On May 17, 2011, 17 people, most of them very young, were indicted for drug crimes in and around Flower Mound, a sleepy, prosperous suburban town about 20 miles north of Dallas. Most of the defendants were accused of conspiring to traffic heroin, specifically cheese, that mixture of cold medicine…
Fresh off its registration-blocking, car-impounding victory in the state legislature this month, the North Texas Tollway Authority is hiking the cost of driving on its roads. The agency announced this morning that toll rates are increasing by slightly less than a penny per mile come July 1, from 15.3 cents…
Glenn Beck’s wild-eyed, usually paranoid rants are such a common occurrence, Right Wing Watch has an entire category devoted to chronicling his crazy. Most of them are rather uninspired and give the impression that Beck is merely going through the motions in order to fulfill the persona he’s built. But…
In the end, it wasn’t the opposition of the Fort Worth City Council that killed the Cotton Belt project, nor was it the opposition from neighbors in North Dallas. Not directly, at least. Rather, the 62-mile commuter rail that would run from Plano to Fort Worth, died a quiet death…
When the city first began putting down bike lanes last year, it was hard to divine if there was any grander vision than simply flinging paint at random patches of asphalt. In a century or so, we figured, they’d coalesce into the long-awaited Dallas Bike Plan. Until then, we were…
There’s still some debate over whether the return of manufacturing to the U.S. — “reshoring,” it’s called — is a lasting trend or just a bump on the road toward an entirely knowledge-based economy. Some experts suggest it’s merely a byproduct of the recession. But there’s no doubt that it’s…
Edwon Julian’s case didn’t get much attention when he was arrested in Richardson last July. Now that his trial is under way, the the Metroplex Animal Coalition and Dallas County District Attorney’s Office are working to spread the word. Because Julian allegedly threw his girlfriend’s cat out the window of…
It’s hard to overstate how completely the city of Dallas has neglected its aquatics system. It hasn’t built a new pool since 1978, when it built an indoor facility near Bachman Lake. The number of pools operated by the city dropped from 107 in 1983 to 17 today. Those that…
The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System has had a rough few months, what with the widespread public perception that they’ve installed a big, fancy Eye of Sauron downtown . Also, they’re having to deal with a lot more reporters than usual, which no one enjoys. One of those reporters…
U.S. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, is not a subtle man. So when he announced that he would boycott a GOP fund-raising dinner because Senator Ted Cruz will be attending, it’s not surprising he talked to BuzzFeed about it. “I don’t think we should be acknowledging people who…
Unless Governor Rick Perry uses his veto, Texas is set to enact the most stringent email privacy protections in the country. The legislation, passed unanimously, would require state law enforcement agencies to secure search warrants before accessing emails. Previously, Texas mirrored federal rules, which make a nonsensical distinction between recent…
Delia Jasso has long been an ally to the LGBT community. One of her first major initiatives upon joining the City Council in 2009 was to organize the LGBT Task Force. More recently, she was among the first to put her name to a resolution in support of gay marriage…
In terms of the way we treat school superintendents in Dallas, we’re kind of like the spoiled rich lady who fires her housekeepers one after another, then asks, “What on earth is wrong with the housekeepers of this world?” I can’t even count how many times in the last month…
On March 5, the Wichita Falls Police Department took a call from a man who threatened to blow up the federal courthouse in Dallas. Why he was relaying this information to Wichita Falls police, or why he thought it wise to inform law enforcement of his plans, wasn’t clear. But…
Broderic Allen, aka Ballen, aka B.A., is an aspiring Dallas rapper and member of local hip-hop collective The Chaos Theory. But it’s not his music that’s landed him on TV, and on AOL News, and in the U.K.’s Daily Mail. All that stems from his drinking habits or, more accurately,…
Early on Tuesday morning, Jerry Waller woke to a noise coming from outside the garage of his home on a quiet street near Woodhaven Country Club in East Fort Worth. It was about 1 a.m. when the 72-year-old stepped outside to investigate. He grabbed his .38-caliber handgun just to be…
There’s really no legitimate reason to ever carry an ice pick in Dallas. That rule applies year-round (ice comes in cubes nowadays), but it’s particularly true in late May, when temps dip to a not-quite-frigid 75 degrees. That point was driven home in extremely painful fashion early this morning at…
It was only a matter of time, really before this happened. Put giant B’s and G’s around the city as part of the official “Big Things Happen Here” marketing campaign, and someone will eventually think “You know what? A penis is shaped kinda like an ‘I.'” Then, it’s only a…
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Dallas financier Barrett Wissman is not entirely on the up-and-up. That story he told hedge fund colleagues of taking over his father’s sizable chemical company two years out of college? D reported that it was a tiny company that manufactured tablecloths and lawn-care…
There would be some practical questions that would have to be answered if the Texas Department of Transportation decided to tear down I-345, the short stump of Central Expressway between Woodall Rodgers and Interstate 30. Where will one find shade at Bark Park Central? Where will those artsy, bohemian types…
Oh, JCPenney. The Plano-based department store chain just cannot seem to stop stepping in it, in the weirdest ways possible. Last year, there was Gay Dad-Gate, in which the company pissed off homophobes everywhere by featuring a photo of two gay fathers in its catalog, just after it had the…
Type Jerome Oberlton’s name into Google, and one of the first things to pop up is a Baltimore Sun article detailing all the places he used the local school district’s credit cards. These included businesses like Bath & Body Works and Ross, which would seem to provide little of use…
