A while back, DART announced it was considering fare changes that will, assuming they are adopted, will go into effect on December 3. The proposal would do several things. It would streamline the fare structure and introduce variable pricing for peak- and non-peak hours, but for most riders, it will…
If you watched the footage of a DART paratransit van plowing, without so much as a hint of a tap on the brake pedal, into a line of cars exiting the Dallas North Tollway on June 29, you might have assumed the driver was a) not completely sober, b) sending/receiving…
As a rule, I never read the DMN’s automotive section, which, in case you were wondering, is in fact a thing that exists. It’s not just that the section is basically one long advertisement for vehicles I’m never going to buy or that Car Talk is infinitely better as a…
A man walking his dog at Brookhaven College last night discovered a human skull in a wooded area on the western edge of campus. Police searched the area today and discovered the rest of the skeleton. The Dallas County Medical Examiner has collected the remains to determine how old they…
What timing. Just as the trial of Texas’ voter ID law kicks off in D.C., a new analysis by the Associated Press has found that such laws in other states have led to hundreds of ballots being rejected, both in 2008’s general election and in the primaries this year. The…
On April 1, 2011, Dallas Police Officer Eric Watts went to check out a report that vehicles were racing in an area near Stemmons and Northwest Highway. Watts reportedly saw an orange Nissan peel out of a parking lot, narrowly missing another car, turned on his lights and siren, and…
This morning, in a move about as surprising as the sun rising, Governor Rick Perry came out with guns blazing against the Affordable Health Care Act, recently approved (mostly) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act’s expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor will not be implemented in Perry’s state, despite…
Parents of the victims of Joseph Garbarini, the pedophile who was sentenced to more than 60 years last October for the sexual abuse of kindergarten girls at Plano’s Hunt Elementary school, are suing the school district and the principal for ignoring the predator in their midst. An investigation of the…
If you think “I couldn’t find the courtroom” is a terrible excuse for failing to show up to one’s criminal trial, you’re right. But in Dallas County, more often than you’d think, it’s legitimate. That’s not just according to the defendants but to County Clerk John Warren, who says as…
Browsing through the monthly agenda of the City Plan Commission, the august body tasked with interpreting and tweaking Dallas’ arcane zoning rules, is typically a snoozefest. Whether to allow insignificant amendment to this-and-that SUP, if PDD 762 allows such-and-such a use, etc. Something caught my eye on Friday as I…
Last May, Texas joined the growing roster of states with a voter ID law requiring those seeking to exercise their most fundamental civic duty to present a state-issued ID before casting a ballot. Like a driver’s license or, this being Texas, a concealed handgun permit. And that was that, at…
An already freakish weekend just got a bit more bizarre. Police spokesman Warren Mitchell passes along the following note from an incident that apparently happened this morning in Pleasant Grove. Suspect came to a residence in the 800 block of Rose Garden and knocked on the door. The complainant answered…
This afternoon, a clear and still day yielded with surprising speed to a small gale with powerful gusts of wind and some rain. Other than the suddenness, the storm was unremarkable, but the weather was apparently responsible for two fatal accidents to day. Two construction workers were killed at UTD…
When Dora Fuller’s Oak Cliff home caught fire early Wednesday morning, family and neighbors called 911 only to be greeted by a recorded hold message. All told, according to police it took about 10 minutes between the first call and the time a fire crew arrived from a station 500…
A family of Johnson County landowners is suing Chesapeake, the country’s second-largest natural gas company, for allegedly cheating them out of royalties. Their lawyer, Dallas-based attorney James Holmes, says they can thank endlessly indulgent Texas laws and a taxing authority more inclined to look the other way. The complaint filed…
When Renzo Piano, the architect of the Nasher Sculpture Center, visited Dallas last month and cast himself and the museum as the impotent victims of the phallic death rays emanating from Museum Tower next door, Jim pointed out a subtle irony. Because at the very moment Piano was delivering his…
Yesterday afternoon, Beau Chandler and Mark “Major” Jiminez went down to the Dallas County Records building to apply for a marriage license. They were refused, naturally. So they quietly handcuffed themselves together, sat down and refused to leave. When the building closed for the day, they were arrested and taken…
Texas Republicans have been complaining loudly since the Supreme Court decided that the Affordable Care Act passed constitutional muster. The law is a huge overreach by the federal government, it’s a “stomach-punch” to the economy, Obama is a socialist, etc. etc. There’s even quite serious talk about refusing a Medicaid…
I have a Google Alert set up for Mike Miles, e.g. DISD’s new superintendent, so that whenever his name is mentioned on the Interwebs, I get an email. The past couple of weeks, though, the inbox has been flooded not with news of the MarineArmy Ranger-turned-school reformer but with a…
The food industry has for decades leaned on an inexpensive and natural thickening agent: guar gum. It builds viscosity in ice cream, dressing, baked goods, and other foods you’ve likely eaten it in the past week (as well as makeup, explosives, and other things you probably haven’t eaten, ever). In…
View Larger Map About 4 p.m. yesterday, a man who a witness said appeared drunk, walked into the EZ Trip Food Store above and, according to police, began harassing customers. Specifically, he slapped one person repeatedly in the face before chasing them from the store. Upon his return, he began…
The Dallas Police Department would like you to know they’ve fired one officer and disciplined another, effective immediately, following two disciplinary hearings Thursday morning. The first one is pretty straightforward: Officer Kelly Schumpert was arrested in Forney for DWI in February of this year. An Internal Affairs investigation concluded she…
