A video surfaced Monday of U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s choice to replace her in Congress in which she questioned Johnson’s personal wealth, support of the 1994 crime bill and her nearly three decades representing Dallas’ 30th Congressional District. “We have a congresswoman here in Texas… who has been in that seat for 28 years, ever since they created that seat,” state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, said during a sprawling, two-hour interview on the podcast Barbershop Conversations that was posted in August of 2020. “She was the first elected Black woman to the Texas House. She has been an elected official for the…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
Ranchman’s Cafe in Ponder has been serving chicken-fried steak since 1948. The building has been there since 1903. But for 662 days, it’s been closed, first because of COVID-19 and then because of construction delays. Owner Dave Ross is confident his Ponder steakhouse will reopen. He won’t let it close, he says. But tell that to the impatient customers who reach out every week, wondering how much longer the wait will be. “As a steward of a cultural heritage restaurant, my mission is survival,” he says. Survival means finishing a construction project in the kitchen that’ll make the restaurant more efficient, then hoping that…
About one in 4 patients hospitalized in North Texas have COVID-19, as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to spread throughout Dallas-Fort Worth and the rest of the country. Mounting coronavirus hospitalizations are putting an increased burden on the area’s health care system, which is struggling to cope as members of already limited staffs continue to contract the virus, North Texas doctors and health experts said. More than 340 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing North Texas’ total to 3,359 concurrent patients, according to the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council. Of those cases, 250 are at…
Fear of retribution from Gov. Greg Abbott contributes to Keller school officials’ push to keep private the deliberations about which books to ban from libraries. Keller ISD is among many school systems embroiled in a fight about whether students should have access to books that delve into issues of race and sexuality. Republican state leaders, such as Abbott, have poured gasoline on this culture-war issue, stoking fear in educators with the looming possibility of investigations and criminal penalties. Abbott’s threats are part of the justification Keller ISD attorneys are using to argue that book challenge committee meetings should be held…
Retired Lt. Gen. Richard Carey pointed upward during his speech Monday afternoon at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, where dozens gathered to mark the groundbreaking of the nation’s second Chosin Few Memorial. The 12-foot-tall, polished black granite structure will recognize the group of about 18,000 United Nations security forces who fought in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a 17-day engagement that is widely considered one of the most brutal battles in modern history and is regarded by many historians as a pivotal moment in the Korean War. “That man took care of me,” Carey said as he credited God for being…
As the raging omicron variant of COVID-19 infects workers across the nation, millions of those whose jobs don’t provide paid sick days are having to choose between their health and their paycheck. While many companies instituted more robust sick leave policies at the beginning of the pandemic, some of those have since been scaled back with the rollout of the vaccines, even though omicron has managed to evade the shots. Meanwhile, the current labor shortage is adding to the pressure of workers having to decide whether to show up to their job sick if they can’t afford to stay home.…
Dallas officials say they believe it will cost $30 million to make streets safe enough that no one will die in crashes by 2030. The price tag comes with a difficult task. Statistics show Dallas is among the more deadly cities for traffic-related fatalities in the U.S. The Dallas City Council approved the goal in 2019 and gave city workers two years to come up with a plan on how to get there. The city’s transportation director presented the proposal last week. Council members will vote on the roadmap this spring. The Vision Zero plan is part of an international road safety…
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced Monday that he is appointing Lynn McBee to oversee new city strategies to help more residents land higher-wage jobs. As Dallas’ new workforce czar, McBee will be tasked with creating a plan that fosters more job training and education programs as well as opportunities for more residents to access them. She’ll also lead the effort to put the plans into action, which are based on recommendations from a November report that reviewed the city’s workforce development opportunities. McBee finished third against Johnson in the 2019 mayoral election. The report from research consulting firm Cicero Group found that Dallas…
As of Monday, 10,417 Texans were hospitalized with the virus, including 3,200 in North Texas. The 14-day average of new cases in Texas is 41,014 — four times the previous 14-day average of 10,053. Here’s what you need to know about the COVID-19 in North Texas for today, Jan. 11. The proportion is worsening the burden on the area’s health care system, North Texas doctors and health experts say. The percentage of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is expected to grow for the next few weeks. Federal health officials say treatment and precautions depend on symptoms and vaccination status. Here’s what you…
HOUSTON, Texas — A federal lawsuit filed in Illinois over the weekend accuses 16 private universities – including Rice University in Houston – of using a shared formula to calculate the financial needs of student applicants in a way that unfairly limits aid to students who need it. The lawsuit’s plaintiffs are five former students from some of those schools who say the universities are violating antitrust laws, which prohibit competitors from conspiring to set prices. A Rice University spokesperson declined a comment to The Texas Tribune on the pending lawsuit. ABC13 also reached out for a comment and had not heard…
