The Dallas Morning News

Residents grappling with tragedies that left 6 dead

Residents of a small East Texas town grappled Wednesday with two overnight tragedies — a shootout that killed a sheriff ’s deputy and a house fire that claimed the lives of a mother and her four children. The deaths shocked Canton’s more than 5,000...

Flagg takes leading role

Cooper Flagg looked different on the first day of training camp, and not only because of the 23 pounds he gained over the summer. It was the way he strutted around the gymnasium, shaking hands with every teammate, coach and executive he could and...

Voters’ minds on finances, leaders

From rising prices to frustration with elected leaders, North Texas voters headed to the polls Monday with concerns about their finances and the direction of the state and country. Some wanted a change in political leadership. Others hoped to keep...

‘Perfect’ ending

The air was brisk and fall-like as attendees swarmed the State Fair of Texas, which wrapped up its annual run on Sunday. Fairgoers were dressed in an array of cowboy hats, denim, long-sleeve flannels and Dallas Cowboys T-shirts as they meandered down...

A tragic turn for friends’ adventure

John Giusti found enough cell service at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to call his wife for three minutes. Thousands of feet below the park’s South Rim on Aug. 28, his voice broke with each surge of static, but Janet Giusti made out the most...

Festive fun winds down

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Coupons part of legacy

It may seem silly to think about what happens to the thousands of tickets exchanged at the State Fair of Texas, but using those paper coupons for a corny dog or ride on the Ferris wheel is just step one during the 24-hour day of a ticket at Fair...

Talarico hits both parties at CNN town hall

WASHINGTON — James Talarico had a national stage to himself Wednesday night. With Republican Ken Paxton declining invitations to debate, the Democratic Senate candidate appeared at a live CNN town hall in Fort Worth, fielding questions from voters in...

Richland football player admired for ‘huge heart’

Katron Walker Jr. almost walked away from football — until he visited Texas. The teenage quarterback from Memphis, Tenn., always had a love for the sport. But when he told his mom he was considering leaving his school’s team, Randi Hill knew he needed...

Meet veteran vendors behind beloved fare

Jack Pyland was already selling french fries at the State Fair of Texas when the Army drafted him. The family business had been part of his life since childhood. His father, a Navy veteran who learned to prepare fries during his military service,...

Expanding services for community

When 22-year-old Mckayla Mosley found Bonton Farms in South Dallas, she was dealing with grief and working overnight shifts to care for her young daughter. “I had a full plate,” Mosley said. “I needed help.” Mosley’s father had died a few years...

Cheers before tears

Texas Longhorns fans cheer as the players take the field before Saturday’s Red River Rivalry game against Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl. The Sooners pulled off a 27-24 upset of the top-ranked Longhorns.

Goldee’s makes history

At 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, Joel Vienneau and Martin Hamel were already waiting by the door of Goldee’s BBQ in Fort Worth. They had traveled from Quebec, Canada, as part of a tour of Louisiana and Texas to try some of the best barbecue spots. They...

Tough one to watch

Cowboys players lament missed opportunities during the second half of their 24-16 loss to Tampa Bay, which came into the game winless on the season, on Thursday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The Cowboys, who led 10-7 at halftime, had two...

Opal Lee turns 100

FORT WORTH — Opal Lee, born three years before the Great Depression, lived through World War II, raised her children and earned a college degree in a segregated Jim Crowera Texas. On Wednesday, the civil rights leader celebrated her 100th birthday...

Mayor: Financial hub offsets AT&T loss

Mayor Eric Johnson says Morgan Stanley’s planned regional hub in Dallas effectively makes up for the loss of AT&T’S headquarters to Plano in 2028, rejecting concerns that a string of high-profile corporate departures signals the city is losing economic...

Teachers living farther from schools they serve

Most mornings, teacher Daphne Wu carries a cup of coffee on the roughly mile-long walk from her downtown Dallas apartment to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The walk gives her time to prepare for class, notice the...

