DMN INVESTIGATES

Remember the Darlie Routier case -- the Rowlett woman who's on Texas' death row for the 1996 stabbing death of one of her boys? Remember how the error-riddled trial transcript delayed the appeal process and raised doubts about its integrity?

Then you'll want to read the rest of this blog post.

"Court administrators would have difficulty justifying courts' continued dependence on stenographic reporting if they were to describe the process by which the majority of state trial courts create, produce, and maintain the official record of the hundreds of thousands of court proceedings annually," a national association of court officials concludes.

The Conference of State Court Administrators' report begins with provocative questions. What, it asks, would ordinary people say "if they learned that thousands of staff are assigned to individual courtrooms to make this manual record even though few cases are appealed? How might they react if they learned that the manual recording of those proceedings is made in a media that could be interpreted into written English only by the individual making the record?

John Galligan (right), the attorney for Fort Hood massacre defendant Nidal Malik Hasan (lower right), has started a blog and is poking away at the prosecution.

Galligan complains, among other things, that the Army is gearing up for a death-penalty trial but has refused his request for a "mitigation specialist" -- an expert who could address extenuating circumstances that might spare Hasan from capital punishment.

Col. Morgan Lamb denied the defense request "because the mitigation specialist also happens to be an attorney," Galligan writes. "Obviously, Colonel Lamb was not properly advised that this same mitigation specialist has also been requested and approved in another Army capital murder case now pending at Fort Lewis, Washington. In short, the US Army is operating with a double set of standards....

"What is the rationale for such disparate treatment? One can't help but wonder - is it because [Hasan] is Muslim?"

Elsewhere on the blog, for reasons I don't understand, Galligan uses President Obama's middle name (Hussein) when referring to him and misspells his first name.

How does the Army respond to the defense claims? "Fort Hood officials have no plans to comment on personal blogs related to the November 5, 2009 incident," says an e-mail I just received from post spokesman Tyler Broadway.

One of Texas' top tourist attractions opens for the season Saturday. But will SeaWorld San Antonio's best known show go on?

Company officials aren't saying what the future holds after a killer whale lived up to its name yesterday at SeaWorld Orlando. Horrified tourists watched as trainer Dawn Brancheau (right) perished, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Tilikum, the orca that killed her, had been involved in the deaths of two other people -- a trainer in 1991 and a visitor who sneaked past security in 1999.

SeaWorld isn't saying much today on its Web site -- just this: "SeaWorld Orlando and SeaWorld San Diego will be open Thursday, February 25 as scheduled (SeaWorld San Antonio is not yet open for the season) but Believe shows and Dine with Shamu experiences at all SeaWorld locations have been suspended; no decision has been made for future dates at this time."

Do you have a tip about amusement park safety? Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Rarely have I talked with someone who speaks so unflinchingly as retired Army Capt. Shannon Meehan (right).

First he wrote the book Beyond Duty, explaining how he accidentally killed a family in Iraq and how depression nearly killed him afterward.

Then, shortly after the Fort Hood massacre, he told me that shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been seeking to have psychiatric patients on the base prosecuted for war crimes.

That wasn't a popular thing to say at the time, given that a Hood higher-up had recently called Hasan a "hardworking, dedicated young man who gave great care to his patients." Speaking up also meant Meehan had to reveal that he had been a psych patient at the Central Texas post.

His latest soul-baring appears this week in The New York Times, where he also issues a challenge to us civilians:

"In recent months I've been trying to honor the lives I took by writing and speaking in public about my experience, to show that those deaths are not tucked neatly away in a foreign land," Meehan writes. "They may seem distant, but they are not. Soldiers bring the ghosts home with them, and it's everyone else's job to hear about them, no matter how painful it may be."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is a high-profile national organization that speaks out frequently when it believes Muslims are being mistreated.

Recently, for example, it denounced the introduction of full-body scanners in airports as a violation of Islamic rules about modesty. Its Web site carries many press releases on a variety of civil rights issues.

But CAIR has been quiet about the recent deportation order against Richardson resident Nabil Sadoun (left), a longtime member of the group's national and DFW chapter boards.

When I asked national CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper for an interview, he responded with this e-mail: "Peace. Perhaps speak to his attorney. She is the best source of information on the case." Hooper did not respond when I followed up with written questions about CAIR's view of the deportation case and its relationship with Sadoun.

Sadoun's attorney, Kimberly Kinser of Richardson, didn't respond to my phone call and e-mail.

The New York Times has a fascinating background piece today on the tax law that software engineer Andrew Joseph Stack III (right) blasted in his suicide note.

The 1986 legislation started as a favor to IBM and "made it extremely difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals, forcing most to become company employees," The Times reported. "Many software engineers and other such professionals say that the law denies them the opportunity to become wealthy entrepreneurs and that it makes it harder to increase and refine their skills, eventually diminishing their income."

Joe Stack, in the note he posted online before flying a plane into IRS offices in Austin yesterday, said those who wrote the law "could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave."

Not a rant -- a tip.

Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

What we have so far: A small plane crashed this morning into the Echelon office complex in northwest Austin. Austin TV station KVUE says the building that was hit is at 9430 Research Blvd.

The IRS has offices there, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

And the FBI has a field office elsewhere in the complex, at 9420 Research Blvd.

CNN, citing an unnamed official, says: "The pilot of the plane had set his house on fire beforehand, stole the plane and crashed it intentionally."

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A little over a week ago, I was blogging about safety issues at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines.

Now my investigative reporting colleague in Washington, Dave Michaels, is breaking a story about similar problems at Fort Worth-based American.

"Federal regulators have failed to correct mounting and long-standing maintenance deficiencies at American Airlines despite receiving detailed complaints about the carrier's problems," Dave writes, citing a report due to be released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general.

The Federal Aviation Administration responded by saying it has been working with American to "elevate its maintenance practices" and was strengthening its oversight of other carriers.

FAA officials proposed a $2.9 million fine Wednesday against American Eagle for flying inadequately repaired planes, The Dallas Morning News' Eric Torbenson reported.

AA and Southwest say they're proud of their safety records.

Dallas lawyer Ralph Janvey is the court-appointed receiver assigned to recover money that disgraced Texas banker Allen Stanford (at right) allegedly obtained by defrauding investors. Among those Janvey is seeking funds from are the many politicians who benefited from Stanford's generosity -- members of Congress and fundraising committees for both major political parties.

Janvey started asking them to pay up a year ago. Many have not done so, reports Dave Michaels of the The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau.

Click here for Janvey's list of who has paid and who owes what.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan wasn't the only guy with extremist ties counseling soldiers at Fort Hood last year, as my story in Sunday's Dallas Morning News shows.

There was at least one more: Louay Safi (shown at right). A month after the worst military-base massacre in U.S. history, he taught Islam to officers who were deploying to Afghanistan. He'd been doing this work on bases around the country, as a military subcontractor, since 2005.

That same year, federal prosecutors named Safi an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-support trial of his old buddy Sami al-Arian. The reason: a wiretapped phone call in which the two men mocked a U.S. order banning dealings with foreign terrorist groups and agreed that Jews controlled the White House.

