This week’s feature tells the story of Debbie Jones, a Richardson woman who was raped and robbed at knifepoint in 1985, when she was 19. Soon after the crime, Jones picked Thomas McGowan out of a photo lineup. He was convicted of burglary and sexual assault and sentenced to two…
When Debbie Jones saw her mother, she knew the news was bad. For weeks, Jones had been waiting to hear from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office about the results of a DNA test. Now, on a sunny April morning in 2008, one of the DA’s investigators, Jim Hammond, had…
Aftermath Inc. refers to itself as a “biohazard restoration company”, more commonly known as crime-scene cleanup: The company’s employees go in after murders, suicides, injuries, hoarding cases and other seriously unpleasant situations. But now three of their Texas employees are being sued in Dallas County district court, where five families…
The Nasher Sculpture Center and the developers of the Museum Tower project are continuing to hammer out their white light, white heat debacle behind closed doors. They recently hired a mediator in lawyer Tom Luce, who promptly asked both sides to quit talking to the media already. Above, however, you…
Dallas may be inhospitable to hipsters, but we’re apparently a city filled with porn enthusiasts: Men’s Health recently ranked Dallas 15th in a list of the 100 “smuttiest” American cities (Orlando won. Those perverts.) MH based its rankings on the number of adult DVDs purchased, rented or streamed, square footage…
Around 3 a.m. today, a cab driver called the Dallas police to report that he’d been carjacked after dropping off a passenger. He couldn’t specify just where he’d been when this happened, and he didn’t know the license plate number of the cab, only the unit number. Upon arriving at…
Earlier this week, Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a preliminary injunction that kept Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood out of the Women’s Health Program. It looked as though that was the first step toward a decision allowing Texas to keep Planned Parenthood out of…
Immediately after Mayor Mike’s extremely non-surprising show of support for the Trinity River toll road yesterday, the city council members retreated into executive session to continue talking about how to regulate the city’s boarding homes . After more than an hour off-camera, they came back and agreed to let staff…
The city of Dallas has been grappling for years with how to better regulate boarding homes for the elderly, mentally ill and disabled , which are currently subject to very little oversight. About three weeks ago, the city council’s housing committee was told that licensing and regulating the homes could…
When we said yesterday Planned Parenthood could remain part of the Texas’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program “for now,” we didn’t know “now” would last less than 24 hours. A Fifth Circuit appeals judge has overturned yesterday’s preliminary injunction blocking Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood out of the WHP. In his…
The scuffle between Texas and the feds over women’s healthcare was supposed to get real tomorrow, when Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be barred from being a provider for the state’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program. But earlier today, Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel granted the non-profit its requested preliminary injunction…
I was in Austin over the weekend, where I couldn’t help but notice 1,500 people holding a rally for women’s rights on the Capitol building’s south steps. It was one of dozens of events across the country Saturday organized by Unite Women to protest legislation affecting women’s health, abortion access,…
Several weeks ago, two area theaters refused to show an ad for atheism, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason’s new campaign, “Our Families Are Great Without Religion.” Now the American Humanist Association, which supports DFWCoR’s parent organization, the United Coalition of Reason, has gotten involved, and they’ve brought…
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate began debating the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which is largely backed by Senate Democrats, and discussing its Republican alternative, authored by Chuck Grassley of Iowa and our own Kay Bailey Hutchison. In preparation for that debate, Hutchison took to the Senate floor…
Update, 5:20 p.m.: Police have identified the suspect as Tommy Robinson. He’s been booked into Lew Sterrett on charges of aggravated sexual assault. Police are asking the media not to release his booking photo to the public until after the victim has been shown a photo lineup. They told reporters…
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate and extremist groups in the United States, has found “stunning” growth in what they call the “anti-government patriot movement,” conspiracy groups whose primary focus is opposing the federal government. And much of that growth has been here. Texas now has 76 such…
Islam Karimov is the president of Uzbekistan; he’s also widely known as a brutal dictator accused of the systematic use of torture. His regime is charged with things like boiling political dissidents to death and forcibly sterilizing women. Now one of his daughters, who’s well-disliked in her own right, is…
In pancake-related news that’s already gone national, four Muslim men of Arab descent are suing IHOP, claiming they were all fired from their managerial positions at DFW-area locations because of their ethnicity and religion. In the suit, filed Tuesday in federal court, Hussein Chamseddine claims that despite receiving consistently positive…
You will either be saddened, confused or hugely indifferent to the fact that Travel + Leisure magazine has ranked Dallas last in a list of 35 hipster-friendly cities. I’ll give you a moment to collect yourselves. Now then: What in the hell are we doing wrong that we rated so…
In less-than-surprising news, Dallas firefighter and paramedic Jesus Ventura, who in recent weeks has been accused of both bank robbery and waving a gun around in a firehouse, has been fired. Dallas-Fire Rescue spokesman Lt. Joel Lavender says in a statement that the department’s internal investigation into the allegations against…
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Seems like only six months ago (because it was) that First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress was still casually referring to Mormonism as a “cult.” Back then, that word choice earned him a round of appearances on various TV news shows to explain himself…
For years, Dallas has struggled to regulate the city’s boarding houses, the places that many low-income mentally ill, disabled and elderly people call home. As we discussed in a recent cover story, right now, the city knows where about 330 of these homes are, and they’re inspected regularly for code…
