On Friday afternoon came the unheralded release of a pretty important preliminary analysis from the State Department regarding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a conduit for diluted bitumen mined in Alberta and destined for the Texas Gulf Coast petroleum refineries. The takeaway, however, has to be depressing for the climate-change…
File this one under things we’re surprised to learn didn’t happen 50 years ago: the folks at Texas Motor Speedway announced today that the National Rifle Association — as in the rabidly pro-gun lobbying group — is now the title sponsor of the NASCAR race there this spring. But no…
On Friday afternoon, Lieutenant Regina Smith walked away from the Lucille Baller fiasco with a five-day suspension for bringing discredit to the Dallas Police Department. It seems a fair enough sentence for conduct that, while demonstrating hilariously bad judgment, did no real damage to anyone save for those of us…
It was only fitting that Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher whose name is more or less synonymous with the Texas Rangers, would swoop in to help save the club from Tom Hicks two-and-a-half years ago. But his tenure in the team’s front office may be coming to an…
If you’re tired of seeing the Reverend Robert Jeffress’ elfin little face at every turn, it might be best to avoid the highway for awhile. The pastor, along with one of his most charming quotes — “What they [homosexuals] do is filthy” — will be appearing on a billboard along…
In June, after months of debate and a glaring need, the Dallas City Council passed an ordinance regulating the 300 or so boarding homes that provide — or sometimes merely purport to — shelter and support to the mentally ill. The ordinance addresses a wide range of issues, from sexual…
The budget ax brought down by the state legislature in 2011 gouged a huge chunk from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which lost more than a fifth of its funding. The result was layoffs and a reduction in staffing and hours of operation at a number of state parks…
Dallas police officers Randolph Dillion and Jon Llewellyn were passing through an apartment complex on West Camp Wisdom Road at about 9 p.m. on December 9, 2011 when they spotted Melvin Williams from their squad car taking something — drugs, they suspected — from a man in a parked car…
On Friday afternoon, a bit more than a week after fairly high-ranking officials in the Russian government began lobbing allegations of unspeakable child abuse against a Texas couple, authorities have ruled the death of their adopted Russian son an accident. The Ector County sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices held a…
One of human evolution’s oft-ignored benefits is a man’s ability to conveniently piss on whatever tree, shrub, brush pile, patch of concrete, patch of grass, building facade, or garbage can happens to be at hand. It’s liberating. But with great freedom comes danger. One potential pitfall was made clear to…
The website and Facebook pages for The Master’s Hand Medical Center in Grand Prairie, which later changed its name to the Master’s Hand Spa, have been taken down. The traces that are left on the Internet indicate it offered weight loss treatments, botox, lipo-laser, as well as massages and other…
Just in case all this temperate whether has lulled you into the perception that the Texas power grid doesn’t have the thinnest margin of safety between lights on and lights out anywhere in the country, here’s a reminder: Summer is coming. ERCOT, the grid operator for most of Texas, says…
I’ve got a really tough day ahead…not looking forward to the decisions I will have to make on some officers careers— David O. Brown (@DPDChief) March 1, 2013 If you follow Dallas Police Chief David Brown on Twitter, you were greeted this morning with the ominous announcement above. We’re still…
State Representative Helen Giddings was one of several Democratic lawmakers invited to the Governor’s Mansion Monday afternoon for a reception hosted by the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. But she never showed up. Giddings declined the invitation to protest the requirement that she undergo a background check before being admitted to…
On Wednesday, we watched together as the Dallas City Council sort of, kind of, attempted to ask City Manager Mary Suhm and City Attorney Tom Perkins a couple of questions. Namely: Why did Suhm quietly sign a side deal with energy company Trinity East, pledging to help it drill on…
Yesterday, we told you about an unfortunate area man whose plans for a Craigslist threesome resulted in zero threesomes and one potential watch theft. I indicated that I believed it was unlikely that a threesome would ever arise from a Craigslist-type situation, as finding even one woman who, A) doesn’t…
SMU still hasn’t released many details about what happened at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house on the night of February 10, just that a student was “assaulted and held against his will” and that the fraternity, which also counts 19-year-old John David Mahaffey as a member, had been temporarily suspended…
On March 22, 2011, SMU officials issued a safety alert to students and staff advising them to be on the lookout for Daniel Hux, a recently expelled student who had been barred from campus. The fliers didn’t go into detail about why Hux wasn’t allowed at the university, and SMU…
On Tuesday, beer drinkers in three states filed federal lawsuits against Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer and the purveyor of Budweiser, Bud Light Lime, Michelob Ultra and other innovative beer and beer-like products. A Dallas-area drinker has now joined their ranks. Michael Seidenstein, a 30-something man who owns property…
In the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook, Don Dunn, the superintendent at Van ISD, 70 miles southeast of Dallas, sent a memo to parents explaining what the district was doing post-Sandy Hook to ensure students’ safety. These included adding school resource officers, brushing up on emergency drills, locking…
Last week, the number of drilling rigs operating in the Barnett Shale, the massive natural gas reservoir that underlies much of North Texas, dropped to 27, the lowest figure in a decade. But the boom’s not over quite yet. There may be less drilling going on at the moment, but…
Last Tuesday, Dallas County District Judge Emily Tobolowsky temporary halted Heritage Auctions’ planned sale of the 1959 Masters green jacket. Augusta National, the famed Georgia golf club that hosts the tournament, had sued Heritage to have the auction stopped, claiming that the jacket had been stolen by former employees and…
