Neola Robinson told police that she’d last seen her husband on Memorial Day 2010, when he’d left their Tarrant County home and run off with another woman. That wasn’t entirely far-fetched. Ervin “Shorty” Robinson had already been married several times when he and Neola got together. Still, something about the…
At this point last year, Dallas County had already recorded a handful of West Nile deaths, a figure that would ramp up to 19 in the following weeks and months as the number of infections skyrocketed. But the West Nile outbreak of 2012, which resulted in a record 286 death…
On Saturday, the morning after they returned from out of town, David Underwood and his wife decided they ought to stop by their house on Watercress Drive in Fort Worth. The couple doesn’t live there at the moment; the modest, ranch-style affair overlooking the northwest corner of Lake Worth belonged…
Back in June we reported on Cairo, the snotty-nosed tiger at In-Sync Exotics, an animal rescue society in Wylie. When Cairo seized earlier this summer it was the first sign of a canine distemper outbreak at the sanctuary, and since then roughly a third of the 60 lions and tigers…
The summer of 2011 will go down as one of the hottest, driest years on record. Heat drove Texans to their thermostats and the electric grid to the brink of rolling blackouts. Tuesday, with those unbelievable temperatures in mind, grid managers convened to discuss whether they should raise the target…
Police don’t say why 24-year-old Victor Cruz was walking down a dark street in Pleasant Grove at 4 o’clock on Monday morning with his backpack. That’s just where he happened to be when the silver Pontiac pulled up beside him. The man that stepped from the driver’s seat was carrying…
By the time neighbors caught wind of Walmart’s plans to build a scaled-down Supercenter at the corner of Coit and Arapaho roads in Far North Dallas, it was too late. The retailer already had the proper zoning and had just signed a long-term lease. No matter how many yard signs…
Robert Lewis III never meant for any of the assault rifles he assembles in his Northwest Dallas home to wind up hidden in a pickup truck bound for Mexico. He considers his gun-making more hobby than profession, though he did reportedly sell some to a guy down in Houston from…
Back in April, Coppell Deputy Police Chief Matthew Kosec abruptly resigned from the department. He didn’t give a reason, nor did the city, which said only that he’d been on administrative leave for weeks while an internal affairs investigation was conducted. Meanwhile, both The Dallas Morning News and CBS 11…
The Lewisville City Council voted unanimously last night to redefine the city’s official definition of nudity, thereby outlawing the body paint, gumballs and various other non-clothes occasionally used to cover the lady parts of servers at Redneck Heaven. We covered this way too extensively yesterday. The whole episode was instructive,…
Late Saturday night, a jury arrived at the unanimous conclusion that George Zimmerman had not committed an act of murder when he shot an unarmed teen named Trayvon Martin. As Jim Schutze noted earlier, Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows for the use of deadly force without the retreat…
Get your tissues ready: Exxon Mobil gives some of its money to charities in Africa, according to a lengthy report in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. The DMN politely explains that Exxon has a “complicated” relationship with Africa. On the one hand, critics say that Exxon isn’t transparent about where its…
Today was supposed to be the day when we found out whether District Attorney Craig Watkins’ contempt of court citation would be upheld. State District Judge Bob Brotherton traveled here from Wichita Falls just to make the decision. What he decided instead was that the original contempt charge hadn’t been…
Dealey Plaza: A Long and Rich History from City of Dallas on Vimeo.The powers that be have made it abundantly clear that they plan on tightly controlling the message around the November anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination. They’ve made it equally clear that they are going to do…
The city of Lewisville has an uneasy relationship with Redneck Heaven, the local chain of Southern-themed breastaurants. On the one hand, it’s a thriving business that boosts the local economy. “They have their niche in the market. They certainly know their target clientele, and they appeal to those people,” explains…
A quick glance at Rode Don Simmons’ Facebook page is enough to tell you that the 21-year-old enjoys guns, but that’s par for the course in semi-rural North Texas. A young man can’t very well shoot ducks and feral hogs without a trusty gun or two. But Simmons’ passion for…
Erich Spangenberg, like others in his trade, would prefer that you refer to his stable of companies as “patent assertion entities.” But he has a thick skin; you’re more than welcome to call him a troll, so long as you point out that he is, in fact, the world’s biggest…
A few years ago, in a case fracking opponents believed was the smoking gun they’d been waiting for, the Texas Railroad Commission sided with the industry. It said that Parker County homeowner Steve Lipsky’s gaseous and incredibly flammable water well was a product of naturally occurring, biogenic methane originating in…
Cathedral Guadalupe — or, more verbosely, the Cathedral Shrine of Our Lady Guadalupe — is a magnificent building. Hewn from red brick and limestone, the stately, 111-year-old Neo-Gothic church stands sentry on the corner of Ross Avenue and Olive Street in the Arts District, housing the second largest Catholic conregation…
It all comes down to this. For real this time. The Senate is just about to begin final consideration of HB 2 which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, would ban abortion after 20 weeks, require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, and make…
Every so often, Dwaine Caraway or another southern Dallas City Council member will put on a hard hat, head to an old drug house and glad-hand the media while the National Guard demolishes the building. As pure spectacle, it’s quite satisfying. It’s a tangible gesture that showcases the city’s commitment…
The abortion debate is a Gordian knot wrapped in a koan stuck in an inescapable quagmire. It’s not, in other words, a matter that can be settled through dialogue, reasoned or otherwise, as the Texas Legislature has so amply proved over the past month. That hasn’t stopped people from trying…
