So much for local control. As was inevitable following the Denton ballot initiative that banned fracking in the city’s limits, the Texas House of Representatives moved Friday to severely restrict the limits municipalities can place on hydraulic fracturing within their borders. “Municipal regulations have begun to erode the state’s pre-eminent…
Despite what you may think about Mesquite, having a ton — OK, 1,900 pounds — of meth in one’s house in that fair suburb is pretty sure to convince law enforcement that the drugs aren’t simply for personal use. Jose Farias Lopez, 24, found that out the hard way Friday,…
A convicted sex offender wanted by police after escaping his halfway house apparently spent a few of his precious hours of freedom in the saddest way imaginable, holed up at a Winstar Casino in Oklahoma. Charles Raymond Sprague left his halfway house shortly after 5 a.m. Wednesday after cutting off…
Unless something weird happens, the Texas House of Representatives is going to pass open carry today. They’ll join the state Senate in approving hip or shoulder-holstered handguns for anyone with a concealed handgun license, sending a bill to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk that he’s already promised he’ll sign. Kory Watkins,…
The Trinity River toll road, that high-speed, six- to 10-lane highway between the levees that even Mayor Mike Rawlings’ appointed “Dream Team” of urban planners said was a truly bad idea, is not dead. It’s just looking a little peaked after a long, crowded City Council meeting where toll road…
The public reaction to Mayor Mike Rawling’s “Dream Team’s” coming-out party yesterday has been startling for its lack of cynicism. D Magazine Editor Tim Rogers wrote a piece headlined “Larry Beasley Just Killed the Trinity Toll Road” — Beasley is the leader of the Dream Team. The Morning News ran…
At 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, the DeSoto Police Department put out an alert. The department and U.S. marshals were looking for Colby Robinson, who faced murder warrants in Oregon. By 10 p.m. Robinson was dead, shot by DeSoto police after a car and foot chase that ended in southeast Oak Cliff…
The Texas Senate did some actual good on Tuesday, passing a bill that would make Texas the 17th state to criminalize so-called “revenge porn.” More important, the bill would make Texas one of fewer than five states to allow civil penalties for the posting of nude or sexually explicit images…
For a former Dallas vice cop set to head to federal prison this summer it was, as it was for Richard Nixon, not about the crime, but about the cover up. Jose Luis Bedoy was convicted in October of telling a prostitute with whom he was having a relationship to…
BY JIM SCHUTZE AND STEPHEN YOUNG Over a $125 plate of chicken salad with boiled egg at the Trinity Commons Foundation’s annual luncheon, Dallas’ betters — and Jim Schutze — were the first to hear just what exactly Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ Trinity toll road “Dream Team” had been up…
A woman arrested Monday by Balch Springs police allegedly joined pastors at her church in starving a toddler the group believed to be demon-possessed then tried to resurrect the child in a “raising ceremony” after he died on March 22, according to The Dallas Morning News. Areceli Meza, who served…
One of The Dallas Morning News’ resident scolds, editorial board member Tod Robberson, is fixated on a hookup-website billboard that was erected over Interstate 345 in Deep Ellum a couple of weeks ago. It’s not so much the implication of hot, dude-on-dude action that bothers Robberson, he tells us, but…
Police from across the state lined up at a hearing of the Texas Senate’s Transportation Committee to vouch for red light cameras. The cameras are not merely revenue generators, they prevent accidents and injuries, officers said. “If I could put a police officer on every corner where I have a…
The trains themselves are pretty damn neat. Slick, good looking and capable of operating without overhead wires, the city of Dallas’ new Union Station to Oak Cliff streetcar looks the way one might wish the transit authority’s light rail vehicles looked. The thing is, and this should change later this…
Each spring, the Dallas Museum of Art hosts an expensive fundraiser called the Art Ball. It costs $2,500 bucks to attend, features a live auction and, this year, an after-party DJed by Solange Knowles. This year’s ball went down Saturday night. None of that really matters, though. What matters is,…
When we first saw that the city intends to roll out something called “Dallas City Hall To Go,” frankly, we imagined something else. Maybe the city would bring Vonciel Jones Hill to your neighborhood to check your pool chlorine levels or maybe Sheffie Kadane to test your tap water for…
The man who menaced South Dallas with a series of sexual assaults over the summer of 2013 will spend at least the next 30 years in prison. Van Dralan Dixson, captured in Baton Rouge in September 2013, attacked women at night. Carrying a gun he said he used to do…
Thursday marked the 30-day deadline before Dallas’ May 9 municipal election. That means a couple of things: First, it’s too late to register to vote in the election if you haven’t already, and second, candidates had to file their latest campaign finance report. A couple of weeks ago, we told…
Ahead of a vote next week in the Texas House of Representatives on a bill that would strip Texas cities of most of their power to regulate a certain resource extraction process that totally doesn’t cause earthquakes or flaming tap water and will carry the United States to energy independence,…
As much of the nation still reels from the death of Walter Scott, a South Carolina man shot in the back by police officer Michael Slager, the Texas House of Representatives considered mandating body cameras for the state’s police officers Thursday. Slager was charged with murdering Scott on Tuesday after…
“This is funny shit,” Assistant Chief Billy Getzendaner said after he watched a video of a trainee volunteer firefighter being sodomized with a link of sausage by a group of other volunteers, a warrant issued for Getzendaner’s arrest in Ellis County claims. Getzendaner, 34, and Gavin Satterfield, the 31-year-old chief…
Senior Corporal Jimmy Thongrivong, a Dallas bike cop, died March 30. He’s better now, though. Thongrivong, who collapsed of a heart attack on patrol before being rushed to Baylor Hospital, is going home. Dr. James Choi, the interventional cardiologist treating Thongrivong, was asked at a press conference Thursday what was…