Al-Arian has since been convicted. But he still faces criminal contempt charges for refusing to testify before a grand jury about the International Institute of Islamic Thought -- a northern Virginia think tank that counterterrorism agents raided in 2002, when Safi was its research director.

Safi now faces a criminal inquiry by the military but has never been criminally charged. He denies wrongdoing. He also has described post-9/11 counterterrorism crackdowns as a "campaign against Islam."

These images all come from The Meadville Tribune in northwest Pennsylvania, where the latest failure occurred.

At right is what the facility looked like when under construction in 2008.

Below are scenes from Wednesday's collapse.

The company that built the Dallas Cowboys' failed practice facility (right) has suffered another collapse of one of its large tentlike structures.

This one's at a fairgrounds in northwest Pennsylvania, reports a little paper there called The Meadville Tribune. And fortunately, no one was hurt -- unlike here, where one Cowboys staffer was permanently paralyzed below the waist, another suffered a broken neck without paralysis, and 10 others were injured less seriously.

Last fall, a federal agency blamed the Cowboys collapse on a long series of design failures and warned that many similar tent-like structures remain in use around the world. "All of those buildings, the National Institute of Standards and Technology said, need to be checked for similar problems," we reported in October.

A judge in Philadelphia previously blamed a third collapse there on design errors by the same company: Canada-based Cover-All Building Systems and its U.S. subsidiary, Summit Structures. It has denied wrongdoing and insisted its buildings are safe.

The Philadelphia collapse occurred after a heavy snow in early 2003, as did the latest Pennsylvania collapse. Last year's disaster in Irving occurred during a thunderstorm.

Do you have a tip about crime stats? Dallas police? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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We're back after an extended break during the holidays. Let's ease into our familiar routines with a look at some of the interesting public-interest stories from the weekend:

1. If you're catching up on the recent rise in terror threats, The News published a nice takeout by The Washington Post exploring Al-Qaeda's re-emergence in Yemen. Yemen is the base of the imam who advised the Army psychiatrist behind the Fort Hood killings, as my colleague Brooks Egerton has blogged, and has apparent ties to the Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane bound for Detroit.

2. Much has been written about the economic wonders of the new Cowboys Stadium. The News' Jeff Mosier reminds us that in one instance what Jerry giveth Arlington, he taketh from Dallas. Fair Park had a "hollow feeling" as the annual Cotton Bowl football game was played out west for the first time Saturday. Makes you wonder what the economic losses were for Dallas?

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Dave Michaels just sent me this dispatch from The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau:

FBI agents who discovered Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's extremist ties before the Fort Hood massacre may not have had access to key Army records on the psychiatrist, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (right) said today.

That's because some information counter-terrorism investigators need stays in military education or training files "and does not make its way to the personnel files" that intelligence agencies would get for an initial review, said Collins. She's the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which is investigating how pre-massacre intelligence about Hasan was handled.

Hasan's colleagues and superiors repeatedly raised concerns about him during his psychiatric training in the Washington area, as has been widely reported since the Nov. 5 slaughter. Issues included his fundamentalist Islamic leanings, religious proselytizing, commitment to the Army, poor work performance and mental stability.

"It doesn't appear that the military has updated its personnel policies to reflect the threat of Islamic extremism," Collins said after a closed hearing with Defense Department officials. "There appears to be a real gap in the protocols in the personnel procedures, and that is an issue we're exploring."

Army spokesman George Wright said he couldn't comment on Hasan's personnel file. But in general, he told The News, a soldier's supervisor decides whether to include letters of counseling or reprimand in the soldier's personnel file.

A decade ago, federal transportation officials hired Traffic.com to install high-tech sensors that measure freeway speeds and volume. The data can trigger traffic-jam alerts to electronic signs and other equipment.

But state and local governments can't post the alerts unless they pay the contractor a fee, The New York Times reports today, citing a non-yet-public audit by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general.

Never mind that taxpayers have committed more than $50 million to the project.

The transportation department responded to the audit, according to Times, by citing "nine letters from members of Congress -- many of whom had received frequent campaign contributions from executives at Traffic.com -- who demanded, among other requests, that it skip a competitive bidding process and give more money to Traffic.com."

The story does not identify the politicians. It says Traffic.com, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Navteq, didn't respond to a request for comment.

In case you're wondering, yes, Traffic.com alerts do appear on dallasnews.com.

Do you have a tip about traffic? Government contracts? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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In federal records, she is known only by her initials. And her story is one of suffering beyond anything I can imagine:

She was a widowed mother in Nigeria, struggling to feed six young children. A Nigerian couple living in North Texas provided her fake immigration documents and lured her here, promising a salary and payments to her kids.

Here's what she allegedly got in return: 16-hour work days of cooking, cleaning and caring for the couple's kids -- seven days a week, for nine years. Virtually no money or contact with the outside world. Forced sex with the man of the house.

An unnamed Catholic priest ultimately helped her to escape, federal records say.

Emmanuel Nnaji and wife Ngozi Nnaji are now charged with conspiracy, forced labor and other crimes. If convicted, they face up to 55 years in prison. Federal records say they have lived in Irving, Arlington and Fort Worth.

The man's adult son tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the charges are bogus.

How many more cases like this are out there? Plenty, according to this U.S. State Department report.

Do you have a tip about human trafficking or modern-day slavery? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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The FBI announced an independent review today of its "policies, practices and actions prior to the tragic events at Fort Hood" -- in other words, the Nov. 5 massacre that Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of perpetrating.

Federal Bureau of Investigation boss Robert Mueller said the review will be conducted by William Webster (right), who formerly headed the FBI and the CIA.

FBI officials have acknowledged that one of its terrorism task forces intercepted e-mails a year ago between Hasan and an extremist imam in Yemen. The officials say no investigation resulted because the correspondence was consistent with Hasan's psychiatric research on Muslims in the military.

Intelligence experts consulted by The Dallas Morning News say any contact with the imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, should have been pursued.

The FBI said it has completed a preliminary review of its pre-massacre actions and policies. A spokesman declined to comment today on what that probe found.

"We must be sure that the systems we have in place give investigators the tools they need to carry out their responsibilities. At the same time, we must ensure constitutional protections and the confidence of the American public we serve," Mueller said. "It is essential to determine whether there are improvements to our current practices or other authorities that could make us all safer in the future."

Webster will coordinate his work with reviews being conducted by the military and will seek not to interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation, the FBI said.

Dave Michaels, my colleague in The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau, just sent in this dispatch:

Almost a month after the Fort Hood massacre, lawmakers investigating it still don't have information from federal agencies regarding what they knew in advance about shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (right), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said today that his investigators haven't been able to interview members of an FBI-led joint terrorism task force who knew about Hasan's contact with a radical imam before the Nov. 5 shootings.

Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said his committee also requested documents that haven't been produced. "Put me down as restless right now, but still understanding that they have a lot they are doing."

Military prosecutors want a formal psychiatric review of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (right) to determine whether he can stand trial for the Fort Hood massacre, we learned late last night.

Read our story for some preliminary discussion of the Army's possible motives.

