Designing woman: July has been a grim month for Texas education. First there was the report that students taking early versions of the state’s new end-of-course exams failed miserably. The worst performance was 42 percent in physics, but at least students know where their cell phones come from — China,…
The email said to meet at the Walnut Hill Recreation Center, corner of Midway and Walnut Hill, at 12:15 sharp. “Look for the Rolls-Royce.” (A borrowed 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe, if you must know, and you must.) That, said the missive, is where I would find Robbie Van Winkle…
According to the Dallas City Attorney’s Office, a self-proclaimed church near Northwest Highway and Webb Chapel Road is anything but. Says a complaint filed today in advance of a late-afternoon hearing, whatever Glen Hudson says he’s operating at 3027 W. Northwest Highway, not far from where all those Bachman Lake-area…
Rais Bhuiyan’s attempts to spare the life of Mark Stroman, the white supremacist who shot him in the face and killed two other men he believed to be Muslim in the days following September 11, 2001, have failed: A federal judge down in Austin denied the Dallas man’s petition for…
This morning at the Museum of Nature & Science in Fair Park, a group of very small people in oversized white lab coats were intently pulverizing strawberries in plastic bags. “Smash your strawberry into as fine a mess as you can,” urged their instructor, a considerably taller person, also lab-coated…
It was mighty big news last month when Dallas attorney Levi McCathern shot and killed that 880-pound, 14-foot-long alligator along the Trinity River down in Leon County — big enough that it made CNN, matter of fact. Said the proud lawyer for the Dallas Cowboys, “We got a lot of…
As you’ve probably heard, the Texas Board of Education is in the process of picking new supplemental science materials that will be used to complement the state’s outdated science textbooks. The state hopes you understand that it totally would have bought new textbooks, but it blew all the book money…
A few weeks ago I was talking to Office of Economic Development head honcho Karl Zavitkovsky about something unrelated when he mentioned the petition drive aimed at convincing Trader Joe’s to open a location at the Lake Highlands Town Center, where the city’s kicking in millions in extra TIF funding…
Late Tuesday I got an email from Jonathon Hetzel of Madison Partners, which is trying to roll out that bowling alley on Lowest Greenville that once more goes in front of the City Plan Commission tomorrow. He noted the myriad comments accompanying yesterday’s item and said perhaps he could lend…
The champagne isn’t quite dry and the NBA lockout is just getting started, but how good does it sound to be already talking about the defending champion Mavericks? Once a soft, underachieving team that nobody outside the Metroplex gave a dang about watching, the Mavs are now national hoops darlings. With Tuesday’s…
Tuesday, Dallas gas drilling task force members — and city council members Angela Hunt, Linda Koop and, but of course, Sheffie Kadane — poured out of two white 15-passenger vans and into the 100-degree heat at XTO and Chesapeake natural gas sites in various stages of production throughout Arlington. Mayor…
Should come as no surprise because I’ve been speculating this for the last couple months, but the Cowboys are now telling the good folks in San Antonio not to expect a full, month-long training camp in their city this summer. At this point, the best bet — pending the expected lockout…
Front page of the morning’s paper has a pay-walled story about the Dallas Independent School District’s decision to “quietly” halt construction on a handful of schools due to receive ’08-bond money redos — quietly, as in, “During budget talks this spring, school leaders quietly decided to halt renovations and repairs…
10. Remember not long ago when it looked like Alexi Ogando was done? Since three sub-par starts in June he’s back to being one of the best surprises in baseball, especially after last night, when he threw eight scoreless innings and lowered his ERA to 2.72 (7th-best in the AL)…
It was revealed yesterday that Texas educators are just a wee trigger-happy when it comes to student discipline, removing almost 60 percent of the state’s students from the classroom at least once during middle and high school. Minority students are especially likely to get the boot, the Justice Center at…
Haven’t you heard? There’s gas in them thar shale formations. And if the parking lot outside of the Intercontinental Hotel in Addison was any indication this morning, a goodly number of the players are in town, looking to make fat deals. You could tell because parking was spilling out into…
OK, Honest Tea. You win. You too, Kat Kirsch, sender of press releases. Because for the past way too long to admit, we’ve been riveted to the tea company’s livestream from Akard and Main, where that unmanned kiosk’s been set up to see if people will leave a dollar, as…
On the other side is the announcement just in from the city of Dallas’s Public Art Coordinator Kendall Ferguson, who’s looking for someone with public-art experience to craft a “White Rock Lake Centennial Commemorative Sculpture.” Budget’s plenty big: $272,000, which would buy a ton of Dallas Farmers Market peaches (not…
This just in from the Texas Rangers’ John Blake: Beginning Friday, when the club opens a seven-game home stand against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Rangers will introduce “a series of new safety initiatives” that will pave the way for raised railings following the July 7 death of 39-year-old Brownwood…
Late on July 3 Dallas Police sent word that two men had shot to death an Oak Cliff convenience store owner … over two boxes of onions. As Byron Harris noted a day later, Quick Check Grocery’s Jin Ha was beloved by folks living near the store at Illinois Avenue…
This afternoon, the Dallas City Council-approved gas drilling task force will take a field trip out to where gas wells are more abundant than Tex-Mex joints and compressor stations roar as though ready to blast off. That place is Arlington. The band of day-trippers leaves from Dallas City Hall at…
No doubt you’ve heard of plans to plant a six-lane bowling alley-slash-bar next to Good Records on Lowest Greenville. It was on the City Plan Commission’s agenda two weeks ago, at the same time the CPC replatted Valley View Center to make way for its inevitable demolition. Problem was, neighborhood…
