One of the prerequisites for holding statewide office in Texas nowadays is the gun-toting photo op. Governor Rick Perry’s done plenty. So has Attorney General Greg Abbott and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is the rare exception — just more proof that he can’t be trusted. Attorney…
You’re right. Your mind, however warped it may be by traffic-induced rage, is not playing tricks on you. Dallas’ 1,500 traffic signals are just as terrible as you think they are, maybe more so. By the city’s own admission, they’re plagued by outages and are far more likely to topple…
When Naim Rasool Muhammad went on trial this spring for killing his two young sons — an act for which he was sentenced to death — local news outlets focused mainly on the brutality of the crime, and understandably so. Muhammad kidnapped 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah in August as…
On Friday afternoon, Kim Cope was driving along Beach Street in North Fort Worth on her lunch break when she was stopped at a police roadblock. After being ushered into a nearby parking lot, she was given a menu of options. “They were asking for cheek swabs,” she told NBC…
When the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and more than a dozen health care providers took Attorney General Greg Abbott to court in September to challenge Texas’ new anti-abortion law, they weren’t trying to tackle the entire law. Instead, they narrowed in on a few key provisions that were supposed to take…
Watchdog group Public Citizen and landowners along the Keystone pipeline’s route through Texas have raised serious questions about the frequency with which TransCanada excavates sections of its line for repair. TransCanada told Unfair Park last week that it had indeed replaced some 700 feet of the 485-mile project, set to…
Had Jerri Truhill been born a quarter century later, she very well might have made it into space. Some argue she should have. She and the dozen other women who composed the Mercury 13 program passed whatever tests NASA threw at them, and she seemed to possess as much of…
Preston Hollow Elementary is losing the battle to woo the middle- and upper-class families who live nearby. It’s not unique in this regard. Sanger Elementary, you’ll recall, was spurned by the coveted high-level-city-bureaucrat demographic, and other grade schools in Dallas’ well-heeled ‘hoods draw largely from poorer neighborhoods, while the local…
First off, let’s make one thing clear. Contrary to what the company claims on its website, or what the above headline might suggest, iFly does not offer “indoor skydiving.” There’s no sky. No diving. Just a vertical wind tunnel and baggy jumpsuits. That said, iFly Dallas, the company’s brand-new facility…
Years ago, Dealey Plaza conspiracy man Robert Groden reportedly strolled into the center lane of Elm Street and taped down a white “X” to mark the spot where President John F. Kennedy was struck with the fatal bullet on November 22, 1963. It’s actually about about six inches too far…
It’s not like anyone needs another reason to hate the Transportation Security Administration, whose groping and overly revealing body scans have made air travel only slightly less unpleasant than riding Greyhound. Yet the agents at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport seem keen on providing more of them. Last month, it was…
For David Tran, October 29 was a very good day. He beat a drunk-driving rap he picked up in Arlington three years earlier, when he was 17 years old and blew a .095 into the Intoxilyzer — just a shade over the .08 legal limit. The offense could be expunged…
The city of Dallas swears it wasn’t violating anyone’s free speech rights when it ticketed a half dozen activists last January protesting the soon-to-open Bush Library by holding political signs along the Central Expressway service road. As the city has explained in court, police were simply ensuring the safety of…
The guilt Dallas once felt over the Kennedy assassination has mostly faded. For most Dallasites, the “city of hate” label is an abstraction, useful to riff on for local food blog titles but otherwise bearing no resemblance to the modern city. That’s not to say that it’s not worth marveling…
On Friday, fed up with the ineffectual legislative and judicial responses to rampant gun violence and in the spirit of open and honest academic debate, Texas A&M University law Professor Meg Penrose offered the not-so-modest suggestion that the United States do away with the Second Amendment. “Unfortunately, drastic times require…
If a same-sex marriage happens outside of Texas, but no law in Texas was there to recognize it, did the marriage ever even happen? Earlier this year, a state senator asked Attorney General Greg Abbott to weigh in on the question in light of all the same-sex couples employed by…
Jose Luis Bedoy is sort of like the Richard Gere character in Pretty Woman. He, too, became smitten by a woman of the night, despite his better judgment, and he, too, risked his career to keep the relationship alive. There are, however, some key differences, which are described in detail…
The attack itself happened in a blink. One minute Johari, a 5-year-old lioness, was roaming the Dallas Zoo’s Giants of the Savannah exhibit. The next she was pinned down by a male lion, his teeth digging into her jugular. “She died very quickly, and there were no visible outward signs…
Favian LaTorre wasn’t too keen on paying child support, so the Dallas ISD police sergeant made his former lover an offer. Instead of forking over a specified portion of his $46,000 salary every month, he would hire a full-time, live-in nanny to help raise their young child. The child’s mother,…
A week before the country pauses to remember the death of John F. Kennedy, conspiracy theorists and Dallas City Hall have agreed to a truce. Under the agreement, members of the Coalition on Political Assassinations will occupy a parking lot on the southeast corner of Market and Main, where they…
This Saturday, for the first time in a quarter century, the University of Connecticut football team will come to Dallas to face off against SMU. The Mustangs are expected to cruise to an easy victory over the winless Huskies, which is a must if they hope to keep their slim…
Every year, thousands of Texas high school graduates continue their educations at community colleges, but only a fraction –16.2 percent according to a recent study — will ever go on to complete a four-year degree. A number of factors contribute to such an abysmal college completion rate, most of which…
