Dallas County had long since forgotten what the metal plate above the water fountain in the Records Building was meant to conceal when, in 2003, it fell off. Even then, you had to be looking for it to notice the faded remnants of the “White Only” sign on the marble…
When the news came out that Avi Adelman, who stood sentinel over Lower Greenville for a quarter century, had sold his Belmont Avenue home, he was cagey when asked where he was heading. We now know the answer is Junius Heights, where he and his wife have purchased a modest,…
The Fort Worth Cats, Cowtown’s minor league baseball club, was supposed to make good on its debts on January 15, 2013. That’s at least what the team’s owner, former Congressman John Bryant, told us last December, explaining that the team was experiencing an acute but temporary cash shortage after the…
State Senator Wendy Davis’ epic abortion filibuster in June inspired many things: a spike in pink Mizuno sales; imaginary jars of human excrement; an unfamiliar sense of accomplishment among Texas Democrats. And now, a video game. The New York Daily News brings us the story of “Choice: Texas,” which its…
David Hartman’s death at the hands of Highland Park police back in June was weird. For starters, there was the shooting itself. The 32-year-old had already been searched and was handcuffed in the back of the squad car when police say he managed to pull out a handgun and shoot…
Details are scant so far. A spokesperson for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport tells Unfair Park he can’t release a police report or discuss any of the facts of the case until the legal department takes a look at it. He did, however, confirm that Shemane Ann Nugent, wife of rocker…
A couple of years ago, Dallas police officers parked one of their bait cars outside an apartment complex in West Oak Cliff, complete with a set of keys and unlocked doors. But the man who took the car, 31-year-old Louis Torres, didn’t bother with the keys; he used a tow…
Hispanics have boycotted Farmers Branch before. In 2006, as the city was first considering a crackdown on illegal immigrants, including an instantaneously infamous rental ban, immigrant rights activists called for supporters to shop and conduct business elsewhere. It didn’t work. Tim O’Hare, the city councilman who proposed the crackdown to…
There are plenty of examples in Texas of some poor middle schooler getting a ticket for chewing gum at school, or nodding off in class, or wearing too much perfume, or something similarly outrageous. But to those pushing to reform the way school discipline is meted out in the state,…
Late Wednesday morning, would-be customers of Teskey’s Saddle Shop, both in Weatherford and Fort Worth, were surprised to find themselves turned away from a store that was under federal lockdown. Went to Teskey’s to buy hay and they were on lock down and cop said federal investigation. What’s up?— BrookeJeter…
Even when the USDA rolled out the new, healthier, Michelle Obama-approved version of the National School Lunch Program last year, there were grumblings. Kids complained that the new menu, which includes generous helpings of fruits and vegetables while capping meat, carbohydrates, and overall caloric intake, has “ruined school lunches” and…
Just as the Dallas City Council shot down an energy company’s plans to drill for gas in the city limits, a new study raises further questions about the role energy exploration plays in small earthquakes shaking up Texas. Earlier research has linked quakes to the disposal of fracking fluid. So…
He had an uncanny knack for finding tornadoes. Then one found him.
After nearly seven years, Trinity East has its answer. It all began when the Fort Worth independent answered a call put out by a cash-strapped city for bids to sink natural gas wells into the far eastern frontier of the Barnett Shale — unproven territory few operators had ventured into…
District Attorney Craig Watkins has escaped from the contempt-of-court allegations that have dogged him for six months like Charlie Brown’s personal rain cloud. A specially appointed judge — a Republican from Wichita Falls who is far removed from Dallas County political intrigue — ruled that the hearing at which he…
It’s such a familiar scenario, you suspect there’s some sort of script. Some fresh-faced young man, or else an adult whose face is a bit too weathered for their years, knocks on the door. They’re a troubled youth in a crime-ridden urban area, a single parent trying to make ends…
More than 100 people filed into Dallas City Hall this morning to speak on the city’s proposal to regulate Uber out of existence. The expected showdown, however, will have to wait after the City Council unanimously approved an investigation into how the proposed rules were developed and wound up on…
The legal fight aimed at halting the advance of the Keystone pipeline through Texas was cut off at the knees on Tuesday. A state appeals court in Texarkana threw out Lamar County landowner Julia Trigg Crawford’s lawsuit against TransCanada, rejecting arguments that Keystone can’t condemn land because it’s an interstate…
Late one night in July 2009, Sachse police officer Kenneth Paul Smith happened upon a 13-year-old girl in a car with her boyfriend. When they tried to drive away, he turned on the lights and made them stop. It was around 3 a.m. when Smith arrived with the girl at…
Luminant, the Dallas-based energy generator, has long been a ripe target for environmentalists, who complain that its aging, coal-fueled power plants — in particular North/Northeast Texas’ Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello — are fouling the air with extraordinary amounts of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases. Under the Obama Administration,…
Dallas ISD warned parents that it might not be a yellow school bus picking up their kids at their stops on the first day of school Monday morning. Smaller routes, like those serving magnets, would be served by a contractor, which promised to shuttle students in a van, SUVs or…
The soccer fields at the city’s $31.4 million Elm Fork Athletic Complex, at the western terminus of Walnut Hill Lane, are still several months from being put to use. City crews have been obsessively tending the sod this summer with an eye toward keeping it “in perfect condition” for next…
