In the wake of yesterday’s epic fail on transportation funding it looks like state legislators are headed back to Austin for a third month-long special session, and it won’t be cheap. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports this morning, each extra month the legislature’s in session costs $800,000, bringing the…
The image of John Rocker, his rope-veined neck pulsing as he charges maniacally from bullpen to pitcher’s mound, lives on in baseball history as a visual testament to the ubiquity of steroids in the game at the turn of the millennium. It lives on despite the fact that, unlike other…
The feds were quite pleased in 2010 when Operation Greedy Grove, their months-long takedown of a Pleasant Grove-based crack ring, resulted in 28 arrests and the seizure of several kilograms of cocaine, more than a dozen guns, and $210,000 cash. But the guys they picked up — “Rat,” “Ron Don,”…
There was a time not long ago when no one really cared that there was a trailer park on Commerce Street, a stone’s throw from downtown. The trailers, though generally well kept, seemed to be at home amidst the threadbare businesses and houses that characterize much of West Dallas, not…
The debate should have been settled long ago. Backyard hens are surprisingly well suited to urban and suburban environments. They are quiet and unobtrusive, pose little more of a health risk than a house cat, and are a prolific source of high-quality, sustainably produced eggs. There was a time when…
We wrote last week about how the Environmental Protection Agency is catching heat from both sides of the fracking debate, for its continued backing away from research suggesting that drilling for natural gas can contaminate drinking water. It’s happened in Parker County, Texas, as well as in the Pavillion area…
Meet Chip and Trump, Pantego resident Kristen Beauregard’s prize miniature ponies. As of Wednesday afternoon, they were healthy and contented. By that evening, they were dead. Their end came after the pair was swarmed by 30,000 bees that emerged from a nearby shed. “They were chasing us down, they were…
The question Dr. Kevin Schug set out to answer was refreshingly simple: Does drilling activity in the Barnett Shale contribute to groundwater contamination? There is no shortage of assurances of safety from industry, or claims of mysterious illness from aggrieved landowners and environmental types. So, Schug and a fellow researcher…
Rangers reliever Tanner Scheppers had a simple explanation for the black eye that left him unavailable to take the mound during Friday’s 11-inning loss to the Indians: He’d been sucker-punched the night before as he walked back to the team hotel after grabbing dinner. He decided against filing a police…
At closing time Tuesday night, the cash register at Afrika Fusion came up short. The restaurant’s manager, Mondi Baskin, recounted the money and checked her math again. It was stil short. Baskin narrowed the source of the discrepancy to one of the servers, a woman who’d been working at the…
The San Antonio City Council is debating whether it should update it’s anti-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The move would make it illegal for landlords, businesses and the city to deny housing, services and, in the latter case, employment to people because they’re gay or transgender…
George P. Mitchell, the billionaire wildcatter behind Governor Rick Perry’s “Texas Miracle,” died this morning at the age of 94. His legacy, you could say, is an unconventional oil and gas revolution that utterly upended the energy calculus in this country. Where we once built liquefied natural gas import terminals,…
This morning, at a half hour past midnight, 20-year-old Benjamin Boyer was riding his bicycle south down Cole Street when his front tire slipped into the groove of the trolley track. He was thrown from his bike and, this being Dallas, he sailed straight into the back of a 2012…
When the Lewisville City Council voted last week ago to effectively ban Redneck Heaven’s signature Anything But Clothes Day — a move that garnered coverage in outlets ranging from local alt-weekly blogs to iconic women’s magazines — the breastaurant didn’t complain. It celebrated. “My girls made it in Cosmo!!!” Jenni,…
Back in 2003, a photographer named Lee Emmert bought a vacant 89-year-old church near Maple Avenue and the Tollway and turned it into a live/work space with two spacious lofts and studio areas. Emmert moved to Portland a couple of years later but kept the church, dubbed the Sanctuary, which…
Beth Tucker, deputy commissioner at the IRS, did not seem particularly happy to be sitting before the House Oversight Committee on June 26. Maybe it was the way the focus of the hearing shifted quickly from a possibly fishy but obscure IRS contract to the agency’s admitted targeting of Tea…
One way or the other, it seems, the folks behind Prime Prep Academy, Deion Sanders’ taxpayer-funded charter school, are going to make some money off it. It’s just a matter of how — and how much. The “how” is a little clearer today, after Oprah Winfrey’s cable network announced plans…
Dwayne Harris doesn’t typically get a lot of ink in the local sports press. The wide receiver, selected in the sixth round of the 2011 draft, didn’t catch a pass in more than half the games he played last year, and his 222 receiving yards put him seventh on the…
District Attorney Craig Watkins’ reelection campaign has been considerably more difficult than expected, owing to the accusations that he prosecuted Hunt family scion Al Hill III for mortgage fraud at the behest of a wealthy political benefactor. The embarrassing parade of hearings and contempt charges, followed by more hearings and,…
A few months back, we broke the very important news that Dallas is in midst of an epidemic of hair weave heists. Sometimes, the thieves would try to palm a few packages while pretending to shop. Other times, they went for volume, knocking holes in the wall of beauty supply…
The name “Cowboys Stadium” is everything the structure itself is not: concise, blandly functional, lacking in imagination, panache and, most notably, a high-dollar corporate sheen. There was never any chance that it was going to last, despite Jerry Jones’ protestations to the contrary. Today, it’s officially gone…
Jimmie Jerome Hiners, aka Jimmie “Nookie” Hiners, is kind of an open book. The marijuana leaf tattooed on the front of his neck tells you that he really likes weed, probably too much. The word “Blood” on his left arm tells you that he claims affiliation with that particular street…
