Dallas students are starting school three weeks later than previously expected. Thursday, Dallas ISD trustees voted unanimously to begin the school year on Sept. 8 instead of Aug. 17. The move comes after Dallas County Health and Human Services issued an order that prevents private and public schools from holding…
Quiet: The stands. Quieter: The bats. After $1.2 billion in construction, a four-month delay courtesy of COVID-19 and the hype of Major League Baseball’s 60-game sprint of a schedule, Texas Rangers baseball was back in Arlington over the weekend. But after christening new Globe Life Field with masks, social distancing,…
Soon, single mother Kimberly Brock will likely be evicted from her Denton home. A federal law that had shielded her from displacement expired on Saturday. That same day, Brock, who has a 5-month-old daughter named Emery, said she received an eviction notice. She hasn’t been able to afford her full…
Black mold, raw sewage and neglected trash piles are plaguing inmates stuck in one of Denton County Jail’s so-called “quarantine pods,” according to a local activist and scholar. Coronavirus-infected inmates are also allegedly deprived of functioning masks; they often must reuse the ones they do have, some of which are filled…
Saturday, more than 300 bars across the state say they will participate in Freedom Fest, an event its organizer has dubbed “the biggest bar protest in Texas history.” Chris Polone, the owner of Fort Worth’s The Rail Club Live, arranged the festival to challenge an executive order that forced the…
Dallas ISD’s plan for what the coming school year will look like is becoming clearer. Monday, the district released details of a proposed calendar for the upcoming school year. The updated calendar moves the first day of school to the Tuesday after Labor Day, moves the end of the school…
Scott Danbom slides behind the ivories and takes a seat. During any given summer, the former Centro-matic pianist might be sharing the stage with the likes of Sarah Jaffe or Alejandro Escovedo. They could be playing any number of sold-out festivals in New York City or Europe. In normal times,…
Mask mandates are slowing the spread of the coronavirus in North Texas, a new report shows. Dr. Rajesh Nandy, a biostatistics and epidemiology professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, will release the report by Monday. He said his findings indicate that mask mandates are working to…
Perry Eakles has worked at Gate 5 at the State Fair of Texas for the past six years, managing the flow of pedestrians, cars and handicapped parking. If you ask him, though, he’ll say it was mostly the flow of joy. Eakles was one of the final conduits between mundane…
Coronavirus cases in North Texas continue to soar, setting new record highs nearly every day. Yet some health experts have noticed a surprising trend: a divergence in the rate of additional cases and COVID-related deaths. That shouldn’t be cause for celebration, though, said Dr. Erin Carlson, an associate clinical professor…
For the past few weeks, Amanda Scott has watched with growing concern as the days until school starts tick away and the number of reported cases of COVID-19 in Dallas climb ever higher. Scott’s son Fletcher will be going into second grade at Mockingbird Elementary School in East Dallas. With…
Texans could soon grab a freshly poured pint from their favorite watering hole. Wednesday, several club owners filed a lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott that demanded the state’s bars be allowed to reopen. Brandon Hays is joining the suit on behalf of his Dallas establishments The Whippersnapper, Tiny Victories and…
On Wednesday afternoon, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner followed through with his statement earlier in the day that he would move to cancel the state GOP’s convention that was set to be held next week in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center if the City’s legal team believed the…
May 14, Kiara Yarbrough was sent to Dallas County jail for a probation violation. Seven weeks earlier, the jail was consumed by an outbreak of COVID-19. While a pair of lawsuits have called for the release of medically vulnerable inmates, the jail has avoided responsibility for what attorneys describe as…
This year’s State Fair of Texas is canceled due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, organizers announced Tuesday morning. This year marks the first time since World War II that the fair has been canceled. It was canceled once during World War I, for three years in the 1930s…
As infections of the novel coronavirus surge across North Texas and around the state, a majority of Texans now say efforts to control the spread of the virus are going badly, according to a poll released this week. The poll, conducted by the Texas Politics Project at the University of…
No pass, no play. In 1984, that was the blunt nickname of sweeping educational reform led by Dallas businessman Ross Perot that mandated Texas high-school athletes make a grade of 70-plus in all classes or be sidelined in their sport. In 2020, it’s potentially life or death. Dictated by the…
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday issued an order requiring people to wear masks in public in any county with 20 or more confirmed cases of COVID-19. The order comes as cases of the novel coronavirus continue to surge statewide and public health officials worry about how Independence Day gatherings could fuel…
It’s no secret that Texas is having trouble getting a handle on the coronavirus. Cases are surging and plans to reopen the economy just got rolled back. In a virtual conference on Wednesday, state Democrats called Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to COVID-19 reckless and urged him to mandate the use…
First, came the coronavirus pandemic. Then, came the latest wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Many health experts feared the protests against racial injustice would usher in a landslide of new COVID-19 cases, but some doctors are now saying it’s unlikely. “For the most part, we’re not going to see…
Chris Polone woke up on Friday to around 100 phone calls. The owner of The Rail Club Live in Fort Worth said they all asked the same thing: Had he heard about Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to shutter the state’s bars? Polone said he was shocked when he learned of…
Dallas County crossed two grim thresholds Tuesday in its ongoing surge of cases of the novel coronavirus. County health officials reported 601 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday afternoon, marking the first time the county has reported more than 600 cases in a single day. The county also reported 20 coronavirus-related…