Dramatic ‘W’ in H-town

Cowboys running back Javonte Williams (33) powers into the end zone for a touchdown in the third quarter of Dallas’ come-from-behind win over the Texans on Sunday in Houston. Williams rushed for three scores and wide receiver Ceedee Lamb had a...

More young Texans struggle with betting

Jessica Steinman fell hard for a gambling addict. They met when the Austin woman had just moved to Los Angeles in June 2011. She passed him her phone number while dining at a 24-hour restaurant where he had worked as a host. He called her the next...

Signing Stars

Stars center Sam Steel signs an autograph for Braxton, 8, and Nathan Sevatson on Friday outside the American Airlines Center before Dallas hosted the St. Louis Blues in the season opener. The Stars finished 50-20-12 and in second place in the NHL...

Trump on Denton visit touts economic agenda, Paxton

DENTON — President Donald Trump returned Thursday to Texas, looking to promote an economic record he called “phenomenal” and give Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton a political boost. “All over the country, they’re building factories, plants,” Trump...

That’s a wrap

More than 100 years of history came to a close on Wednesday evening at the downtown Neiman Marcus store, as lights dimmed and the doors shut for the final time. Locals lingered on the sidewalk near the store’s entrance on Commerce Street, catching...

So many memories in store

They’re turning out the lights. The party’s over. On Wednesday, the umpteenth owners of Neiman Marcus will shutter its landmark flagship store — an inglorious end to the crown jewel of downtown Dallas retailing. It’s been a long, tortuous, emotional...

Hungry for fun

Heartbreaker in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO — The crowd of 70,000 plus was amazing — loud and proud to have two NFL teams in their country playing American football. When the Brazilian national anthem was played in the late afternoon at historic Maracanã Stadium, nearly everyone...

‘Chosen’ finishes filming final season in region

MIDLOTHIAN — On the set of The Chosen, the sun beats down on a two-acre replica of a first-century village, where characters from the New Testament gather at a synagogue, buy food at a market and stomp grapes in their homes. But the detailed set is a...

‘It’s Texas in one bite’: Families celebrate first day

Four-year-old Townie Fox waited far too long to reunite with an old friend. She and her mother, Bessie, were some of the first visitors at Fair Park’s gates for the first day of the 2026 State Fair of Texas. Once they were in, the pair walked past the...

Trump pours on the pomp

WASHINGTON — Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met for high stakes talks on Thursday at an urgent moment for the U.s.china relationship, with the world’s preeminent powers divided on the war in Iran and still grappling to find common ground on...

Thinking outside the class

Tripp Mcneil traded the classroom for a 66-acre garden. The fifth grader spent his first week of school at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, where he played games with his new classmates, ad mired the koi meandering around the pond and took...

Trump touts ‘good meeting’

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump said U.S. and Iranian officials met on Tuesday, an unexpected engagement that came even as he threatened in his address to the U.N. General Assembly that he may “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal isn’t...

Conflicting accounts emerge

A day after federal immigration agents shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in North Austin, competing accounts of what happened emerged Monday as Wilber Rafael Garces Perez said the agents never identified themselves before sideswiping his vehicle and...

Bouncing back big time

Dallas wide receiver Ceedee Lamb catches a touchdown pass from quarterback Dak Prescott as Washington cornerback Mike Sainristil defends during the second half of the Cowboys’ 37-20 win on Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The touchdown pass was the...

Divided by data centers

Driving their fenceline tall with prairie grass and what few wildflowers have survived the summer heat, Laura and Brian Crawford looked across and imagined what’s coming. When they purchased their sprawling 118-acre property along the Paluxy River...

Vote shields 25 library jobs

Nearly a dozen community branch libraries across Dallas — and 25 jobs — were saved from $1.125 million in budget cuts by an 11thhour Dallas City Council vote on Wednesday. The system will still sustain some $800,000 in cuts as the city moves to a...

City’s AI cameras identify violations

Your home could be photographed by trash trucks in Dallas. The city uses Ai-powered cameras mounted on 50 garbage trucks to capture still images from public streets for software to scan for possible code violations involving lawns, debris, structures,...

