From its beginning last fall, the narrative of the Great Highland Park Book Ban — and I think all spectators can agree that it’s been great — has been about sex. This is understandable. Almost all great book-ban fights are about sex — about when kids should be exposed to…
Even for a State of the Union address, Tuesday night’s speech by President Obama was stupefying. As usual, the most fun part of the evening was the fragmented Republican response — seriously, name a Republican with any sort of national prominence and he or she issued his or her own…
During the middle part of the 20th century, the U.S. Air Force cataloged 12,618 UFO sightings. It was part of a program, Project Blue Book, that aspired to subject the reports to scientific analysis to see if UFOs posed a threat to national security. In retrospect, such an endeavor seems…
Buzz is rarely shocked, but we must say we’re taken aback by Plano Citizens United, the Texas Pastors Council and assorted fellow travelers such as the right-wing Texas Liberty Institute. It never occurred to us that they had it in for military service members and veterans. We could be wrong,…
If there were ever any doubt that the people of Arlington are endowed with an uncommon love of freedom and liberty, it will be put to rest at 4 p.m. this afternoon. That’s when activists will deliver a petition to City Hall, signed by 11,402 Arlingtonians, calling for the abolition…
In late December, two cyclists with heavy bruising on their faces said they had been punched by a random, angry motorist driving behind them on Turtle Creek Boulevard. Despite the serious accusations, the Dallas police who came to the scene that night didn’t appear to try too hard to get…
Unfair Park has no idea why you might possibly be, but just in case you are, you know, looking to add an earthquake rider to your homeowners insurance or whatever, we thought we’d give State Farm a call. “There’s been a lot of increase in inquiry [about earthquake coverage],” Gary…
Jeani Mulligan’s mother-in-law may have died, but the 43-year-old Keller woman kept her memory alive, in the form of cashed Social Security checks, for more than a decade. Between December 30, 2000, the date of her mother-in-law’s death and February 2013, Mulligan received $124,825.30 intended for her dead relative. In…
This weekend, a religious media company is hosting a huge event in a taxpayer-funded building. Sounds like another day in the life of Texas, but it’s not because, in this case, the religious conference is a Muslim one. Just a week after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, the Chicago-based…
Dallas Police Sergeant Paul Figueroa, a 20-year DPD veteran, turned himself in Wednesday after Collin County charged him with family assault, a Class A misdemeanor. Figueroa was charged with the same crime in 2012. After an internal affairs investigation, he was allowed to remain on the force. Now, he has…
Calling Irving’s Thursday City Council meeting a wasted effort wouldn’t be right. The council did award the landscaping contract for O’Connor Boulevard, after all. And on the other big issue concerning Irving — earthquakes — the SMU seismologists on hand did what little they could, too. They told the assembled…
Speaking at a hearing to determine whether Enrique Arochi, the man charged with the aggravated kidnapping of Christina Morris, deserved less than $1 million bail, one of the detectives investigating the case told prosecutors that she believes Arochi kidnapped and murdered Morris. At the end of what was a long…
Five white plaintiffs, backed by the Dallas-based Equal Voting Rights Institute, are suing Dallas County because, they say, the 60 percent-white Dallas County Commissioner’s Court does not fairly represent them. Dallas County, for the record, is 39 percent Latino; 32 percent white, non-Latino; and 23 percent black, according the the…
The DROP — Deferred Retirement Option Plan — program available to Dallas police and firefighters is a really good deal. When participants become vested in their pensions after 20 years of working for the city, they can elect to receive their pensions and continue working. The payments are placed into…
Monday’s news that Prime Prep Superintendent Ron Price is resigning at the end of January marked the beginning of the end (for real this time, we think) of Deion Sanders’ troubled charter school. His resignation was followed with an announcement from state officials that the Texas Education Agency is appointing…
Showing what The Dallas Morning News’ Rudy Bush derisively called “moxie,” Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price says that, despite his $141,000 salary, he is unable to pay for his defense as he faces a bevy of federal corruption charges. Bush, among others, thinks this is ridiculous, that Price is…
As the East Village Association awaits the latest turn in its court fight to keep Trammell Crow from building a Sam’s Club discount store near the intersection of Haskell Avenue and U.S. 75, the developer sent the group, along with the rest of the property’s neighbors, notice of its intent…
Hard to believe just looking at their mugshots, but Julia Thacker and Keith Fields were running a medium-scale marijuana farm out of their Southlake home, police say. On January 12, cops received a call suggesting that they check on the safety of an infant who lived at 125 Sweet St…
Anticipating what will be one of the hottest button issues of the 2015 session of the Texas Legislature, advocates for the right to carry assault rifles into fast food establishments and handguns wherever they damn well please gathered at the state capitol in Austin yesterday to manufacture gun parts on…
On Tuesday, Toyota will break ground on its new North American headquarters in Plano. Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz is celebrating the launch of the project by pretending that Texas’ outsize corporate incentives had no influence on the company’s relocation. In an interview at the North American International Auto…
One thing has proved true during each of Dallas’ last two significant winter storms, DART service — DART rail service specifically — will fail. The week that Jerryworld hosted the Super Bowl in 2011, DART light rail suffered its first full shut down. Almost three years later, DART experienced another…
Everyone in Dallas drives around with a mental map showing the contours of local traffic enforcement. It shows the places where cops with itchy ticket-fingers treat minor driving infractions as tantamount to high treason and, conversely, those spots where they are too busy catching murderers or snacking on doughnuts (depending…
