The Federal Trade Commission, among its other duties, is charged with enforcing what is known as the Fur Products Labeling Act. That law, passed by Congress in 1951, requires that fur garments be accurately labeled with the species of animal and country of origin so customers don’t get fooled by…
Speaking to reporters yesterday afternoon, Dallas Police Chief David Brown expressed confidence that the department had already solved the first of a string of three Lake Highlands rapes. The suspect was Fernando Munoz, 33, who police believed had broken into a Ferndale Road home in the early hours of February…
Texas’ Senate Health and Human Services committee approved another measure late yesterday straight out of the anti-abortion playbook: a bill that would require all medical facilities that perform abortions to meet the standards of an “ambulatory surgical center.” Opponents of the bill are calling it a “back-door abortion ban,” mostly…
As the U.S. men’s hockey team prepared to take the ice before its improbable win over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics, head coach Herb Brooks said a few words. His speech, or, more accurately, a Hollywood writer’s imagining of it, was dramatized by Kurt Russell in the…
After leaving the Mavericks as the club’s all-time leading scorer, pre-Dirk of course, Rolando Blackman has bounced around a bit. He spent a couple of seasons with the Knicks and a couple more playing in Europe before finally retiring to the sidelines. Some of those sidelines were at the American…
Head over to Klyde Warren Park at noon today and you’ll be treated to a lunchtime piano recital. This evening, you can stop by for a zumba class, if that’s your thing. Tomorrow it’s a stroller boot camp and yoga, all in addition, of course, to the park’s myriad other…
A new bill introduced in the Texas Senate would allow counties to open their own holding centers for juvenile law-breakers. Teenage offenders are currently held in lockups operated by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Senate bill 511, authored by state Senator John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, would give counties the…
Greg Abbott’s acting strangely. It wasn’t even two weeks ago that the Attorney General seemed to have given up his day job suing the Obama administration and just started trolling liberals full-time. But then, in a turn that was completely unexpected, Abbott was seized by an bout of reasonableness The…
Policymakers in Austin, having finally come to terms immensity of the state’s water challenges, are about to throw some serious cash at the issue. But the vast majority of this, more than 96 percent, is going toward building new reservoirs and pipelines. Trammell S. Crow, among others, has a problem…
Ghassan Hitto, the man elected early Tuesday morning to become the opposition Syrian National Coalition’s first prime minister, also happens to be a North Texan. The Damascus-born activist was educated in the United States, worked as director of operations at a Collin County telecom and, according to the dean of…
When a Lake Highlands woman was raped last month by an attacker who climbed through the window of her Ferndale Road home, it seemed like an aberration in a generally quiet and well-kept neighborhood. It seemed like somewhat less of a fluke when the same thing happened three weeks later…
This week in godlessness brings us to Rowlett, where Mayor Todd Gottel is feeling pretty good. He’ll be running unopposed soon for his second term as mayor and third term on the City Council. The rest of the time, he owns a “sales and marketing” company, per the city of…
Publicly shaming convicted sex offenders is nothing new. Relatively few people object to their names and photos being plastered on the Internet as a scarlet letter tattooed to their foreheads for all to see. There’s a plausible argument to be made that this helps promote public safety by alerting neighbors…
Dallas police didn’t set out to arrest Julio Escobar at the intersection of Oak Lawn and Hall Street at 5 a.m. this morning. They set out to arrest the 25-year-old at a Lemmon Avenue apartment complex a half mile away, where they took note of his slurred speech and alcohol…
State Senator Dan Patrick, R-Houston, took to his Facebook page on Sunday to defend his proposed legislation to alter the core curriculum requirements of Texas and American history at public colleges and universities. (h/t Texas Tribune) SB 1128 would make history courses on “singular topics,” like race, gender and class,…
City officials have made this much clear: a plastic bag ban, a la Austin and any number of California cities, will be coming to Dallas — eventually. Just last month, assistant city manager Jill Jordan told the City Council that Dallas is “maybe a year or two” away from considering…
Teenagers, volatile bundles of hormones that they are, are going to have sex. That’s an iron law of nature, as unchangeable as the fact that lions like to eat zebras. It’s also a fair bet that, unless they are taught otherwise, these teenagers are going to have sex in an…
Yes, true.After 34 years at WFAA I resigned today to accept job as Dir ofComm @luminantpower the largest elec power generator in TX.— Brad Watson (@watsonwfaa) March 18, 2013 Growing up, Brad Watson was a fixture on my parent’s TV set. WFAA was their news station and, therefore, my own,…
Two summers ago, more or less out of the blue, a couple of thousand egrets descended upon a neighborhood off Josey Lane in Carrollton, just north of Frankford Road. It was an ideal spot for the birds: They liked the dense tree canopy and sizable pond, and there no predators…
Titus County is a little spot on the far northeastern part of the map, comprising some 32,000 people total. Belle is a infirm, chocolate-colored, 16-year-old dachshund. She also lives in Titus, and it appears that she’s made an enemy. Belle’s person is named John Mark Cobern; he also happens to…
For Trinity East, the Fort Worth-based shale gas producer, the Dallas Plan Commission meeting this Thursday is make or break. Nearly six years ago, the company bid on drilling city-owned land while Dallas sought to shore up a budget shortfall. Since then, the company shelled out tens of millions of…
The Dallas County District Attorney’s office has dismissed its case against John David Mahaffey, the SMU student arrested in September and accused of forcing another male student to perform oral sex. Prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case on March 14. The one-page request says, simply: “Upon review of…