We're working on a follow-up story now. Do you have questions you'd like to see asked and answered? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Only one of the 13 people (right) killed in the Fort Hood massacre was a civilian. And that's no accident, The Austin American-Statesman reports today.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan apparently targeted soldiers and avoided others nearby, U.S. Rep. John Carter and an anonymous source close to the investigation told the paper.

The story makes sense in light of previous reports that Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, had ties to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Before the massacre, the imam advocated killing soldiers who fight against Muslims; afterward, he called Hasan a hero.

Do you have a tip about Fort Hood? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Federal officials took some responsibility yesterday for widespread public anger over the distribution of swine flu vaccine.

"Whether we meant to or not, I think we led expectations of availability to be higher than they have been," said Anne Schuchat (right), who heads the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "And so that, I think, can lead to frustration."

Schuchat testified before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which reported her acknowledgment in a news release.

Committee chairman Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said the CDC initially "estimated that almost half the U.S. population would be in a priority group to receive the vaccine. However, an advisory group also generated a secondary and more limited list of those who were most at risk in case vaccine availability fell short of what was planned.

"This is exactly what happened, but states, counties, and cities were allowed to target whatever population they chose for vaccination. This has led to understandable public frustration and anger, mixed with confusion over just who should get vaccinated.... I worry that we are undermining confidence, generally, in the public health system, and that people most at risk are not only not getting the vaccine but have stopped trying."

The New York Times covered the hearing but barely touched on this issue.

Dallas County's health department is trying a new vaccine-distribution strategy with pharmacies, The Dallas Morning News' Jeffrey Weiss reports today.

Do you have a tip about swine flu and the vaccine? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Dave Michaels in The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau just sent me this dispatch:

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said Tuesday that the government's failure to deal with Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's growing radicalism was similar to the intelligence community's failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., made his comments after attending a closed-door briefing with administration officials about last week's massacre at Fort Hood, which killed 13 people. Lieberman didn't discuss any details of the briefing but said all signs indicate that Hasan committed an "act of Islamic extremist terrorism."

"There is a similarity to 9/11, which is there was information in different places in our government, which if it had been connected, would have said to people this guy was a real danger," Lieberman said.

Several people have told The News that Hasan, a psychiatrist, was conflicted about being a Muslim in the U.S. Army, complained that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan constituted a "war on Islam," and wanted some of his patients to face war crimes charges.

Here are the key links:

1. A Texas congressman says Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan, which Muslim extremist groups use as a base to raise funds and carry out terrorist attacks.

2. Hasan is permanently paralyzed, one of his lawyers says today.

Here it is mid-November, and the state health department's Web site still doesn't say which private health-care providers have received swine flu vaccine. See the "Vaccine Locations" section on this page? There's no link -- just the words "Coming Soon."

Coming soon? Now that about 22 million people have gotten sick around the country and 3,900 have died?

The Dallas Morning News got tired of waiting for the state to provide data. So reporter Jeffrey Weiss wrote an open-records request for vaccine shipment information. What resulted is our own searchable database of providers in the Dallas area who are supposed to have the shots and mist. Check it out.

Do you have a tip about swine flu? The Department of State Health Services? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Here are the latest developments regarding last week's slaughter at Fort Hood:

* Formal charges were filed against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- "13 specifications of premeditated murder, in violation of Article 118, Uniform Code of Military Justice," as the Army puts it. More on this below.

* The White House released a copy of a memo that President Obama sent to the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence and the head of the FBI. It reads: "On November 6, 2009, I directed that an immediate inventory be conducted of all intelligence in U.S. Government files that existed prior to November 6, 2009, relevant to the tragic shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, especially anything having to do with the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, U.S. Army. In addition, I directed an immediate review be initiated to determine how any such intelligence was handled, shared, and acted upon within individual departments and agencies and what intelligence was shared with others... Preliminary results of this review shall be provided by November 30, 2009."

* The Dallas Morning News' Dave Michaels reports that authorities have been looking into whether Hasan wired money to Pakistan, which is battling a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden's hiding place.

Was Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan insane?

Officials discussed the question last year at his military medical school and the Army hospital in the Washington, D.C., area where he later worked, National Public Radio is reporting.

My fellow investigative reporter Lee Hancock and photographer Courtney Perry got a look today inside Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's apartment (right), now that criminal investigators in Killeen are done with it.

There were no obvious clues left behind, of course. But there was a plastic container for this LaserMax sight -- the kind of thing you might buy if you were planning to shoot a bunch of people. ("FIRST SHOT CONFIDENCE," the manufacturer advertises.) Price tag: $229.99.

Guns Galore, the Killeen store where Hasan bought a handgun in August, sells the product for that price.

Lee says they also saw several old bottles of prescription pills. One, from early 2001, was for the HIV medication Combivir.

Combivir (in combination with another anti-HIV drug) was a popular weapon against HIV in 2001. That's according to Dr. Brady Allen, a Dallas HIV specialist who just spoke to my colleague Sue Goetinck Ambrose.

Combivir sometimes was prescribed to health care workers immediately after they feared they'd been exposed to HIV via needle stick or blood splash.

Hasan graduated from a military medical school in Maryland in 2001. For reasons that aren't immediately clear, the prescription came from a pharmacy on Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio.

Also in Hasan's apartment were Jordanian and Israeli coins, a high-grade paper shredder and a book from India called Dreams and Interpretations.

Hasan, you may recall, moved out of the apartment last Thursday, a few hours before the shooting rampage. The complex manager gave journalists permission to view the unit today.

Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan (right) is a Virginia-born Army psychiatrist who counseled soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Authorities initially said they killed the major after he took part in a shooting rampage that left about a dozen colleagues dead at the Central Texas base. Tonight, inexplicably, they are saying that Hasan was wounded but survived.

Hasan worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation's capital for six years before being transferred to Texas in July. He was going to be sent into a combat zone overseas soon and didn't want to go, relatives and other said.

Hasan graduated in 2003 from the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine in Bethesda, Md., which is part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Its curriculum is longer than those found at other U.S. medical schools, with students getting training in areas specific to career-oriented military physicians.

Virginia Board of Medicine records say he completed his residency in psychiatry in 2007 at Walter Reed. He recently completed a fellowship there in disaster and preventive psychiatry.

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, which is part of Uniformed Services University, lists Hasan as a member. The organization describes itself as "one of the nation's oldest and most highly regarded, academic-based organizations dedicated to advancing trauma-informed knowledge, leadership and methodologies."

Do you have a tip (as opposed to a rant) about Hasan? Email me, please.

The Dallas Morning News' front page today features two examples of government spending that wasn't all it was cracked up to be:

1. Officials overstated the number of Texas jobs created or saved with federal stimulus funds, reports Dave Michaels, who does investigative work in our Washington bureau. Want to check out stimulus spending for yourself? There are plenty of search tools on this Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board site.

2. Texas' $300 million investment in teacher merit pay did not boost student achievement, researchers from Texas A&M and other universities conclude.

Do you have a tip about stimulus spending? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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As of the weekend, state health officials were accusing a Farmers Branch business of misrepresenting itself to get a huge stash of swine flu vaccine.

