The quotation mark around the item title “Living Wage” Discussion on the Dallas City Council’s agenda are there for a reason. The rate being discussed Wednesday for city contracted workers, $10.25 an hour, is not a living wage unless you’re childless, and even then it’s close. But it is a…
Craig James is not content with his life. Despite being part of one of the biggest scandals in college sports history at SMU, being a borderline coherent college football analyst for more than a decade and receiving 3.6 percent of the vote in the 2012 Texas Republican Senate primary, James…
News bubbled out of Austin last week that the ride-sharing app Uber would add the capital city to a short list of areas in which Uber offers UberAccess. UberAccess allows app users to summon a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. In areas without UberAccess, Uber only guarantees that customers with wheelchairs that can fit…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicted late last week for multiple felonies stemming from his alleged encouragement of investors to put more than $600,000 into a McKinney technology company, was booked into Collin County Jail Monday morning. In a civil proceeding, he has already admitted to one of the acts…
Last we checked in on Rick Perry’s quixotic second bid for president, our erstwhile governor had picked a fight with the 2016 Republican field’s irresistible force, Donald Trump. Perry, desperate to get into August 6’s Fox News-sponsored first GOP debate, was doing everything he could to raise his national profile,…
Downtown Dallas Inc. says residents, workers and business owners downtown are dealing with too much crime and too few cops. To fix things, the nonprofit advocacy group is petitioning the Dallas Police Department to add a first watch to its patrols downtown. As things are now, calls received between 2:30…
The point, if there was one, was to say the words “baby parts” as many times as possible, as if they were a mantra. For four and a half hours Wednesday, the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services solicited testimony about fetal tissue donation from anti-abortion activists, Texas Attorney…
If nothing is done address climate change, says a new study commissioned by some really rich people and some ex-politicians, Texas is going be practically unlivable by the time we get to the back half of the 21st century. Average temperatures will increase, the study says, leading to more than…
Despite vaccinations’ being in literally everyone’s best interest, the Texas Legislature didn’t pass Dallas State Representative Jason Villalba’s bill this year that would’ve ended conscientious exemptions from vaccinations. As kids around the state get ready for the new school year, they will, just as they have in the past, only…
Irving-based Boy Scouts of America has lifted its prohibition on gay scoutmasters. Monday night, the Scouts’ National Executive Board voted to accept the unanimous July 13 recommendation of the BSA’s national executive committee to dump the organization’s across-the-board ban, while still allowing individual troops to discriminate as they see fit…
Wednesday, the Texas Senate will take the first real step in and investigation of Planned Parenthood ordered by Governor Greg Abbott. The governor, along with virtually every other Republican in the state, is in a tizzy over two videos recently released by the Center for Medical Progress. The videos, recorded…
Surely, you guys have wondered about the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in various Texas counties. You haven’t? Well RentApplication.com is here with a interactive map to tell us all about it anyway, titled “These are The Most Sexually Diseased Cities in the USA.” The website provides data on syphilis, gonorrhea…
Among the first things Unfair Park — yes, we’re still calling ourselves that, old habits die hard — does when it gets up in the morning is to quickly scroll through Twitter. Since the downtown-to-Oak Cliff streetcar started rolling in April one thing that’s popped up consistently is DART’s alert…
Just before 10 p.m. on July 9, a motorcycle barreled into a car at the corner of Greenville Avenue and Bryan Parkway. The woman on the motorcycle slid under the car and was trapped. Witnesses raced over to help her out, and police arrived within 30 seconds, according to the Dallas…
Maypearl Chief of Police Kevin Coffey was arrested and charged with four felonies, including sexual assault of a child, after turning himself in Wednesday afternoon. Coffey, 49, contacted a then 14-year-old girl on Facebook two years ago, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He sent her messages almost every day,…
Erstwhile Texas governor and current presidential candidate Rick Perry’s campaign is in danger dying before it really gets underway, but Perry is doing everything he can to avoid a premature exit. Perry is stuck somewhere below 5 percent in national Republican primary polls. In any election from 2012 backward, low…
Tuesday morning, the dubiously named Center for Medical Progress released the second undercover video stemming from what it claims has been a three-year “undercover” investigation of Planned Parenthood. Like the first video, released a week ago, the new video shows a Planned Parenthood senior executive talking about, depending on your…
Little by little, Ken Paxton is being forced to see the light. The recalcitrant Texas attorney general, ever steadfast in his refusal to accept the wisdom of the U.S. Supreme Court, is beginning to acknowledge its authority. After the court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in June, Paxton issued an opinion…
Dallas is currently in the midst of an ATM theft epidemic. Twenty-four cash machines have been stolen since January 1. Thirty-one more unsuccessful attempts at stealing ATMs have been made in the same period. Dallas police are pretty upset about the whole thing, and generally push out surveillance videos in…
If you didn’t already know the attitude of the overflow throng that came to the Sheraton downtown to hear Bernie Sanders, it was absolutely clear less than five minutes into the Vermont senator’s speech. “Bullshit,” came a shout from the crowd as Sanders described Texas all-Republican state government. This was…
One of the more amusing vagaries of the theater inspired by campaign finance laws since the Citizens United case opened the sluices for corporate giving is the little dance candidates must do with their Super PACs. Formal campaigns can’t officially coordinate with Super PACs, but, because Super PACs can accept…
The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System’s continued poor performance is a threat to city’s credit rating, the bond rating service Moody’s said this week. On July 9, a revised audit of the system revealed it had about $3 billion in assets, 6 percent less than was reported to the…
