Local officials here are doing a lousy job providing us information about the pandemic. The Dallas County Health Department COVID-19 webpage looks like a DOS-based jigsaw puzzle from the 1990s. You don’t know what DOS was, right? My point exactly. (It was an early and now primitive computer operating system.)…
For many Texans, the coronavirus pandemic and the changes it’s inflicted on their everyday lives are merely a bad inconvenience. They can’t go to restaurants, have to home-school their kids and are facing the physical and mental struggles of indeterminate monotony. Others face more serious consequences, like the loss of…
Last week two prominent African American voices in Dallas spoke to the particular threat that COVID-19 poses to the city’s minority poor community. What they said raises an unavoidable and ugly question: What if the two best ways to defend against the pandemic turn out to be being white and…
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price won a significant fight with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins Tuesday afternoon, expanding the county’s definition of essential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic and ensuring that the full Commissioners Court will have a say in how long the county’s shelter-in-place order lasts. At a…
The entire fight between Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott should have lasted about five minutes. Once Abbott heard from the federal government that they were afraid Jenkins didn’t plan to use the temporary hospital that’s being staged at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, he…
As they scramble to move their classes online and figure out how to teach from home while their campuses are shut down, some college professors across Texas have found yet another challenge to contend with: internet trolls. Last month, colleges and universities nationwide shut down their campuses and sent students…
Dallas ISD students are continuing to learn during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but they are unlikely to return to the classroom this year, district Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said during a news conference Monday. The district will make a final determination in short order he said. “We’re very close to making…
When this is over, it will just be beginning. The global pandemic already is shaking the foundations of class, capitalism and nationhood all over the world. Some people see it. Some don’t. Here in Dallas, our mayor is an unfortunate example of don’t. According to the most recent population estimates…
The long haul is getting longer. Friday morning, Dallas County Commissioners voted to extend the county’s Public Health Emergency until May 20. That means all residents of the county will continue to shelter in place for at least the next six weeks, barring intervention from Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins…
Like the rest of the country, Texas, the second-largest state both in population and land area, is in the midst of a public health crisis. In the state’s largest counties, the number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus is rising drastically each day. Gov. Greg Abbott has shut down…
As thousands and thousands of Texans continue to lose their jobs as the state and the rest of the world suffer through the COVID-19 pandemic, the Texas Workforce Commission has been overwhelmed. The commission’s phone lines have been overwhelmed, and its website huffs, puffs and stalls during high-traffic hours. The…
A bit of happy news amid the coronavirus darkness: Texas Rangers outfielder Shin-Soo Choo is extending a big helping hand to every player in the Rangers’ minor league system. According to multiple reports, Choo is giving all 190 Rangers minor leaguers $1,000 to help them navigate the coming weeks and…
Dallas ISD students who don’t have internet access at home may have to wait a few weeks to receive mobile Wi-Fi hot spots. At a meeting last week, the district’s board of trustees voted unanimously to spend up to $2.5 million to buy 12,000 mobile hot spots to send home…
As a former conservative talk radio host and current elected official, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick surely must know the prime directive for American politicians: Do NOT screw with the olds. They vote. Maybe he forgot. He is, after all, getting on in years. He turns 70 on Saturday. In…
By now we are all sort of aware of the story of President Donald Trump and General Motors and the ventilator shortage. I haven’t quite kept up with the inner detail. There was a request for GM to manufacture ventilators and then a voluntary consent and then some kind of…
As layoffs and cut hours because of the coronavirus hit Texas, food banks are scrambling to meet the needs of people who can no longer afford food.
These are such strange times. They should be awful, and they are. We know it hasn’t hit yet, not the way it will. I don’t know about you, but I feel fear. But then I also feel something else — an inkling, but I’m not at all sure inkling of…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s coronavirus abortion ban is back in place thanks to an emergency stay from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The stay, according to the court, was issued so that it can give full consideration to an emergency appeal from the Texas attorney general. The ban…
Advice from DFW plumbers during the COVID-19 crisis: stop flushing weird stuff down the toilet. Because of our bizarre, virus-fueled run on toilet paper, many area residents are being forced to resort to alternative options. Kleenex. Wet wipes. Paper towels. Napkins. No reports yet of leaves or corn cobs, but…
Despite Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s best efforts to make hay while the coronavirus spreads, abortion remains as legal in Texas as it was before the virus hit, following a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel. A little more than a week ago,…
Dallas Area Rapid Transit is going to keep going amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, the agency announced Monday, but it plans to cut back service. Beginning Monday, April 6, each of the agency’s light-rail lines will run every 20 minutes on weekdays, a cut from typical service, and many buses…
State and federal officials are setting up a pop-up hospital at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in downtown Dallas to help expand the number of hospital beds available as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continues to grow. During a news conference Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott said the…
