News

It’s always something with Affliated Computer Services, seems like. Like today: U.S. Attorney Richard Roper just issued a press release in which he gives a thumbs-up to a settlement with ACS, which agreed to pay the feds exactly $2,645,987.30 to resolve alleged False Claims Act allegations. To be more specific,…

The Associated Press has a story today about how all the rain’s done killed the tourism trade in Texas of late — at lakes and water parks and every waterlogged thing in between. Leading off the piece is a guy named Rick Williams, who packed up the family in DeSoto…

In the summer issue of Frontiers of Health Services Management, an American College of Healthcare Executives-published journal that’s required reading at UP HQ, Parkland Health & Hospital System’s top officials have penned a paper congratulating, um, Parkland for its fine, fine work. Actually, the 7,000-plus-word paper — titled “The Quest…

Three weeks back we mentioned how the parents of Jacob Stiles, an SMU student found dead of an overdose at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house in December, were furious with school officials. The Stiles said then, as they do now, that the university’s done nothing to find out who…

Upon further review, Bottle Rocket’s easily the best movie ever shot in Dallas — and Bob Musgrave, at left, is the best thing about it. If you shoot a movie in Texas that makes Texas look bad, well, bubba, don’t expect the state to pony up any dough for yer…

Everyone’s in a suin’ mood today: News just came down the pike that Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens is going after an NYC nightclub for $600,000. Seems that a club called Avalon might have “improperly used his name, likeness and famous initials, T.O., in 2006 and 2007 to promote…

You think you’re mad about your tax appraisal? Well, apparently you’re not quite as pissed off as 11 local shopping centers, who today filed suit in Dallas County District Court claiming that the the Dallas Central Appraisal District and Dallas Appraisal Review Board jacked up their respective tax appraisals using…

Dunno if Tum Tum’s gonna be the Next Big Thing outta Dallas’ hip-hop scene, as this piece from DJ Booth.net suggests, but we do know one thing: Tony Richardson’s big. C’mon — he titled his released-last-week album Eat or Get Ate for a reason, right? And if nothing else, as…

At left is state representative and former Army Captain Allen Vaught, the Lakewood Heights resident who was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained during an ambush in Iraq. Everything you need to know about state Rep. Allen Vaught is on his Web site; the representative from Lakewood Heights (District…

It’s Monday. It rained on and off all freaking weekend, and you couldn’t get your iPhone hooked up because every other trendspotter in the United States was trying to get theirs hooked up. Looks like it’s gonna keep raining, and your iPhone is gonna be obsolete when iPhone 2.0 comes…

This morning, the Washington Post goes inside the mind of George W. Bush — and finds that it’s a very cold and lonely place. Seems the man’s not terribly interested in talking politics these days; he prefers spending his time with “authors, historians, philosophers and theologians” with whom he consumes…

We weren’t going to succumb to this, swear — especially since we stopped watching The Simpsons ’round the time Bill Clinton was well into his second term. And it didn’t help that on Friday, we received at UP HQ a Kwik-E-Mart cooler fillled with a Buzz Cola sixer, a box…

That’s because New York-based hedge fund GSO Capital Partners LP announced this morning it’s spending about $1.1 billion to buy Dallas-based Reddy Ice. And stockholders in Reddy Ice stand to make a decent haul from the buyout: Says the comapny’s release, they’ll cool down with $31.25 per share in cash…

Yesterday, the Senate tossed out President Bush’s immigration bill that had been crafted to appease both side of the aisle. Today, Unfair Park spoke with Arnulfo De la Cruz, local political director for the Service Employees International Union, about what the bill’s demise means in the context of an immigrant-rights…

Our man Jim Schutze has just emerged from the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall, where council member Angela Hunt and her TrinityVote peeps just sprung the news: They have the signatures. Sez Jim from the bowels of the City Secretary’s Office: They were required to gather 48,000 John Hancocks…

We don’t need a reason to hang out at NorthPark, but those who chose the mall rather than Knox-Henderson to wait till the 6 p.m. iPhone frenzy made the right move. Like our new Friends, Justin and Bobbie at left. Today, some of us formed a lunch posse and hit…

So says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, which just issued a press release announcing that federal disaster aid has been made available to the counties in Texas affected by June’s horrific weather (though, oddly, it covers only people affected by weather “during the period of…

On the heels of their recent nominations for MOJO mag’s Best Breakthrough Act and Best Album, Midlake continues to ascend to the upper echelon of quality pop music: They’re on the Chemical Brothers’ latest release, We Are the Night, the entirety of which is currently streaming gratis on the Bros’…

If I’ve seen a motif in the numerous interviews I’ve done for the Sherman Allen story, it is human wreckage. A trail of broken marriages. Shattered parental bonds. Severe emotional distress; even claims that folks have gone crazy. And, most of all among the people who’ve tangled with Allen in…

Really don’t know how I missed out on the DallasGayPod; seems like something I shoulda been hipped to months ago. But now that I’ve discovered it, I want to direct your attention to its theme song, which you can download as a ringtone should you so desire it. And you…