Now a spokeswoman for Jeff Vitt's Star Medical Group says he did nothing wrong and blames the dispute on a communication problem -- failure to clarify the distinction between Star Medical and another Vitt company called Flu Shots of America.

Texas health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said Friday that Star claimed to be a private medical practice, making it eligible for an early shipment of vaccine. The state's theory has been that such practices are the best way to reach the highest-risk patients first.

But Vitt's business turned out to be what the state calls a mass vaccinator, and it was selling shots to anyone willing to pay $20.

Vitt's spokeswoman, Elaine Vitt, said in an email today:

Some readers were frustrated with my Sunday column outlining the hurdles people have to now go through to get tours of the White House.

Some were upset that I didn't get the couple tickets. Others upset at Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's office.

"You can bet - in a Dallas minute - that Sen Hutchinson's large contributors can get tickets to any D.C. venue anytime that they want them," one person wrote.

The way the White House staff explains it, tickets are given out on a first-come, first-served basis. With how divisive party politics are, I'm sure we'll all hear about it before long if that's not true. Still, I have no doubt that any Congressional office staff member would be sure to be first in line for a big contributor.

UPDATE: A staffer at a congressional office was hurt by my cynicism in the above paragraph about their efforts on behalf of constituents, saying it was "grossly unfair to take that cheap shot."

While, I don't think it was a cheap shot, I do agree that the comment was cynical and I'm feeling some remorse since the job is probably thankless for the staffers who do that work.

While I am a cynic, I think I was trying to go overboard in showing I wasn't snowed about inside favors being granted left and right as some readers attest.

The Associated Press has a good national roundup story out on low-risk people getting the swine flu vaccine.

"Public health officials don't want to be vaccine police. Many don't turn anyone away who wants the vaccine, though some locations are tougher than others," the AP reports.

The Tarrant County Health Department today is turning away people (right) who aren't in the high-risk groups, The Dallas Morning News reports.

Meanwhile, check out the comments on my swine-flu post from earlier today. Many people clearly are extremely frustrated with how vaccine distribution has been handled.

At DLA Piper, Dick Armey (right) made $750,000 a year lobbying for clients such as a wind farm that sought tax credits under the Obama stimulus package.

At FreedomWorks, the former House majority leader from Denton County makes $500,000 a year to proclaim, among other things, that "billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies have done little to make alternative energy sources more practical."

Dave Michaels, a reporter in The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau, takes a long look today at Armey's dual roles.

While FreedomWorks is often "antagonistic to politicians of both parties ... the general disposition of the lobbyist is to be sweet to officeholders," Armey acknowledged. "This is always a problem, and people have struggled with it in Washington.

"Few have mastered it as I have."

Do you have a tip about lobbyists and lobbying? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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There's an astonishingly long list of crimes, errors and other things that went wrong before last year's bush crash near Sherman killed 17 people, Dallas Morning News reporter Todd Gillman details today.

Here's a partial list of National Transportation Safety Board findings, in chronological order:

* Federal authorities ordered the bus company off the road because of safety violations.
* Owner Angel de la Torre re-registered it under a new name, ignored the order, and was operating without a permit or insurance.
* A Houston garage that inspected the bus about a week before the crash didn't notice an illegal retread tire on the front axle and wasn't equipped to inspect heavy vehicles.
* Bus driver Barrett Broussard drank alcohol and used cocaine shortly before departing Houston. He had previously been fired from another bus company after testing positive for cocaine.
* The tire suffered a puncture and operated -- underinflated and undetected -- for many miles. Pressure gauges aren't required for pre-trip inspections, and older buses such as this one don't have pressure warning systems like those in newer cars.
* The bus lacked seat belts, and some passengers were ejected in the crash.

Do you have a tip about transportation safety? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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There were no clear procedures for monitoring a North Texas soldier who was known to be unraveling mentally before he allegedly killed five colleagues at a counseling center in Iraq, according to a new military report.

Sgt. John Russell is accused of the deadliest soldier-vs.-soldier attack in the six-year war.

His father, Wilburn Russell of Sherman (right), told The Dallas Morning News back in May that macho military culture inhibits men from seeking help: "If a guy actually goes to the clinic and asks for help, they think of him as a wimp, and he's got something wrong with him and try to get rid of him."

But the military report also notes: "There is no clear procedure ... for managing soldiers identified as 'at risk' for suicide or the proper way to conduct suicide watch."

Do you have a tip about mental health and the military? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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The fallout from the corruption verdicts against Dallas Mayor Pro-Tem Don Hill & Co. continues at City Hall, as we look at today's stories:

1. The Dallas City Council spent much of Monday talking about ethics reform, The News' Rudy Bush reports on the City Hall blog. Among the proposals: lobbyist registration, bans on lobbyist gifts and new requirements on zoning cases. The point of the last one: weakening the type of power that Hill, as a council member, wielded over developers who needed his approval for their projects in his district. The plan calls for multiple council members to weigh in on zoning cases.

2. I'm getting to this item a little late, and some of you may wish you hadn't ever seen it. The McClatchy newspaper chain found that Moody's Investors Service "punished executives who questioned why the company was risking its reputation by putting its profits ahead of providing trustworthy ratings for investment offerings." Doesn't restore your confidence in Wall Street, does it?

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The liberal Center for American Progress is calling out Texas lawmakers who voted against the $819 billion stimulus in January - and are now asking the Obama administration for $3 billion in stimulus funds to bolster the budget of NASA, a major Texas employer.

This comes on the heels of a September audit that questioned the use of federal tax dollars by another Texan who scorned the stimulus: Gov. Rick Perry. The federal audit found that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission under Perry had billed the Medicaid program for nearly $300,000 in care and prescription drugs it shouldn't have given legal and illegal immigrants.

President Obama has vowed to eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud as part of a proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system. A federal report released on Wednesday identified yet another area where investigators should start digging.

The report from the federal Government Accountability Office identified possibly widespread fraud in Texas and other states involving purchases of controlled substances under Medicaid, the federal-state medical program for the poor. Among the interesting Texas tidbits was a case of "doctor shopping" by a Medicaid beneficiary who used prescriptions from more than 70 doctors to obtain 4,700 pills of Vicodin from 40 pharmacies.

In our recent "Cost of Care" series on why health care is so expensive in North Texas, I touched on fraud in the home health industry. Medicare and Medicaid are lucrative targets for fraudsters. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General recently reported that state Medicaid fraud control units across the country recovered $1.3 billion in fiscal 2008.

With little but a disco-era law standing between vulnerable people like children and about 80,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States, it's probably time for a regulatory makeover. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson promised one Tuesday when she outlined the Obama administration's principles for rewriting the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

As my story in today's paper notes, Texas is the heart of the U.S. chemical industry, especially along the Gulf Coast from Beaumont-Port Arthur (right) to Corpus Christi.

The toxic substances law regulates chemicals as they come into contact with people through products or industrial uses. Risks from chemical emissions into the air fall under the Clean Air Act.

Our colleagues covering the arrest of the 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper included in their latest story snippets of an interview the suspect's father gave from his home in Jordan.

