Despite its vaguely official-sounding name, the Christmas Bureau of Austin & Travis County is not a branch of local government. It’s a nonprofit charity, one that purports to help needy individuals and families during the holiday season. That seems to be what the organization did from 1964, when it was…
Back in October, Demitri Brown and Donna Evans-Brown filed a not-at-all-frivolous lawsuit in Dallas County District Court claiming that Christopher Bridges, aka Ludacris, had stolen their trademark and illegally used it to build his Atlanta-based record label/entertainment empire. The dispute centers around “Disturb the Peace,” which Brown trademarked through the…
In 2008, Denton police began fielding reports from women who complained that their physician, Dr. Ramon Cruz, was overstepping professional boundaries. One claimed Cruz had put his hand down the front of her pajama pants. Another alleged he had grabbed her from behind and put his hand under her shirt…
It’s a warm fall morning near the Texas State Capitol’s south steps, and there’s a fight brewing. “Don’t be an idiot!” a man shouts at a small crowd making its way up toward the Capitol. He is David Stokes, a self-described “street preacher” from Houston, arrived specially in Austin for…
The video above was taken at about 2:30 a.m. on Decenber 1 from inside the Texas Rangers store on McKinney Avenue. If you’ll watch carefully — or really if you just keep your eyes open — you’ll see the taillights of a white Ford pickup creep slowly backward, then smash…
It’s getting near Christmas, and as far as we’re aware, Texas has yet to secede from the Union. Even Governor Rick Perry thinks it’s a bad idea, and he looks like the sort of man who’d snort wasabi on a bet. But the Texas Nationalist Movement is still feeling pretty…
The full Dallas city council just got its first chance to learn a little more about the proposed golf course that the city and AT&T want to build in southern Dallas. There’s still a lot for the city to work out before it agrees to clean up and lease the…
Downtown Dallas 360, the city’s long-range master plan for the area, has high hopes for southwestern downtown. Where Reunion Arena once stood, it envisions a cluster of mid-rise mixed-use developments. These would be clustered around a promenade and central park and would be accessible by stops on the new Oak…
Governor Rick Perry vows that the Medicaid expansion prescribed under Obamacare won’t come to Texas, the state with the highest rate of uninsured in the country. He fears it would render Lone Star State health care a mere “appendage” of the federal government. The feds, of course, would pick up…
Horse racing may be dying, but the horse track remains a uniquely fascinating place, with its mix of blue bloods and lowlifes united by a pursuit that cuts across all class lines: gambling. Even Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, a venue that from the outside seems relatively staid, is…
With the exception of Mike Hashimoto, the Morning News’ editorial team has been dutifully lining up behind the idea that a (semi?) private golf course can be “the tipping point” — their words, not mine or anyone else’s — southern Dallas needs. “A game changer,” the paper says. Next up:…
On the afternoon of September 6, Franklin Davis drove away from Hebron High School with Shania Gray, a 16-year-old student there. Davis, 30, had arranged the meeting using a fake Facebook profile featuring a picture of a teenage boy. Otherwise, Gray might not have agreed to meet. Davis is accused…
Police are investigating whether a woman found dead in White Rock Lake this afternoon was murdered. Walkers spotted the body on the east side of the lake around Garland Road, a half mile or so south of the Arboretum. The body was recovered by Dallas Fire-Rescue, which turned the investigation…
Karen Oney keeps about 15 donkeys on her property in North Fort Worth. At least she did until last October, when she awoke one morning to find two of them dead in the pasture, arrow shafts protruding from their torsos. Police told Oney they had been shot from 10 feet…
Why one would feel the need to seek Mark Cuban’s advice, seeing as he doles it out readily on his blog, his reality show, in a dirt-cheap e-book, and via whatever other medium happens to be at hand, is beyond me. But if that’s not quite enough and you’re still…
Samarendra Mohanty has spent the past decade looking for ways to better hold and rotate microscopic objects. It seems the existing techniques are just too big a pain, requiring objects to be visible under a microscope in order to hold or rotate them. That was fine, but was little help…
In June of this year, Joe Bankson and Gena Charlton sued a number of people who dropped by their rural farmhouse in Liberty County last year, people who mistakenly believed the couple had a mass grave containing dozens of dismembered bodies on the property. Those people included the Liberty County…
There is little doubt that Brian Loncar is a shrewd businessman. One doesn’t dub oneself the “Strong Arm,” create a Bat Signal-like image of a flexing appendage, and create a minor personal injury litigation empire without some measure of marketing savvy. But Loncar is also known to blur ethical lines…
Last week, Dwaine Caraway sent us a little pre-Thanksgiving note. It read, in full: We are pleased to invite you to the District Four Community Celebration, on Monday, December 3 from 10am-2pm. The event will be held in the 6th Floor Flag Room at Dallas City Hall. Hosted by Councilman…
Pretty much everyone seems to be in agreement that turning an unused former landfill in southern Dallas into something is a good idea, and that, since the city will be paying to clean up the land up anyway, and because there aren’t exactly hordes of developers itching to get get…
In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers cut the state’s family planning budget by two-thirds, a loss of around $73.6 million over the next two years. The reason behind this, naturally, was that “family planning” is clearly a secret code word for “abortion.” “Of course this is a war on…
Theadora Ross asked for leniency. The former senior corporal with Dallas PD, who pleaded guilty in August to stealing $250,000 in would-be reward money from the Dallas Crime Stoppers program she oversaw, argued in a court filing that prison would be too hard on her daughter, who has Down Syndrome…
