A couple of days a week, Missy Bevers taught a boot camp exercise group called Camp Gladiator outside Creekside Church of Christ on East U.S. Highway 287 in Midlothian. Monday, the 45-year-old arrived at the church just after 4 a.m. for her 5 o’clock class. Because of the rain Sunday, she…
Arguments and evidence — including a video showing some public butt sniffing — flew at Monday’s temporary injunction hearing in the Exxxotica adult expo’s lawsuit against the city of Dallas. The city’s lawyers, Tom Brandt and Scott Bergthold, told U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Fitzwater not to even look at…
The official count of Zika cases in Dallas County now stands at six, the county’s health and human services department announced Friday, not long after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the mosquito-borne virus is capable of causing microcephaly and other birth defects. Friday’s confirmed infection…
Jordan Spieth will be back. The Dallas-bred golfer has one multiple majors and recovered nicely after botching the end of the 2014 Masters, so it stands to reason he’ll recover from his complete and utter disaster in Augusta this year, blowing a five-stroke lead on the final nine holes. Spieth’s…
As former boss of the famed Texas Rangers, Henry “Hank” Whitman surely will know where to start as Gov. Greg Abbott’s recently appointed commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services: throw a whole bunch of people, including most of the Texas Legislature, the governor and the lieutenant…
Defense industry money is a lot like military aircraft. Sometimes it arrives loudly, like a cargo plane rumbling down a runway. Other times it slides into a local economy like a stealth bomber — quietly but effectively. This clumsy analogy brings us to last week’s announcement that the Pentagon is spending…
As drug reforms go, the cite-and-release marijuana policy Dallas recently considered was pretty tepid stuff. Getting caught with weed would have still been a class B misdemeanor, still carried a potential penalty of a $2,000 fine and six months in jail and still left a permanent mark on a convicted…
Weird. The whole phenomenon of young people supporting Bernie is dispiriting when I look at it nationally. But when I look at it in terms of what I have witnessed on the ground in my own hometown over the last 10 or 15 years, it’s enormously encouraging. When I try…
Add one more study to the pile of evidence that activity related to oil and gas drilling is responsible for an unusual spate of earthquakes rattling Texas. This week, University of Texas scientists published a report in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth that said it was plausible that a…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has thrown his support behind Mayor Mike Rawlings’ and the City Council’s effort to keep the Exxxotica adult expo out of the convention center. Currently under felony indictment and facing an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the state’s top lawyer insists in a…
The last mechanic standing on Ross Avenue is taking his final bow. Dallas City Council voted Wednesday to deny Hinga Mbogo’s request for another two-year extension, citing, with a heavy heart, that he had broken his promise given two years ago to close down his auto repair shop in the 3500…
Every year around this time, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Texas’ flagship progressive think tank, releases a report with lots of statistics and graphics and, you know, facts detailing how much it sucks to be a kid in Texas. On their measure of childhood well-being that takes into account…
After a very bad night’s sleep, I felt I owed it to you, the reader, to revisit the pothole in my alley yesterday morning. The day before I had posted here what I now realize was an alarmist and poorly reported piece suggesting there might be people living in it…
For the last two months, the city of Dallas has been pumping about $4,000 a day into a case that outside observers and many members of the City Council view as an obvious loser — the city’s fraught attempt to ban the Exxxotica adult expo from using the Kay Bailey…
All 83-year-old Roy Eklund wants is to find his friend’s body. The 65-year-old Michael Garrett died either in late February or early March. Eklund, a veteran who fought in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, didn’t find out about his friend’s death until a few weeks ago. He was listed…
Bridget Turner emerges from her tent and shuffles slowly but purposefully across Tent City’s southernmost section. She’s halfway across the sandy dirt when she stops short and looks around, face scrunched up in bewilderment. Lee Cadena, a street preacher who moved to Tent City two and a half months ago…
Ethan Couch, the affluenza-suffering teen who killed four in a 2013 Tarrant County drunk driving incident, had his first day in adult court Wednesday. Couch, originally sentenced to 10 years probation, will remain in Tarrant County Jail for two years as a condition of that probation, Tarrant County District Judge…
Why does it suck so much to ride DART? Anyone who’s tried to get from point A to point B in Dallas using public transit (with the possible exception of 9-to-5 commuters who live near a rail stop and work downtown, for whom the system works fairly well) has asked…
After conversations with some of the city’s top criminal attorneys and having invested a decent amount of time in reading stuff on the Internet, I have rendered myself qualified, in my own opinion, to offer the following non-legal and inexpert advice: Persons accused of capital crimes in Texas who may…
Dams, dams, dams seem to be on everyone’s damn mind as reports about Lewisville Lake dam, a nearly 70-year-old earthen structure, and Grapevine Lake dam, 62-year-old, have appeared in newspapers and online website in recent months alerting readers to the deterioration affecting dams not just across the metro area but…
I think someone may be living in a pothole near my house. Usually I eschew using this space to pursue private matters, but today I think this particular problem may rise to the level of general public interest. If you are reading it, that means my editors must have agreed…
Listening to the Dallas City Council talk to the chief of police yesterday about smoke shops and convenience stores, thinking about Bill Clinton getting protested by Black Lives Matters, remembering a visit to our offices here last week by a group of Serbian prosecutors, I believe that I have discovered…
