Timothy Woodard and Elizabeth Weaver, 48 and 53, respectively, were at their home in the 3800 block of Davila Drive at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday when they answered a knock at the door. On the porch were two strangers, whom they invited inside. It’s not clear from police reports or a…
One of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Austin this legislative season is that the state needs to take major steps to meet the state’s long-term water needs. The arithmetic — exploding population + historic drought + increasingly stressed water supply — is simply too stark to ignore. The…
This week, Dallas ISD’s Ross Avenue headquarters was hit with a flurry of teacher resignations, with 279 rank-and-file educators telling the district they were calling it quits. This minor exodus had nothing to do with teachers’ well-known frustration with Superintendent Mike Miles. This was policy. Yesterday was the cutoff for…
Last month, we told you that the Arlington Police Department submitted an application to the Federal Aviation Administration in 2012, asking to please be allowed to use the two small remote control drones they bought. The drones were purchased for a little over $200,000 from Leptron Industrial Robotic Technologies, with…
At first glance, Reddit’s Dallas thread may seem like an innocuous online forum where users engage in remarkably civil dialogue and provide easy content for Dallas’ finest journalists, graciously allowing them to get to the bar before noon. But an in-depth investigation by Unfair Park has revealed a contingent of…
Sometimes, through a lack of foresight or general carelessness, the state legislature passes laws that, while well-intentioned, are so poorly worded as to criminalize things that the criminal justice system probably shouldn’t concern itself. (See: felony penny theft). The latest example could be Senator Dan Patrick’s SB 249, which the…
Tammy Lowe, a 53-year-old Grand Prairie teacher, surrendered to police in January, five days after she allegedly struck and killed 6-year-old John Raidy in a horrific hit-and-run. She was charged with injury to a child and failure to stop and render aid. Now, those charges are about to be dismissed…
Navy SEAL Chris Kyle may have been killed on an Erath County gun range on February 2, but he will live on indefinitely as a life-sized, 6-and-a-half-foot-tall bronze statute. A clay version of the statue arrived in North Texas today flanked by Patriot Guard riders, who typically show up only…
At the end of January, city staff arranged to have the entire City Plan Commission bused to three city-owned sites where Trinity East Energy hopes to drill for natural gas on parkland. This was so commissioners could see for themselves just how drab, un-park-like and eminently frackable they all are…
Last week’s City Council meeting, at which City Manager Mary Suhm was alternately grilled and applauded over her side deal to allow natural gas drilling on city parkland, was an amazing piece of political theater. How could it not be, what with Vonciel Jones Hill donning her preacher voice and…
Update, 3:52 p.m.: The Dallas Morning News’ Jennifer Emily tweets that the case against Hill has been dismissed. Judge Levario cited Watkins’ refusal to testify as part of her basis for dismissal. Original post: Craig Watkins wasn’t sick today, and contrary to the inexplicably wrong tweets from one TV news…
Club Extasis, the nondescript Grand Avenue night club where Orr-Reed owner John Hargrove was brutally beaten to death in the early hours one January morning, has always had a vacant look to it, at least during the daytime. The bars across the door were a permanent fixture, and the neon…
As the sun sank and the cold set in, Dallas PD mobile command centers idled in an empty lot behind a McDonald’s off Lancaster Road and I-20, a stopover on a trucking line for long haulers. Plainclothes and uniformed officers massed near one of the trailers, walled in by the…
In September, transportation planners revealed that they had finally found a way to finance the $2.7 billion Cotton Belt, the 62-mile commuter rail line they hope someday will connect Richardson and Fort Worth. A private consortium, the members of which are still being kept under wraps, had agreed to take…
Public water systems in the United States have been adding fluoride to their water since the 1940s as a way to prevent tooth decay. The consensus among public health officials and scientists is that the practice has been incredibly effective. The only documented side effect is a rise in fluorosis,…
The idea behind McKinney Senator Ken Paxton’s proposed legislation really is pretty ingenious. The whole school-choice voucher idea — essentially a guise to funnel public money to religious schools — invariably runs afoul of constitutional challenges. So, lately, that movement has shifted its strategy quite successfully by avoiding public coffers…
Attorney General Greg Abbott posted the above political ad to his Facebook page this afternoon. We present it without comment, other than to wonder if Abbott and Glenn Beck have ever been seen in the same place together. Think about it…
For much of the last decade, Roy Williams was the hard-hitting enforcer of the Cowboys secondary, pulverizing any player who dared to bring the ball in his general vicinity. His reputation has since been tarnished by the poor pass coverage and general descent into mediocrity that led the Cowboys to…
We were going to take a pass on this one. We were going to ignore the press release Dallas police sent at 12:39 p.m. informing every media outlet in town that Thomas Lee Watkins III, the 20-year-old nephew of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, had been arrested for allegedly…
A couple of weeks back, we stumbled upon the city’s campaign to educate drivers about its new cyclist-protection ordinance. It consisted of a single, poorly designed brochure posted to the Dallas Police Department’s website that was more concerned with admonishing cyclists to behave than anything else. It was quickly taken…
Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. OK, everybody relax and just breathe easy (though not too deeply). That whole global-warming, energy-supply, sooty-air thing is taken care of. We know this because unlike many, many,…
Dallas police patrol the area around Kidd Springs Park at various hours, in part to crack down on the frequent car burglaries, in part to be on the lookout for people using the park to drink and do drugs. That’s what one officer was doing at about 8:30 Tuesday morning…