Culinary pioneers reshaping D-FW

During Hispanic Heritage Month, it would be easy to talk about the influence of Hispanics on the Dallas-fort Worth food scene in terms of tacos, fajitas and momand-pop restaurants. But in recent years, chefs, restaurateurs, bakers, cooks and...

Age is only a number

At the age of 93, John Pritchett has been announcing sporting events for more than 70 years, including Dallas ISD competitions since the 1960s. It all started when he sprained his ankle while enlisted in the U.S. Army and stationed in Germany during...

A giant undertaking

Cowboys wide receiver Ceedee Lamb, left, rookie safety Caleb Downs and head coach Brian Schottenheimer watched as the New York Giants are introduced Sunday at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Downs was making his first start as a Cowboy....

Gen Z finds its political voice

Aidan Shull, 21, skipped his political science classes Thursday to see President Donald Trump. Cat Krankota, 17, put off studying for the SAT to protest him. The two Gen Z Texans viewed Trump’s convention from opposite sides of the political divide...

Dallas remembers

Guests gathered Friday morning in the George W. Bush Presidential Museum’s 9/11 exhibit, near a 22-foot section of twisted steel recovered from the World Trade Center. A bell rang nine times through the museum. Three rings for duty. Three for...

Vance, Cruz audition for 2028

Vice President JD Vance got an early, high-profile audition Thursday as the potential 2028 Republican presidential nominee, delivering the headline speech on the second and final night of the party’s convention-style rally in Dallas. But Vance was not...

Counting on Trump

President Donald Trump delivered a Texas-sized warning to supporters Wednesday on the opening night of the first GOP midterm convention: show up in November or cede power to the Democrats. “I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” Trump...

GOP’S past meets its future

Washington Bureau [email protected] Ronald Reagan came to Dallas in 1984 proclaiming a “springtime of hope” and promising Americans that “greatness lies ahead.” He left with the Republican nomination, won 49 states and stamped his vision...

GOP bets on Trump in Dallas

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called House Speaker Mike Johnson last November with an urgent demand: Republicans had to hold a midterm convention. “That’s not a thing,” Johnson told him. “Make it a thing,” Trump insisted. He got his way....

Crews hold the line

The Ross fire burning in Palo Pinto and Jack counties west of Fort Worth remained at 85,000 acres and 31% contained early Friday afternoon, but firefighters were on guard for a potential shift toward Possum Kingdom as winds were forecast to shift,...

Crews fight massive blaze

PALO PINTO COUNTY — The Ross fire was mapped at an estimated 85,000 acres Thursday, placing it among the largest wildfires ever recorded in North Texas as crews battled flare-ups across a blaze stretching roughly 30 miles from end to end. The fire was...

Crews gaining on wildfire

Kent Ragle finally reached his business Wednesday morning, two days after the Ross fire began tearing through his Palo Pinto County community. What he found was a total loss. The main office of Klassic Building Solutions, the construction company...

‘Inferno’ wildfire rages on

PALO PINTO — Long plumes of gray smoke spread across an overcast sky Tuesday afternoon as crews battled a rapidly growing wildfire fueled by extreme heat and dry conditions. What started midday Monday as a grass fire had grown to the raging Ross...

Beating the Texas heat

North Texas is bracing for another week of triple-digit heat after three straight days of record high temperatures. Monday’s high of 108 was a record for that date and followed a record-setting high of 109 on Sunday. Saturday kicked off the weekend...

Builders await City Hall fate

Every time Juan Merced Elizondo drives through downtown Dallas, he points to the massive concrete building nestled against the city’s skyline. “Nomás cuando paso les digo ‘Mira, yo hice esto.’” “When I pass by, I tell them, ‘Look, I built this,’” he...

Funding the dream

Before the sun had crept over the neighborhood, Yua Howk was already in the kitchen, in her pajamas, gazing up at her father. He handed over a hanger with a navy dress. A smile filled her rosy cheeks. A second school uniform — a navy polo and khaki...

