The Dallas Plan Commission voted to delay any decision on permitting natural gas wells in the Trinity River floodplain, telegraphing a clear message Thursday to City Council: Your move. Commissioner Gloria Tarpley remains none too pleased about being asked to consider a permit that currently runs afoul of city code’s…
So here’s what happened. Dallas-based SCA Promotions, a sports insurer, paid Lance Armstrong a $12 million bonus for winning three Tour de France titles between 2002 and 2004. Tailwind Sports, which owned the U.S. Postal Service (Armstrong’s) team, gave SCA Promotions $200,000 as insurance for the bonus. If Armstrong didn’t…
So Mayor Mike Rawlings responded, sort of, to Schutze’s post this morning about City Manager Mary Suhm’s double-super-secret letter of understanding with gas drilling company Trinity East, in which she promised the city’s staff would do its level best to get the company the permits it needs to drill on…
When SMU announced in April that it had hired Larry Brown, the only man to have coached teams to both the NCAA and NBA championships, to lead the Mustangs, a lot of head-scratching ensued. It was hard to fathom why SMU would put its basketball program in the hands of…
Larry Lake and his wife, Kathy, were living a comfortable life in the Dallas suburbs until October 2010, when federal agents abruptly descended on their Colleyville home and left with some $6 million in cash. The money, it seems, was legit, simply the revenue from Lakes’ companies, namely Grapevine Drug…
Over the past few months, we’ve brought you sporadic updates on Cody Wilson, a UT Austin law student who heads up a group called Defense Distributed. They want to make a printable gun, an ambition that’s brought much hand-wringing and even got their rented 3-D printer repo-ed back in October…
Opponents of Trinity East’s plan to drill for natural gas inside the Trinity River floodplain say Plan Commission Chair Joe Alcantar of pressing his fellow commissioners outside of public meetings or lawful closed-door deliberations to reconsider the permit. In a complaint filed with the District Attorney’s public integrity division Wednesday,…
Documents released yesterday evening by the city reveal that Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm signed a side deal with a gas-drilling company five years ago to help the company win drilling rights on city parkland, even though she had assured the City Council and park board that drilling on parkland…
It’s T-minus three hours until all hell breaks loose at City Hall, as the Plan Commission meets to decide whether to let Trinity East Energy drill for natural gas in Dallas parkland, and things are already starting to simmer. Case in point is a letter sent this week to Mayor…
You’ll remember David Womble as the charming Dallas County maintenance supervisor who, according to several former jail employees, once donned a set of fake gold teeth during a meeting with subordinates, said something to the effect of “This is how we do it in the ‘hood,” and began to strut…
Sheila Stanmore buried her husband, Kevin, in May 2008 after he was killed in a standoff with Grand Prairie Police. At least, she thought she buried him. But what she and the couple’s three daughters laid to rest at Community Missionary Baptist Church in Desoto wasn’t quite what she thought…
In 2005, Texas voters considered adding an amendment to the state constitution declaring that marriage “shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman” and forbidding any formal recognition of same-sex unions ratified elsewhere. The measure, controversial only insomuch as some conservatives feared that the language of…
In this week’s cover story, we examine the demise of Irving-based Hostess, purveyor of Wonder Bread, Ho Hos, Twinkies and Ding Dongs — basically all the stuff you should never put in your body. These days, pretty much everything is political, even the fate of snack food. Can blame for…
In the predawn hours on Saturday, January 26, University of North Texas student Dustin Starks, 20, fell from the balcony of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity house. He survived, but just barely. Nearly two weeks later, he remains at Parkland Hospital in serious condition. In the wake of the accident,…
In the years leading up to the collapse of Hostess — baker of Wonder Bread, Twinkies and Ding Dongs — it wouldn’t have required a peek at the company’s closely held books to figure out it was in trouble. Ask the guys who baked the snack cakes and bread. Ask…
The Environmental Protection Agency — that scourge of freedom-loving Texans — just released a nifty little interactive greenhouse-gas database that will almost certainly threaten your liberty, the free market and the Second Amendment, somehow. For starters, the data it compiled indicates Dallas-based electricity generator Luminant plays second fiddle to only…
For years, DART’s been planning to stick a second rail line downtown, the better to handle the convergence of what is now four separate rail lines. A three-year study was completed back in 2010, and the list of possible routes was whittled down to four alternatives, all traveling through Victory…
On February 4 a 30-second radio ad featuring none other than Governor Rick Perry started its week-long run in six California cities. The ad features the governor’s voice tempting the state’s businesses to relocate to Texas: “Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is…
The Morning News sat down this morning for a jailhouse interview with Chung Kim, the 75-year-old charged with murdering his upstairs neighbors on Monday, and his version of events differs somewhat from the police’s narrative, which is that he became enraged when dog shit landed on his porch and hunted…
Back in December, freshman state representative Jason Villalba, who hails from North Dallas, got a lot of attention for his plan to file a bill allowing Texas school teachers to carry guns. The bill, which he’s calling the Protection of Texas Children Act, would allow certain school district employees to…
America, it seems, was waiting with bated breath this morning as the Boy Scouts of America board of directors, meeting in Irving, was expected to vote on ending its longstanding ban on gays. America will have to keep waiting. The organization announced this morning that the board has decided to…
When the first season of the revamped Dallas debuted in June, it was described in the trade press as a ratings gusher, pulling in a solid 6.9 million viewers. It seems that the ratings bonanza is now over. The show’s second season pulled in fewer than 3 million viewers, a…
