-res image -- a device otherwise known as "Panoptes," short for "Processing Arrays of Nyquis ... More >>

Green Zone: American Hero Matt Damon and His WMD of a Movie Confirm the Big Lie, Hollywood-Style

Defense Department Gives SMU Millions More to Finish Developing Military's Tiny Camera

Southern Methodist UniversitySMU's creating a camera that'll allow soldiers to shoot, as it were, inside "dark places, like caves and urban areas."​Back in June, Wired directed our attention to SMU's efforts to create a powerful paper-thin camera that uses low-resolution sensors to create a hi-res ... More >>

At a Remote, Dangerous Base in Afghanistan, a Soldier From Mesquite Was Killed Monday

Sgt. 1st Class Raymond J. MundenYet again, a North Texas native has been killed while serving in Afghanistan. The Department of Defense announced today that 35-year-old Mesquite native Raymond Munden, who enlisted in the Army in August 1991, was killed on Monday in Paktika Province near the Afghanis ... More >>

In Afghanistan on Tuesday, a 22-Year-Old Army Specialist From Frisco Was Killed

The Department of Defense announced today that on Tuesday, Army Specialist Peter John Courcy of Frisco was killed in Salerno, Afghanistan. The 22-year-old Courcy and 19-year-old Pfc. Jason Watson of Louisiana, both of whom had been based out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky, died of injuries suffered wh ... More >>

Gustav Isn't Screwing Around, and Neither is the City of Dallas

The Gang's All Here|That's the Ol' Pepper|Checkout Time|The Real Deals

On Christmas, a Soldier from Dallas Died in Iraq

¡Ask a Mexican!

Blood Business

Why We Fight probes America's passion for war

This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

Crash of Symbols

Plus:White Knights; Be Alarmed

The Shootist

Terry Anderson thought he'd be in Athens right now, chasing his lifelong dream of Olympic gold. Instead, he's in prison, his life plugged full of holes.

Fog of War

A group of veterans says John Kerry stretches the truth about his Vietnam service. Who can you believe? Who knows?

Tasty

It's a mixed-up world, but not at Lola

A Few Good Dogs

September 11 creates a bull market for dogs with a nose for explosives

Love & Rockets

Andrew Beal spent $200 million trying to launch rockets without Uncle Sam's help. His dream went down in flames

Loaded Gunmen

The funniest thing on Fox

Slaughterhouse Jive

Dallas-based Supreme Beef fought what it believes are unfair regulations, only to wind up on the USDA's killing floor

New Model Army

Can the big-brain boys of the defense community change the way America fights?

From Russia, with bugs

Scientists from the former Soviet Union's top-secret biological weapons lab join with Dallas researchers to fight a common enemy: the deadly Ebola virus

Observer writers honored

The truth is out there

The war over Gulf War Syndrome

Dallas doctors believe they've solved the mystery of sick veterans, but find themselves in "a bloody scientific war" where they are branded charlatans

The Hare, The Tortoise

Channel 5's Marty Griggin and Channel 8's Robert Riggs race for ratings as their stations struggle for dominance of local television news

Hoping for the worst

Defense lawyers itch for a health-care fraud bonanza

Keeping faith

Intertect struggles after disappearance of founder Fred Cuny

Lost Tribe

Grand Prairie's Henry Clayton has proclaimed himself chief of the new 'nato Nation. Is he the head of Texas' largest Indian tribe-or an indian impostor?