Boba boom reshapes North Texas

When Fat Straws opened in Plano in 2002, there was “virtually no boba, no milk tea in Dallas-fort Worth,” said Terry Pham, the shop’s co-founder. Two decades later, Pham said, over a dozen milk tea stores opened in 2023 within six miles of the Fat...

Sweltering in the summer heat

Ines Cervantes, 69, hunkers down in her bedroom, near the home’s only air conditioner, a small unit wedged into a window. Cold towels and ceiling fans do little to cool her off, and her systolic blood pressure jumped to 230, far higher than what is...

Protesters call for ‘no wall’

As a former state senator and commissioner of the General Land Office, Jerry Patterson is no stranger to emotional issues that divide Texans into partisan camps. But sitting outside the Texas Parks and Wildlife headquarters in Austin Wednesday, the...

Sweet victory

Please stand to welcome the winners of the 2026 Big Tex Choice Awards. The State Fair of Texas has selected the best dishes of the annual competition that recognizes some of the new food creations coming to Fair Park this fall. This year, the Burger...

Big Bend border work pauses

The Trump administration said Monday it is temporarily pausing construction of a contentious border construction project in Texas’ Big Bend National Park while the head of the agency tasked with building the wall visits to do an “on-the-ground...

Volunteers help migrants

Zoya Choudhry doesn’t sit still. The 30-year-old activist spends her summer days dashing around in an orange vest emblazoned with a butterfly on the front and back — the symbol of migrants. Choudhry volunteers with La Colectiva North Texas, a...

When dying needs a navigator

Jeanine Blair opened the door for her death doula on a cloudless Friday morning in July. They greeted each other like old friends. They sat, and the pink-haired, heavily tattooed doula pulled out her binder and spread documents across the dinner...

Texas A-F scores are out

North Texas’ biggest school districts largely held steady in this year’s A-F accountability ratings, according to scores released Friday. Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Garland ISDS all gained a few points compared with last year’s results, but not...

‘Keller will be heard’

KELLER — Keller City Council’s special-called meeting Wednesday night had very little on the agenda, but people still showed up in droves, overfilling the chambers. At the top of the list: discussing Westlake’s data center development. In a meeting...

Cyber risks spur job growth

Maturon Miner spends his weekdays in a rented room in Plano, away from the East Texas home he shares with his wife and 5-yearold daughter. Every weekend, he drives back to see them. Then he returns to North Texas for another week of coding, hands-on...

New campuses greet students

Emma Haak’s first moments of fourth grade were punctuated with mariachi music. Outside Victor H. Hexter Elementary School in Dallas, a mariachi band, clad in emerald green, strummed light, airy tunes as hundreds of families walked their children to...

State control shapes school return

A few minutes after 7:30 a.m. Monday, Liz Bay’s kids bounced up the steps of W.M. Green Elementary School in Fort Worth and headed inside to the gymnasium, where teachers waited to show students where to go. Dressed in green heart-shaped sunglasses...

Dallas scales back I-30 parks

One chilly weekend in January, excavators began transforming what is normally one of Dallas’ most congested roads — Interstate 30 — to make way for the $888 million Canyon project. The work kicked off an effort to widen the downtown thoroughfare for a...

A day in the North Texas heat, told hour by hour

Some pushed through it. Others tried to escape it. None could ignore it. The heat found them all. While this year hasn’t approached historic extremes, it has already delivered more than a dozen days of the triple-digit temperatures known to make...

Finding hope despite obstacles

With wide eyes, Colleen and Steven Howk took in the courtyard lined with picnic tables, the skyscrapers hovering in the distance. This was where the school held its dances. And over there, the gleaming playground. Here, they believed, attentive...

Dallas ISD officer wounded

By midmorning Thursday, dozens of Dallas police officers had fanned out across two scenes: a pair of unrelated officer-involved shootings, separated by 90 minutes and less than three miles. The first stretch of yellow police tape went up in Melshire...