In addition to the father defending Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, he told the Agence France-Presse that his son "suffered psychological problems after the death of his mother of cancer in 2007, when he decided to go to the United States to live and study with his friend.

"But regardless of these problems," he added, "I know my son is innocent."

You can read more of the Agence France-Presse story here. And you can catch up on the latest developments from The Morning News on our Crime Blog, and even read the criminal complaint for yourself.

Hot Links today make the world seem somehow upside down.

1. The more you need help, the less likely you are to get it. That seems to be the logic transportation officials are using in deciding how to spend federal stimulus money. Reports USA Today: "Dallas trails only Los Angeles in miles of bad roads, yet it has received less than 1% of the $530 million that Texas approved for road repairs." A TXDoT official says our roads are so bad that fixes would cost too much to be eligible for funds.

2. The Dallas Morning News' Victor Godinez has a fascinating back story today about the Perot family confidant who's accused of insider trading. Reza Saleh, it turns out, helped rescue Perot employees from a prison in his native Iran 30 years ago. Now he's adding to the embarrassment facing Perot-affiliated investments this year. My colleagues Gary Jacobson and Brendan Case wrote a few months ago about the multi-billion dollar collapse of a family hedge fund.

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Hot Links today are all about capital punishment:

1. Charles Dean Hood (right) may well deserve to die for murdering two people in Plano. But I'd feel a whole lot better about killing killers if I knew they got a fair trial. And that's very much in doubt here. The latest: Texas' highest court said yesterday that it's too late for the defense to use evidence that the trial judge and Collin County's DA were, um, romantically entangled. Defense attorneys tried to work this angle earlier but lacked evidence -- the affair, like most, was secret. But now they have admissions from former DA Tom O'Connell (under Hood) and paramour Verla Sue Holland (below).

2. The appeals court decision comes at a particularly difficult time for Texas' image. I recently summarized three other ongoing capital punishment embarrassments, including two in which there's real doubt about a convicted man's guilt. In one of those cases, the defendant has already been executed.

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That's the question from several readers whose e-mails landed in our DMN Investigates inbox this afternoon.

Late last week, a hidden-camera video showed Baltimore employees of the community group -- which has faced voter-fraud allegations since the '08 elections -- giving dubious advice to a man and a woman posing as a couple.

The advice? How to cover up their purported jobs in prostitution on tax forms.

FOX News was the biggest outlet to jump on the story, and ACORN was again left defending itself. As the furor has simmered with additional videos, some GOP-minded commentators accused other media of downplaying or outright ignoring the controversy. That's probably what led to the e-mails we received today.

JCI, a Las Vegas company that advised the Dallas Cowboys on fixing its practice facility before it collapsed, has filed for bankruptcy protection. JCI owner Scott Jacobs filed for personal bankruptcy, too.

The company -- which is seeking to reorganize and now uses the name S2 Engineers -- also has issued its first statement about the collapse: "Scott Jacobs and JCI stand by the services rendered for Summit Structures regarding the Dallas Cowboys indoor practice facility. Mr. Jacobs and JCI do not have any further comment at this time as litigation is pending."

Pennsylvania-based Summit and its Canada-based parent, Cover-All Building Systems, designed and built the practice facility in 2003. The two people most seriously injured in its May 2 collapse -- Cowboys staffers Rich Behm and Joe DeCamillis -- sued the two companies and JCI last month, alleging that they conspired to conceal the giant tent-like structure's defects.

Difficult questions about pregnancy linger in my mind from the weekend papers, even though the newsprint's already on the recycling pile:

1. Why does Texas lead the nation in repeat teen pregnancy? Bob Garrett of The Dallas Morning News' Austin bureau looked at several factors in Monday's paper. Among them: Only Utah and the Lone Star State require state-funded clinics to get parents' consent before giving their teens birth control. And Utah at least tells young people on a state Web site to go to Planned Parenthood if they don't want to involve their parents.

2. Have you ever thought about what you'd do if you were pregnant and knew the baby was doomed? Over the past two Sundays, my colleagues Lee Hancock and Sonya Hebert traced one family's journey in words, photos and video. If thus stuff doesn't haunt you, have someone check your pulse.

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All of the questions in today's two Hot Links have the same short answer. Read on:

1. This is 2009, right? And entering a suspect's bail info in one Dallas County computer doesn't get it into other computers? And a man (Ezequiel Moreno, right) accused of sexually abusing a teen and plotting her kidnapping can get out of jail because the computers aren't connected, as my colleagues Scott Goldstein and Jennifer Emily report today? And Dallas County commissioners want to cut spending on criminal justice?

2. Do shrinking newspaper budgets make it easier for government officials to hide what goes on in courtrooms, as The New York Times reports today? Does a bear poop in the woods?

Do you have a tip about Dallas County government? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Today's Hot Links begin with another look at household dangers. Then we move on to a scare in the air:

1. See the red ring around this little boy's neck? It's a reminder of the window-blind cord that nearly killed him a few months ago. His family, the Yearouts of Garland, say last week's federal recall of several brands of window blinds didn't go far enough in addressing strangulation risks, The Dallas Morning News' Ray Leszcynski reports. The Yearouts now advocate banning corded products from day-care facilities in Texas. Thinking about all this took me back to my recent post on killer bassinets.

2. Is part of the Southwest Airlines fleet about to be grounded? The News' Eric Torbenson says the hometown air carrier is about out of time to resolve its latest maintenance mess.

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So many questions, so little time. A few of our favorite new ones arise in today's two Hot Links:

1. There is increasing support for the idea that the state of Texas executed an innocent man, reports Christy Hoppe of The Dallas Morning News' Austin bureau. Cameron Todd Willingham (right, in a photo being held by a cousin), of the North Texas town of Corsicana, was convicted of killing his three young children in a fire. He insisted that he was innocent but was put to death in 2004. A new study commissioned by the state Forensic Science Commission concludes that a fire marshal who investigated the deaths "seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created." The Chicago Tribune has been dogging this case for some time; click here for more detailed coverage.

2. Southwest Airlines' maintenance practices are facing new scrutiny from the FAA, reports Eric Torbenson of The News. This time the issue is whether the Dallas-based airline used unauthorized parts when repairing older Boeing 737s. Still no word on why a football-sized hole opened up during a Southwest flight last month.

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Parents of little ones, take heed of today's Hot Links:

1. The bassinet pictured at right looks like a place where a baby would enjoy sweet dreams. But it's really a death trap, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says. The latest apparent victim is a 6-month-old girl in Fort Worth. Four baby deaths have now been linked to convertible "close-sleeper/bedside sleeper" bassinets manufactured by Simplicity Inc., of Reading, Pa. Two have died since the federal commission issued a recall and safety alert a year ago.

2. The Fort Worth victim, who hasn't been publicly identified, died in January. So why is the safety commission only now sounding the alarm again? New commission chair Inez Tenenbaum said she could not discuss the death because it remains under investigation, according to the Associated Press.

3. What has become of Simplicity? Here's what the commission says: "SFCA Inc., the Reading, Pa.-based company that purchased the assets of juvenile product manufacturer Simplicity Inc. after foreclosure, no longer appears to be conducting day to day operations. SFCA Inc. is no longer answering phone calls or responding to e-mails from consumers."

