It’s always been nearly impossible to compare prices between hospitals. For one, most people who find themselves in an emergency room don’t have the leisure to shop around. Even if they do, where are they going to turn? Healthcare providers don’t typically put their prices on billboards. The opacity of…
Even with two seats in limbo, the complexion of the new Dallas City Council looks decidedly unfavorable for Trinity East, the would-be fracker from Fort Worth that paid the city millions for the rights to its natural gas. Because the Plan Commission voted against the company’s drilling permits, four “no”…
Right now, the City Council is debating whether to lower fees and loosen the rules governing what businesses can put on sidewalks and public rights of way, the idea being that more sidewalk cafes and awnings and creative signage and landscaping can help create a more enjoyable urban experience. Planners…
It was a really nice day yesterday, wasn’t it? Not too windy, not too hot, not too humid. Perfect Sunday weather, all the better to sit in the park, feel the fresh air, and, with any luck, not have some asshole come along and kick you in the face. See…
Spoiler alert: Charlotte Brown did not win the state pole vaulting championship over the weekend. The sophomore at Emory Rains High School, 70 miles east of here, cleared 10’6″ on Saturday, putting her eighth out of nine contestants and more than two feet shy of victory. Still, her performance was…
There was a City Council election on Saturday and, if you’re like the vast majority of Dallas, you didn’t notice. But whether you were paying attention or not, some important things were decided and some interesting trends emerged. Here’s what you need to know: Angela Hunt’s legacy: Saturday’s most interesting…
Ever since they parted ways with ESPN Dallas, sports talk duo Ben Rogers and Skin Wade have hinted that they had something else lined up. They’ve just been vague about what exactly that might be. No longer. As Rogers announced a few minutes ago, he and Wade have officially found…
Typically, Dallas saves its wilder side for the weekend. That’s when, once the booze and drugs are flowing in earnest, the weird crimes tend to happen. But the weekend arrived early, with police reporting an armed diaper bag robbery, a Craigslist heist and a low-budget movie production scaring the bejesus…
Updated below. Original story, 10:05 a.m.: An EMT and incident commander with West Emergency Medical Services was arrested early this morning on charges of possessing a “destructive device,” multiple media outlets are reporting. Bryce Reed, 31, is in federal custody. There are two different interpretations of the arrest being presented:…
Dallas ISD trustees still haven’t decided what to do about the roster of principals whose jobs could be on the chopping block. The matter has now been delayed twice, thus sparing trustees from making an extremely controversial decision until after this weekend’s election. At their meeting Thursday, trustees did manage…
You wouldn’t have expected a bill to rename a stretch of Central Expressway for George W. Bush to inspire a rare bipartisan kumbaya moment in the Texas legislature. His presidency is too recent and remains a source of bitterness for too many Democrats. But when the House vote was posted,…
It was always one of the pieces in Eric Williams’ story that didn’t quite fit a narrative with an otherwise tidy motive for murder. The disgraced former justice of the peace had appealed his April 2012 conviction on burglary charges, prosecuted vigorously by slain Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland…
We learned a little bit more yesterday about Jeff Bliss, the Duncanville High School student whose blistering classroom rant against uninspired teachers seems to have struck a nerve. He’s 18, but he’s only a high school sophomore, having dropped out of school for a year. He’s new to, and not…
It wasn’t quite heard around the world, but the shot fired by The Liberator, the plastic gun that University of Texas law student Cody Wilson designed and fabricated using a 3-D printer, was witnessed by a lot of people. It proved beyond a doubt that the gun works. What people…
Village Fair is Dallas ISD’s alternative school, where the district sends those students deemed too disruptive or unruly to function in mainstream classrooms. That it experiences its share of discipline problems is a given. But even there, the iron rule of Texas education applies: Don’t mess with the STAAR test…
MegaFest, Bishop T.D. Jakes’ massive annual gathering of evangelical Christians, is a pretty big deal, a $10 million production that draws 100,000 incredibly well-behaved visitors. The Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau was so stoked when Jakes decided to move the festival to Dallas, it chipped in a half-million dollars. But…
This year, a group of parents and administrators at the Dallas Independent School District embarked on pretty much the most thankless task there is: finding a new sex ed curriculum for the district’s students. The job is thankless in large part because no matter what they do, someone’s going to…
Trina Triche, a regular at City Hall, had been preparing her remarks for nearly a week. She was going to address the City Council on the topic of government corruption and wanted to make sure she was signed up to speak during the open mic forum that closes each meeting…
We were pretty sure that Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Ricks’ recent suggestion in the Washington Post that America exile Texas in pursuit of a more perfect union was a joke. Blaming the state for the JFK assassination (without Texas, “John F. Kennedy might still be alive”) and the wars in Iraq…
The Dallas Police Department still hasn’t given a very satisfying explanation for why it took officers so long to respond to an armed robbery and shooting at a West Dallas grocery on Sunday. Partly it was the 911 caller’s heavy accent, partly that officers were working what they thought was…
Schramms Ammo & Weapons plies its trade out of a Sunnyvale storefront, but the official headquarters listed on state incorporation papers is owner Jeffrey Schramm’s home on Park Chase Circle in Mesquite. It probably goes without saying that Schramm takes his work home with him and keeps a small arsenal…
In another era, Jeff Bliss’ phillipic against lazy and uninspired teaching would have been witnessed by a few classmates and quickly forgotten. But this is the age of cell-phone cameras and YouTube, so we get to see the full sermon the Duncanville High School student directed at Julie Phung, his…
