We’ve long wondered why EPA backed off of a lawsuit against Range Resources, the driller accused of contaminating a Parker County man’s water well with natural gas and levels of benzene, a carcinogen, above safe drinking water standards. It issued an endangerment order against the company in December 2010 –…
At 5:30 yesterday afternoon, two dogs attacked 29-year-old Jermaine Jones as he walked down Copeland Street, a few blocks southeast of Fair Park. Jones swung at one of the dogs, a gray pit bull, but missed. The other dog, a brown-and-white mutt, then moved in for the kill, biting Jones…
A lot has happened to Barrett Brown since heavily armed federal agents raided his Dallas apartment and threw him in jail: The Anonymous-affiliated hacktivist was indicted on charges of threatening an FBI agent via loopy YouTube rant, then doxing said agent by publishing his personal information on the Internet; his…
Yesterday was the deadline for state and local candidates to report their fundraising totals for the last six months of 2012, which meant a flurry of last-minute clicks on the City Secretary’s website. The reported figures first real glimpse at candidates’ fundraising prowess and a suggestion of which candidates are…
On the morning of September 6, in what no doubt seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, Kenneth Smith, Jr. called police at Philadelphia International Airport and told them a passenger was carrying drugs onto a Dallas-bound flight. When it became clear that the call-taker wasn’t taking his tip…
Irma Grazdan and her two dogs, Binky the chihuahua and Boomer the Jack Russell terrier, checked into the Warwick Melrose the day before Thanksgiving. She was in town from Houston to visit family and had decided to stay at the Oak Lawn hotel in part because of its pet-friendliness. Fox…
Gerry Cauley, the chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Council, the national, industry-funded grid-integrity watchdog, is pretty worried about Texas. Power-reserve margins here have slipped below the levels recommended to meet peak demand, and future projections show it will only get worse. What’s more, he says in a…
Update at 12:29 p.m.: The Morning News Tanya Eiserer reports that Silva has confessed to the murder, telling police that, “I killed him because he put a flower on my door and tonight he had on a red hat so I decided I was going to kill him.” Original post:…
It seems like only yesterday that erstwhile DISD communications chief Jennifer Sprague blew into town alongside new superintendent Mike Miles. With a $185,000 a year salary, the 31-year-old Sprague’s name quickly became a synonym for “overpaid and under-qualified,” and after about six less-than-spectacular months on the job, she quietly left…
Nearly two years ago, the City Council approved a scaled down version of the Margaret McDermott Bridge, the second of the signature Santiago Calatrava-designed spans across the Trinity River. That was accompanied by a promise by City Manager Mary Suhm that no city funds would be used for the project,…
Over much of the past year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement agencies have been carrying out the largest offensive against pill mills Texas has ever seen. Dubbed “Operation King of the Pill,” the effort involves dozens of officers swarming medical offices suspected of illegally distributing addictive…
Domestic violence killings were on the rise in Dallas last year, which might be one reason why Mayor Mike Rawlings called a presser Monday afternoon. Another could be the fact that exactly a month has passed since a deeply troubled young man slaughtered 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut, most of…
On Friday afternoon, a leaking natural gas line exploded, leveling a duplex along Main Street in Lewisville and cracking windows more than a mile away. Three people were injured in the blast. Two of those were firefighters who were treated at the scene and released. The third was 55-year-old duplex…
A bit earlier, the LBJ Express Twitter feed alerted its followers to a “pedestrian incident” on 635. Pedestrian incident on 635 WB @ Dallas North Tollway.Three lanes shut down.Expect major delays.— LBJ Express Project (@lbjexpress) January 14, 2013 The details are still sketchy, but WFAA is reporting that witnesses saw…
In the wake of last month’s shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the subsequent proposal by local state Representative Jason Villalba to arm specially trained teachers, DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander dismissed the idea that Dallas teachers will soon be roaming the halls packing heat. He did leave the door…
In October of 2010, Jane Bryant auctioned off put up for auction the front door of Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald’s one-time apartment at 604 Elsbeth Street in Oak Cliff. (The sale was halted by litigation, and the door was later stolen). The door itself, with glass that had once…
Dallas police had a busy weekend, as they always do. There were lots of reports of petty theft, minor assaults, and traffic accidents. There were also these gems, pulled from the weekend’s police reports: Saturday, 2:30 a.m.: Michael Stewart, 46, told police he had arranged an all-male threesome with two…
Fort Worth Police were mum when Martin Herrmann, a 50-year-old former agent with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, was arrested late last month on a charge of improper photography/visual recording. The TABC offered only slightly more information, telling the Star-Telegram that Herrmann had been fired in November for failing to…
Here’s something they don’t tell you when you stroll into University Park: You’re perfectly welcome to piss or shit wherever you please. That’s the law, anyways. The city apparently lacks an ordinance, standard among modern municipalities, banning public urination or defecation. It’s an omission city officials can no longer ignore,…
The dream-crushers over at the White House will not be building you a Death Star, and they will not be considering your requests to secede. Two months or so ago, just after President Obama won reelection, 23-year-old UT Arlington student Micah Hurd hastily wrote up the Texas version of the…
Let’s do this quickly, so you can incorporate it into all the sorrows you’re about drown after you leave work today. A state judge has denied Planned Parenthood’s request for a temporary injunction that would have allowed them to rejoin the Texas Women’s Health Program. According to Mary Tuma, a…
Update at 2:12 p.m.: The owner of the leveled house, Christian Community Actions, told NBC 5 that at least one man is in the hospital with injuries Fire and police officials have not confirmed the number of injuries. Original post: Police are so far releasing few details, but there was…