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Today's Hot Links focus on some lurking dangers:

1. A new study raises questions about the promotional campaign for a cervical cancer vaccine that Gov. Rick Perry unsuccessfully tried to mandate for Texas girls. Gardasil manufacturer Merck funded messages by medical groups that "did not address the full complexity of the issues surrounding the vaccine and did not provide balanced recommendations on risks and benefits," the study says. It was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

2. Lake-wrecking zebra mussels are emerging in North Texas, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reports. What is to be done about these little pests, which can clog public water-supply pipes?

Do you have a tip about public health? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Several interesting items from the weekend. The first three we'll bring you have a trend in common: peculiar financial transactions involving public officials.

1. What is going on in the offices of Dallas County constables Jamie Cortes and Derick Evans? The News' Kevin Krause brings us another in an increasing list of stories on their activities, which always seem to involve vehicles or a towing company they're employing.

2. Dallas' Mexican consulate office is under investigation for financial improprieties, The News' Alfredo Corchado tells us. Similar allegations arose a few months ago. Trend or coincidence?

3. Tarrant County College trustee Robyn Medina Winnett was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting, the Star-Telegram reports. It's the latest unflattering headline for TCC's administration.

4. Haven't heard from former U.S. House Majority Leader and Texas' own Dick Armey in a while. Talking Points Memo's Muckraker blog explores how Armey's lobbying firm apparently received blowback from his advocacy group's role in organizing health-care protests.

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That's one takeaway, among many, that you should have from the Dallas City Hall bribery trial. Let's explore:

1. Co-defendant Allen McGill (shown at right) testified Monday that his sham Black State Employees Association of Texas opposed a housing developer's project to force the hiring of minority contractors who'd give it kickbacks later, The News' Jason Trahan reports. Once the developer played ball, the opposition lifted. McGill and his cohort, Darren Reagan, realized that they were ones worked over months later: The developer was an FBI informant.

2. The Hearst network of newspapers, which includes Houston and San Antonio, is wrapping up a series that finds about 98,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors. That echoes The News' State of Neglect investigative series, which earlier this year found that Texas lets hospitals hide their mistakes from the public.

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We have conflicts of interest in various facets of life -- housing deals, law enforcement and medicine -- in today's morning round-up of stories:

1. There's a new twist in the controversial dealings between Dallas County constables and the troubled towing company they're using: One of the law enforcers gave a worker from the firm a job, The News' Kevin Krause blogs. A state agency is investigating.

2. Dallas' housing director testified in the City Hall bribery trial that he thought Don Hill and co-defendant D'Angelo Lee were too cozy with developer Brian Potashnik, The News' Jason Trahan reports. Hill approved Potashnik's projects against recommendations from the housing department, which we reported in this 2005 story.

3. The New York Times explores the pharmaceutical industry's influence on scientific research: A company secretly paid a ghostwriter to draft published papers backing hormone therapy in women, benefiting later as sales of the drugs it produced soared.

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That's probably a trio of topics you wouldn't have expected to see in a headline. Let's read on:

1. Good news, bad news at the Dallas City Hall bribery trial, The News' Jason Trahan tells us. If you're Don Hill: You probably look more favorable to jurors after you were heard doubting the ethics of your co-defendant, D'Angelo Lee, on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI. If you're Lee: Your co-defendant is heard doubting your ethics on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI.

2. Supporters of the federal stimulus package said it was a chance to make $65 billion in repairs to crumbling, aging bridges. Want to guess where I'm headed next after that set-up? The Associated Press found that nearly half of the ones slated for funding are in good shape and wouldn't have qualified for money in normal circumstances. Best use of the stimulus?

3. This isn't our typical watchdog story to highlight: Lewisville High School cheerleaders had illegal drugs, such as Ecstasy, at a weekend clinic, KXAS (NBC-5) reports. As school district officials investigate, they should ask this of themselves: When was the last time they tested cheerleaders for drug use? District policy allows it, and athletes have been subjected to it after reports of steroid abuse.

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Interesting how things aren't always what they seem. That's a theme in our stories today:

1. Dallas Congressman Pete Sessions has ripped earmarks. And yet he gave a sweet one worth $1.6 million to an Illinois company that wants to build a blimp the military could use, Politico reports. A former aide to Sessions just so happens to lobby for said company, which said it had no government contracting experience.

2. Were you one of the Texas parents who locked in cheaper college tuition for your kiddo by prepaying years ago? Well, that piggy bank is nearly broke, the Houston Chronicle tells us. The state comptroller asks you not to panic just yet.

3. Jury of your peers? A Dallas County judge said prosecutors unfairly eliminated minorities from hearing the death-penalty case of a black man, leaving only whites, The News' Jennifer Emily reports. This reminds me of our investigation team's 2006 series, Striking Differences. It found both prosecutors and defense sought to remove jurors based on race.

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The Texas Attorney General's Office today filed a consumer-fraud lawsuit against the college-prep software company that I first raised questions about in April.

The suit targets the Coppell-based SAT and ACT Test Prep Center and its operators, a Cedar Hill couple named Frances Stuart and John Joseph Stuart (at right, after his recent arrest on unrelated charges -- more on that below).

I just tried to reach the Stuarts at the Coppell business and got a recording saying that the phone had been temporarily disconnected. I also left a message for them at the Student Resource Center, a virtually identical business that Frances set up in May, using a downtown Dallas address.

My original blog post about consumer complaints led me to do a little digging about the Stuarts. I discovered that John had been convicted of sexually exploiting a child in Arizona, was a registered sex offender -- and had failed to tell police that he was working at the prep center. Cedar Hill police responded by arresting him.

The AG's office says the Stuarts' telemarketers made calls to several states, "falsely telling parents that their children had expressed an interest" in test-prep software. Many who bought the material "discovered that the CD they received matched an outdated, 2006 version that was offered by a nationally recognized company" for far less.

The Stuarts have previously denied wrongdoing. I last heard from them early this month, when Frances posted a comment on another of my blog posts and told me to "go to hell."

I saw the documentary, "Food Inc.," last week. It was a great piece of reporting, exploring the rarely seen underbelly of our food-production system and how Corporate America's influence is creating consequences felt by you and me. The film resonated when I saw these stories over the weekend:

1. Food and Drug Administration data found that "deviations" from good food-manufacturing processes were found in nearly a third of 16,500 safety inspections during the last fiscal year, the Chicago Tribune reported.

2. So you want to eat organic food and are willing to pay the higher price. Can you be sure you're getting what you're buying? The agency responsible for ensuring such authenticity is overworked and understaffed, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

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Change is coming to the Dallas North Tollway and to the criminal courts, as today's Hot Links show.

1. The North Texas Tollway Authority is taking new steps to warn wrong-way drivers, Dallas Morning News transportation writer Michael Lindenberger reports. Read Michael's blog for more discussion about whether the blame for recent crashes lies entirely with drunken drivers or also with tollway design.

