This picture is a little less magical when you learn that it’s part of the Dallas Zoo’s annual Wildlife Education Day at Rangers Ballpark rather than, say, an adorable inter-species friendship struck up between some baseball-loving African penguins and Captain, the team’s equine mascot. But it’s still pretty damn magical…
Judging from some pretty spectacular video clips and photos, it’s little short of a miracle no one was killed in the December 3 fire that destroyed The Arbors of Las Colinas apartment complex in Irving. As it was, only one resident was taken to the hospital after falling from a…
Thirty years ago, no one in the U.S. knew what the hell a zebra mussel was. Five years back, the stories of the damage they can wreak on municipal water systems and aquatic ecosystems were still a fairy tale for Texans. Fifteen months ago, wildlife officials remained confident that the…
The announcement dispatched by Dallas ISD a few minutes ago about the restructuring of Superintendent Mike Miles’ top staff describes it as “a reorganization of the district’s academic operations” that will give four current mid-level administrators a chance to prove themselves at the top. Miles is quoted as saying he’s…
First of all, let’s dispense with a very basic fact: everyone loves fried chicken. With the possible exception of vegetarians — who, let’s be honest, are just lying to themselves — and some remote, yet-to-be-discovered hen worshipers in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, the fact that an individual enjoys…
Most area churches have been relatively cautious in reacting to the recent vote by the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America to lift its century-old ban on gay scouts. First Baptist’s Robert Jeffress rather predictably suggested that the move contradicts a scout’s promise to be “morally straight,” but the outcry here…
Dallas police showed up at a North Dallas home in April to check on the woman who lived there. She was alive, and so were the 46 dogs and cats with whom she shared the home. Dallas Animal Services manager Jody Jones says there were “huge amount of feces” in…
We’re not sure exactly what authorities thought was going on in the storefront Asian massage parlors that dot strip centers across North Texas. They seem to have taken the ads promising “Fantastic Good Massage” from “Cute & Pretty Staff” at face value. Plano Police Chief Greg Rushin says his department…
At about this time each year, Mattel rolls out a new collection of University Barbies®, who are invariably clad in pom poms and cheerleading outfits, the logo of their favorite educational institution emblazoned across their perky plastic chests. This year, the toy maker threw the Barbie-collecting community a curve ball…
Out of the entire universe full of objects of potential interest to human beings, there’s only one thing Clayton Earthman enjoys enough to like on Facebook. It’s Doomsday Preppers, the National Geographic reality show about otherwise sane Americans steeling themselves for the post-apocalyptic nightmare they’re sure is just around the…
University Park’s old system of parking enforcement relied on humans and was, therefore, fallible. In un-metered, high-traffic areas like Snider Plaza and the Miracle Mile on Lovers Lane, an officer would mark car tires with chalk so it was easy to tell which ones had exceeded the two-hour parking limit…
For almost two years now, like an angry minnow nibbling at a whale, a coalition of labor groups operating as OURWalmart has been organizing nationwide protests against the retail giant, complaining of low wages, terrible benefits and the company’s general hostility toward organized labor. It started in late 2011, when…
Two years ago, after their cameras were denied entry to a secretive government immigration camps on Christmas Island, the Australian version of 60 Minutes piloted a small, unmanned aircraft above the island detention center. A few months later, activists in Poland dispatched a drone to document the abuses of riot…
Arboretum officials were understandably cautious when they unveiled early plans for a Garland Road parking garage last night. The memory of the public uprising and PR debacle that greeted a proposal to park cars on Winfrey Point is no doubt fresh on their minds, so they made clear that the…
William Wylly Lamar is something of a rock star amongst readers of sites like HerpNation.com and WildHerps.com. His reptile-capturing skills — we’re talking herpetology here, folks — are unparalleled, as is his knowledge. He wrote the book on venomous snakes. Several books, actually, including his magnum opus, the two-volume The…
Richie Whitt and Greg “Greggo” Williams have now had two months to reflect on CBS’s unceremonious cancellation of The Rage, their drive-time sports talk show on 105.3 The Fan, and they’ve come to starkly different conclusions. Greggo chalked it all up to ratings, which he says had dropped. Whitt, a…
It’s been more than three years since the City of Dallas first began moving CNG-powered cabs to the front of the line of taxis at Love Field. The protesters have long since vacated the City Hall plaza, and the city’s attention has inevitably drifted. But through it all, the cabbies…
At first glance, the ads proclaiming last week’s grand opening of the JJ Health Center might have appeared to suggest something more than a massage. The massive amounts of cleavage, the pining eyes and lingerie uniforms of the “Friendly Charming Attentants,” the scantily clad masseuse doing what appears to be…
The Arlington Parks Department described the crime in clinical terms. Vandals had come in the night and defaced a piece of playground equipment at Allen Saxe Park, causing $5,000 in damage. But the detached language masked some strong emotions. This wasn’t just any old jungle gym. This was Nessie, which…
Every year, something like 6,000 Dallas County residents are diagnosed with HIV, giving us the dubious honor of having the highest infection rate in the state. The statistics are particularly grim for gay black men, who contract the disease at an alarming rate. Dallas County Health Director Zachary Thompson knows…
When The Dallas Morning News announced three months ago that it would be rolling out the most definitive ranking of the area’s neighborhoods in history, I put my money on Frisco. Not real money, mind you; if I had that, I could afford to commute from Frisco. But I was…
The city of Dallas recently sent out a survey to a few thousand lucky residents asking them to assess the state of the city. It’s partly for quality control, a way of ensuring the city is accountable to its customers, partly a self-congratulatory pat on the back, since the folks…
