We knew this was coming. The North Texas Tollway Authority kind of telegraphed it when the agency announced that some 6,000 of its top scofflaws would be referred to an outside law firm for possible litigation over their toll-ignoring ways. And now, it’s here. The NTTA filed more than a…
You wouldn’t know it from glancing at his bank account, but Mark Cuban used to be poor. This isn’t exactly news. Cuban embodies the modern version of the peculiarly American up-by-the-bootstraps fairy tale, in which a hard-luck young person, through hard work and business savvy, transforms himself from struggling peon…
Improbably, the Mavericks have managed to claw their way back into the playoff hunt after a season-long funk. With 11 games to go, they are a game-and-a-half out of the final Western Conference playoff slot, currently occupied by the Lakers, and have been gaining fast, winning nine of their last…
When a planned Downtown Dallas-to-McKinney bike tour was abruptly cancelled last month — this the one that would shut down 30 miles of Central Expressway — riders who had paid their registration for the race were promised a prompt and full refund, assuming they didn’t want to take a free…
Somehow, Dallas police weren’t convinced that Hendri Boykin was the hopelessly lovestruck 19-year-old he made himself out to be. He had a gold engagement ring and told the officers who visited his apartment Tuesday afternoon that he was “going to ask my girl to marry me,” stammering nervously in the…
There was a minor furor in the media last year when a study conducted by a researcher at Standford’s medical school concluded that organic fruits and vegetables are no healthier than their conventionally raised counterparts. This wasn’t quite as newsworthy as the headlines made it sound, since the study was…
Last month, when the city finally released details about plans to privatize the Dallas Farmers Market in hopes of making it a going concern, it prompted celebration among the many who have been dismayed by the market’s stagnation and demise. The proposal calls for a number of improvements, the most…
When I was growing up a few blocks away from the Spanish Village shopping center in Far North Dallas it was, if never booming, at least heavily trafficked. It was the site of Chuck’s Hamburgers, where we’d walk for lunch when my junior high got out early for end-of-semester exams…
DART’s police force may spend more of its time tracking down fare jumpers than a typical law enforcement agency, but they are real, licensed peace officers with all the associated powers. Like carrying firearms. A DART police trainee was learning how to use his this morning at DART PD’s Corinth…
Halid Amer played a small but significant role in the collapse of the housing market late last decade. He had help, to be sure, from slews of unqualified borrowers, overleveraged banks, absurdly loose credit and free-handed monetary policy, but it was the actions of Amer and people like him that…
The attention of the country, or at least that segment of it that’s politically aware enough to pay attention, is focused squarely on the U.S. Supreme Court,which this week is debating a pair of potentially momentous cases. Hollingsworth v. Perry, which was argued today, could do away with California’s Proposition…
During six years with Tom Thumb, Shaun Garcia says he worked hard, rose up the ranks and earned a reputation as someone who could turn struggling, theft-plagued stores around. He started as a stocker at the Lewisville store then quickly earned a series of promotions, first to assistant night manager,…
Police say that a February prank by members of the SMU chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon crossed the line from run-of-the-mill college-kid stupid to illegal, criminally stupid when they held a rival frat member against his will for more than four hours, punching and kicking him and, according to the…
Ted Cruz has barreled into Washington with the force of a crazy, toupee-haired meteorite smashing through the Capitol dome. But for all his rhetoric about Obama and communists and how they are pretty much the same thing, Cruz has distinguished himself from fellow wingnuts by keeping relatively silent on the…
Stealing Apple products in bulk is always a dicey proposition. Short of brazen daylight raids on the Knox Street Apple Store, which actually seem to be fairly effective, products made by the world’s leading producer of consumer electronics tend to be closely monitored by retailers. But here’s a tip for…
Locals and outsiders alike have been heaping praise upon the Perot Museum of Nature & Science since it opened in December, not just on the dizzying array of interactive exhibit halls but on the building itself. It was designed by architect Thom Mayne to be both a natural outgrowth of…
Barrett Brown’s current stint in federal prison can be linked, in a way, to his mother. It was the FBI’s treatment of her that prompted the YouTube rant and Twitter tirade in which Brown threatened a special agent and his family, which in turn led to the heavily armed raid…
It took a house burning to the ground and a woman being murdered, plus an additional six months, but Dallas police have finally acknowledged just how abysmally run its 911 call center was. Deputy Chief Scott Walton said as much today during a briefing before the City Council’s Public Safety…
Not so long ago, the Dallas Magpies were perennial cellar dwellers in the U.S. Australian Football League, hovering near the bottom of the 35-team organization since the club was established in 1998. Then, something changed. “How’d we get good so quickly? It’s just chemistry, a good mix of guys,” says…
On Saturday afternoon, a panhandler, whom police later identified as 59-year-old Isaiah Caldwell, was working the traffic coming off Interstate 35 on Marsalis Avenue in East Oak Cliff when another panhandler, a 42-year-old woman, arrived at the same spot. She quickly offered a suggestion: Rather than compete with one another…
Kelly Helleson will no doubt think twice before performing any roadside cavity searches on evidently law-abiding citizens. In January, the Texas Department of Public Safety fired the state trooper for her unusually thorough probe of two Irving women, a decision that severely limited her opportunities to conduct such searches. Now,…
Over the past several years, in shopping malls and storefronts across the country, entrepreneurs have begun operating what are called sweepstakes parlors. They look and smell like miniature casinos, and they’re lined with terminals featuring electronic games that bear an uncanny resemblance to slot machines, video poker and other games…