2. The recent Supreme Court decision requiring lab analysts to testify in court about their findings is a huge boost for crime suspects, The Washington Post reports. "This is the biggest case for the defense since Miranda," a defense lawyer tells the paper. Legal-minded readers, are you seeing any local impact yet?

Do you have a tip about tollways? Lab analysts? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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There are flies in the ointment of some Texas crime-catching innovations, as today's Hot Links show.

1. We all know canines can help track escaped prisoners. But can they correctly ID crime suspects? There are growing questions about the only dog handler in Texas who does scent-identification lineups, the Victoria Advocate reports. A faulty dog ID recently sent a South Texas man to jail for a rape he didn't commit. Some judges have now barred the handler -- Fort Bend County Deputy Sheriff Keith Pikett -- from testifying.

2. Gov. Rick Perry gave sheriffs $2 million to install Webcams on the Mexican border. But few arrests and drug busts have resulted, an El Paso Times investigation shows.

Do you have a tip about dogs or dog handlers? Drugs? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Real? Fake? Hard to believe? Today's Hot Links are about guns in Texas:

1. Dallas banned public display of real-looking toy guns in 2007. But that did not stop a couple of guys from nearly getting shot by police recently, as The Dallas Morning News' Steve Thompson reports today. Do we need a law that bans the replicas outright, as other governments have tried? Who makes these products? Why is their manufacture allowed? Why do parents buy them for their kids?

2. The New York Times says John Shipley, an FBI agent in Texas, has been charged with running an unlicensed business: dealing guns that ended up in Mexico, used in narco-vs.-army shootouts.

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Here on the right is Robert Cantu trying to stay cool at Barclay Square, in the Pleasant Grove neighborhood of Dallas. The apartment complex has been plagued by air conditioning problems, but a court hearing yesterday brought no legal fix.

Now let's look at a mansion in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. (Thanks to Zillow.com for the image.) Till last year, it belonged to Brian H. Printz, an officer of the company that controls Barclay Square.

Printz is a real estate lawyer. He sold the seven-bedroom, eight-and-a-half-bath place for about $6 million, public records show.

Records show that he also owns 80 acres of undeveloped land a little further north, in Napa Valley. His business partner, James S. Goody, owns about five acres there, plus a home in San Francisco valued at $1.7 million.

I could not locate them for comment this afternoon. The Web site for their company, Bay Equity Real Estate Acquisitions, lists no contact information. A phone number I found elsewhere online is answered by a recording that does not state the company's name.

Today's Hot Links touch on books, religion and traffic.

1. Who are the Texas textbook advisers saying that Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez are not major figures in U.S. history? One is a Massachusetts evangelical named Peter Marshall, whose Web site would be happy to sell you books, DVDs and more. The other is a North Texas evangelical named David Barton, whose Web site would be happy to sell you books, DVDs and more.

2. Most of America lives in major metro areas. But we urbanites and suburbanites aren't getting our fair share of federal transportation stimulus money, a New York Times analysis suggests.

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The right to spend, and the right to bear arms: These are the Hot Links of the day.

1. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn uses more taxpayer dollars on travel than any of his colleagues. The Texas Republican says the Politico.com report was "a little bit of a cheap shot," according to WFAA-TV/Channel 8.

2. Should students have the right to carry concealed weapons on college campuses? Is Texas going to give the gun lobby its big break on this issue? The Wall Street Journal has an interesting national roundup today.

Do you have a tip about politicians' spending? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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All aboard! Buckle up for today's rough ride to some theme-park Hot Links:

1. Despite Six Flags Over Texas' best efforts, some info is finally getting out about what went wrong with the Texas Giant last week. The wooden roller coaster promises "sheer white-knuckle terror" when it's working right. Sounds like its failure was pretty scary, too -- a safety inspector told me the last car on the train lost its proper track position and was dragged up to 300 feet, gouging the rails.

2. Six Flags isn't the only amusement park with safety problems. Federal regulators are investigating a deadly monorail crash that occurred early Sunday at Disney World, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

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Let's catch up on a couple of mind-bending education stories that you probably missed over the holiday weekend:

1. George Orwell would have appreciated this: Some students who failed the TAKS test are counted as passing for purposes of new school accountability rankings, Dallas Morning News reporters Holly Hacker and Jeffrey Weiss showed. Why? A formula predicts that these failers are likely to pass the next time. What if the prediction is wrong? No problem. The schools' rankings don't drop.

2. Charter schools are privately run, but we taxpayers finance them. So the government exercises fiscal oversight, right? Wrong, reports The Dallas Morning News' Matthew Haag. Onto that stage steps Imagine Schools, a nationwide charter school management company with a real estate program that some officials say hurts students. It's planning to expand into McKinney next year. State officials OK'd the move despite concerns that Imagine lacked non-profit status.

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Six Flags Over Texas is talking more since yesterday's post about the problems that have shut down its famed Texas Giant roller coaster for most of the week.

Spokeswoman Sharon Parker said today that hot, dry weather caused misalignment of the wooden track. The ride will remain closed all day today, she added.

But she did not initially answer this question: Did any riders report pain or injury when the ride was stopped Monday afternoon?

Late today, she emailed this response: "Our First Aid department did not inform me of any."

Amusement parks must tell the Texas Department of Insurance about all injuries that require a physician's attention, TDI spokesman Jerry Hagins said. But they only need to file reports quarterly, so there's no way to get new info today.

State officials do not inspect the rides or require owners to notify them when safety problems arise.

The state does require owners' insurance companies to hire an inspector. That person must perform an annual check and certify to the state that rides are fit to operate.

Let's get down to business. Today's Hot Links are about creative ways to make money in Texas.

1. The Wall Street Journal humorously pulls back the curtain on a "going out of business" expert in Dallas. Carpet salesman Cyrus Hassankola even called his business Going Out of Business at one point, until the Better Business Bureau and the Texas Attorney General's office took note.

2. A federal lawsuit accuses Dallas electricity retailer Stream Energy of operating a pyramid scheme, Dallas Morning News reporter Elizabeth Souder writes. The company hotly denies the claim and says it uses the time-honored multi-level marketing approach of Mary Kay. The suit takes aim at Stream's marketing arm, Ignite, whose Web site includes this pitch: "Find out how you can make money on your energy bill. Wouldn't you like to get paid every time you turn on the power?"

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Six Flags Over Texas now says the Texas Giant roller coaster will remain closed all day today -- the third straight day of a mysterious safety problem at the Arlington amusement park.

But spokeswoman Sharon Parker won't talk about what's wrong, beyond saying that staff "detected an error with one of the cars on the track."

What kind of error? "I haven't been given that information yet," she told me. "I'm just holding tight until the engineers provide me with that information."

Why aren't they telling people more? Parker's response:

"Our priority right now is getting to the root of it and making sure that we get it up and running safely. To me that's the No. 1 priority. I'm in constant communication with them. When the time is appropriate they will let me know, and I will convey that information to you guys. Until that time there is nothing else to share."

The ride is scheduled for a $10 million renovation next year, as my newspaper reported in March.

No major injuries were reported on the ride last year, according to this terrific searchable database published by the San Antonio Express-News. It covers all injury reports that Texas amusement parks must make to the state Department of Insurance.

