Ben Sandifer isn’t the Great Trinity Forest’s only guardian angel. A small but dedicated contingent of amateur naturalists and environmentalists have devoted themselves to exploring and preserving the thousands of acres of wildlands that follow the Trinity River through southern Dallas. But Sandifer is their leader, and he has emerged…
Ahead of a vote next week in the Texas House of Representatives on a bill that would strip Texas cities of most of their power to regulate a certain resource extraction process that totally doesn’t cause earthquakes or flaming tap water and will carry the United States to energy independence,…
Mississippi, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, cannot use the courts to challenge President Obama’s 2012 decision to allow some immigrant children who entered the United States illegally to avoid deportation. Affirming a district court ruling, the 5th Circuit found that the state couldn’t prove any actual…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings took the time Wednesday to finally tell us when we we’re all going to get to hear about the sure-to-be-revelatory findings of his self-convened Trinity toll road “dream team.” Rawlings, who says he asked the team to design a road consistent with both a meandering parkway…
Late Friday afternoon, the Federal Highway Administration issued its record of decision (ROD) for the Trinity toll road. As everybody anywhere knows, a ROD is the FHWA’s final step in a process under the NEPA that begins with an NOI, a draft EIS, final EIS and then ROD. We SYN…
Monday morning in Dallas, if you’d gotten up without a permanent job and gone out seeking a couple of hours of physical labor to make whatever ends meet you could, you might have headed to 7-Eleven at Marsalis Avenue and Eighth Street in Dallas or the closed Sam’s Club on…
In the surest sign yet that the United States is in the midst of a dramatic economic recovery, Americans have seen fit to set fire to more $4 million by giving it to Ted Cruz’s nascent presidential campaign. Not that we’re prejudging. “This constitutional conservative campaign has raised more in…
As it does before every election, The Dallas Morning News has published a series of candidate questionnaires probing hopefuls for their views on a number of city topics. To the DMN’s credit, the survey’s question about the proposed Trinity toll road is both thorough and specific. “Do you support any…
“Who’s in charge?” It was a question that everyone seemed to have in early October last year. Thomas Eric Duncan had just become the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and no one, it seemed, knew what to do, as documented in February’s Vanity Fair…
It’s still a long shot for sure, but the Dallas Green Alliance’s path to eight votes against the Trinity toll road on the Dallas City Council is coming into focus. The DGA, a pro-environment PAC expressly formed to get toll road opponents elected, announced its endorsements Friday, along with plans…
Richard Sheridan, the perennial gadfly candidate accused of painting “666” on a number of local buildings and landmarks, is out of jail. He was released at 7 a.m. Sunday, he says, but not before he was able to persuade 10 people inside to vote for him in May 9’s mayoral…
In 2007, former television journalist and journalism professor Eric Gormly made history at the University of North Texas for suing one of his own students. In the suit, he accused two professors and the student of conspiring to give him a bad performance review that got him fired. School officials…
District 3 might be the most important race in the upcoming Dallas City Council election. Incumbents Scott Griggs and Philip Kingston have taken the rare step of endorsing a candidate outside their own districts, giving their support to high school teacher Joe Tave. Vonciel Jones Hill, who represents District 3…
On Wednesday, the Texas House overwhelmingly approved a statewide ban on texting while driving, the third session in a row where this has happened. In 2013, the measure died in the Senate. In 2011, it was killed by Governor Rick Perry, who vetoed it on the grounds that it was…
Those who wanted a bit of theater at Dallas City Hall on Wednesday — us, for instance — didn’t get exactly what they wanted, but Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston made sure they didn’t go home empty handed. Kingston, the id of Trinity toll road opposition, and Vonciel Jones…
Almost a week after Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings issued a memo to try to curtail City Council members’ responses to open microphone speakers at council meetings, two council members will take to the open microphone themselves on Wednesday to talk about the Trinity toll road. Rawlings’ memo came after March…
When Mayor Mike Rawlings and sundry other dignitaries gathered in Pleasant Grove last month to unveil the almost-open Texas Horse Park’s enormous new sculpture, there was much self-congratulatory gushing, multiple allusions to an imagined horse/cowboy culture, even a laughable pitch by Councilman Tennell Atkins for the Trinity toll road (“We’ll…
Ted Cruz confirmed what was inevitable early Monday morning on Twitter. The Texas senator, sworn in just 26 months ago, is running for president. I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support! pic.twitter.com/0UTqaIoytP— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2015 Monday morning, Cruz formally confirmed his candidacy at…
Since we last left Faux Mayor Mike, his still criminally underfollowed Twitter has more than tripled its constituency. Faux Mike himself has continued to rampage around Dallas’ favorite Internet haunts as well, dropping f-bombs, extolling the virtues of pizza and decrying all the “jihadist anti-toll road goofballs.” Amid the profanity…
Update March 23: Villalba unblocked Rhoads on Saturday and promised her an exclusive after the bill gets its committee hearing on March 26. Jason Villalba’s taken a lot of heat for HB 2918. Some of it’s been deserved — even Villalba himself admitted to The Dallas Morning News that the…
On March 26, the U.S. Department of Labor will change the definition of the word “spouse” as it’s used in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Any person legally married to another person in any state will become eligible for the spousal benefits provided for in the act. The…
Mayor Mike Rawlings is not happy with Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs. Two weeks ago, in response to a series of pro-Trinity toll road open-microphone speakers, Griggs tore into the road at a council meeting. “This is the worst boondoggle imaginable, and it’s time to get serious about developing…
