Cover
Love in the time of Ebola
A young North Texan went to West Africa to learn. He stayed, in the face of an epidemic, because of love.KAREN GAVIS
Every other time Dominic Murer had flown into Freetown, the plane had been close to full. Even though Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in Africa, there are plenty of outsiders interested in its diamond industry and ...
2014 Turkey Awards
The birds that drove us to distraction this year.FORT WORTH WEEKLY STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS
There could be drought, hail, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Plagues of locusts could alight and the sky rain frogs. The sun could rise in the west and set in the east and the Trinity River Authority build bridges over dry land. Th...
Rising Up
Advocates say most prostitutes are victims of sex trafficking — and that’s how police and the public should view the problem.SARAH ANGLE W/ PHOTOS BY ROBERT HART
Arletta Grant doesn’t remember a lot about that time in her life. “I blocked it out,” she said. But some things she can’t forget: “At nighttime, he would make me come into his room.” “He” was an older male cousi...
Grappling with the Glitz Machine
North Texas film veterans spend their lives looking for the key to turn art into commerce.story and photos BY JEFF PRINCE
Q: What do you get when you put three North Texas film veterans in a home office in Cleburne? A: Lots of talent, great ideas, excellent films and TV shows to their credit — and almost no money. Also, possibly, a grasp of what...
Monitoring Truancy
Some advocates think Texas’ treatment of tardy students is a crime.PETER GORMAN
Last spring at a truancy court appearance in front of Johnson County Justice of the Peace Pat Jacobs, a 17-year-old high school student who routinely skipped her last class of the day was ordered to wear an ankle monitor to con...
Down to the Wire
The Wendy Davis-Gregg Abbott race hasn’t been pretty, but this is Texas.ERIC GRIFFEY AND JEFF PRINCE
Winning the Republican primary in the Texas governor’s race these days is almost like being handed the keys to the mansion. Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the top office since 1991. Since then, Republican governors Geor...
Scared/Silly
A local gun rights group says it carries loaded semi-automatic rifles in public to show it’s ludicrous. Others agree with the ludicrous part.CHRISTIAN MCPHATE
In a Home Depot parking lot near AT&T Stadium in Arlington, a small group of people, mostly in their mid- to late 20s, stand by pickup trucks filled with flags. It’s a Saturday afternoon in late September, and they’re g...
A Crisis in Care
Profound changes may be coming for Texas’ mental health services and its whole healthcare bureaucracy.EDWARD BROWN
Texas’ massive health services agency, which oversees the state’s psychiatric hospitals and many other aspects of healthcare, is failing to do its job. Its aging hospitals are in crisis and short of staff, and patients ar...
Bad Air Day
Around North Texas parks and playgrounds, children are breathing dangerous doses of toxic fumes from gas industry sites.PETER GORMAN W/ PHOTOS BY LEE CHASTAIN
On a crisp Saturday morning, Delga Park, just north of downtown Fort Worth, was beautiful. The deep blue sky was spattered with cumulus clouds, and birds flitted among shade trees at one end of the park, sandwiched between I-35...
Welcome to Best Of 2014
GAYLE REAVES-KINGThis, our Best Of 2014 issue, is like a telethon for a good cause, except that you don’t have to listen to people in tuxedos and ruffled shirts begging for your money. And you can read it at your leisure (please do), and it d...