Six Flags made headlines last month when its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection.

Today's Hot Links are about two things you cannot escape in life: death and databases.

1. Here's the most interesting proposal I've heard in a while: a a national database of undiagnosed diseases. The idea was inspired by the mysterious death of a suburban Austin boy named Charles August "Cal" Long, the Austin American-Statesman reports. It summarizes the goal this way: "doctors and scientists could describe symptoms, exchange information and compile data that could be used to solve medical mysteries." Two Texas legislators recently introduced a bill in Congress -- Rep. Michael Burgess, who is a physician from North Texas, and Rep. John Carter of Central Texas, who long ago lost one of his own children to an unknown disease.

2. The Social Security Administration is not only paying benefits to the dead, it's also denying aid to living folks who are misclassified as deceased. Here's the inspector general's report on which McClatchy Newspapers based its story.

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You'd better run for your life if you can, because here come today's Hot Links:

1. Another day, another long high-speed chase: This morning a woman eluded Dallas-area police officers for almost two hours. Yesterday a man did it for about 90 minutes. Dallas police themselves stayed out of the way -- their tight restrictions on speeding got even tighter last year after an officer racing to a disturbance without lights or siren killed a 10-year-old boy named Cole Berardi (lower right). Dallas County constable Michael Gothard explained in The Dallas Morning News today why he still believes in risky pursuits: "If everybody quits chasing people, then everybody's just going to run."

2. The latest reason to fear Veterans Affairs hospitals: A doctor who treated prostate cancer patients delivered faulty radiation implants in 92 of 116 cases, The New York Times reports. This comes right on the heels of the scandal over dirty colonoscopy equipment, which apparently infected patients with AIDS and hepatitis. Here's a full report from the VA's inspector general.

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A number of grassroots groups are out to scuttle the application of John Hall, a former top Texas environmental official, to be regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. That's because Hall has been working as a lobbyist for more than a decade, representing big petrochemical companies, Waste Management, and other firms that frequently clash with anti-pollution activists.

The opponents contend that Hall -- who has made as much as $9 million as a lobbyist since 1998 -- is hopelessly conflicted out of running the EPA in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico. They also weren't thrilled with his tenure as chairman of the old Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, predecessor of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, from 1991-95.

They plan a press conference Tuesday morning outside the EPA's regional office in downtown Dallas.

Hall defends his performance in state office and his work as a lobbyist. He says he has scrupulously avoided conflicts of interest.

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the Hot Links of our day:

1. If you missed this yesterday, don't miss it now: My enterprising colleagues Lee Hancock and Katie Fairbank showed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has known for decades about sand issues related to Dallas' levees. But now, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the agency is finally digging for more info. That could mean many millions in extra expenses for the Trinity River Corridor Project.

2. Friday's Hot Link #2 wondered about the safety of DART's automated systems that are supposed to keep trains from getting too close to one another. Here are some answers from transit agency spokesman Morgan Lyons, courtesy of Dallas Morning News transportation writer Michael Lindenberger. These questions are on our minds, of course, because of last week's Metrorail disaster in DC that killed nine people.

Do you have a tip about the Trinity project? Commuter trains? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

If you're on Twitter, follow our blog at "DMNInvestigates."

Michael is dead. Farrah is dead. And I don't feel so good myself. But it's not the passing of two wacky celebrities that has me down in the dumps. It's today's Hottest Link:

1. Arlington police suspected Jason Farrington of fracturing his baby's skull in March. But they didn't think they had enough evidence to arrest him. Child Protective Services let Mom take baby home from the hospital after she promised Dad wouldn't live with them. Now 4-month-old Jayden Farrington is dead, Dallas Morning News ace crime reporter Steve Thompson reports. And Dad is finally in jail.

2. Also lost in the celebrity shuffle: There's growing evidence that a technology failure contributed to the commuter-train crash that killed nine people Monday in the nation's capital, The Washington Post reports. How safe are similar systems here?

Do you have a tip about CPS? Commuter trains? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

If you're on Twitter, follow our blog at "DMNInvestigates."

Here are the stories giving me chills on a hot Texas morning:

1. Another month, another mass-transit disaster: This latest one, which killed at least seven people in the nation's capital, was supposed to be impossible, The Washington Post reports. A computer should apply brakes automatically if trains get too close. Another mystery: The driver of the train that crashed had a clear line of sight but apparently never braked, either. Was she incapacitated? Using a cell phone, like the drivers I wrote about last month?

2. Another week, another higher-ed exec getting paid by taxpayers not to work: Tarrant County College Chancellor Leonardo de la Garza has quit with two years left on his contract -- but still will receive $700,000, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. The story lacks much context; go to the Fort Worth Weekly for that. Last week, Elsa Murano quit as Texas A&M boss. Here's her deal, as reported yesterday by my colleague Holly Hacker: "She will be on leave for a year and keep her president's $425,000 salary, plus an additional $295,000, and she agreed not to sue. She plans to return as a professor, at a $260,000 salary."

Do you have a tip about mass transit? Higher ed? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

It was an ad that first caught my eye in The Dallas Morning News this morning:

1. The entire back page is about Zicam, a line of homeopathic cold remedies. "Based on the FDA's recommendations, we have voluntarily taken two nasal products off the shelves," the ad says. But it never says what the safety issue is: Hundreds of users claim the non-prescription products have destroyed their sense of smell. The manufacturer, Matrixx Initiatives, disputes this -- but also has paid millions to settle claims from customers, The New York Times reports. Another thing the ad doesn't mention is this sharply worded warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

2. Back up to yesterday's paper for an excellent set-up piece on the Dallas City Hall corruption trial, which is getting under way this morning in federal court. My colleague Jason Trahan did a terrific job of laying out the issues and the players. This morning's update: Developer-defendants Brian and Cheryl Potashnik didn't show up in court.

Do you have a tip about over-the-counter drugs? The City Hall trial? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Here's a look at public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere that gave me pause at breakfast:

1. Recession? What recession? Irving's City Council voted last night to pay City Manager Tommy Gonzalez more than $390,000 a year. That makes him the highest paid city manager in the area and maybe the state, my dogged colleague Brandon Formby reports. Gonzalez made news last week with text messages saying the Dallas Cowboys organization "pushes things thru" City Hall and built a practice facility that "probably never was structurally sound enough." He made those observations shortly after the facility collapsed; Brandon obtained the texts with an open-records request.

2. Frontiers of outsourcing: Southwest Airlines has reversed course and will use a company in El Salvador, Aeroman, to perform some "heavy" maintenance work.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Let's catch up on a couple of public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Judges must not hear cases involving major campaign contributors, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. So what do we do in Texas with litigation involving billionaire home builder Bob Perry, who has given big bucks to all nine justices on the state's highest court?

2. Many new details of the tainted-syringe scandal are emerging in a ProPublica/Chicago Tribune report. It paints a chilling picture of problems at the Food and Drug Administration. Among the four people who've died is a Texas toddler.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Dallas Catholic Diocese officials are releasing new information about the strange series of events that cost a church on the University of Dallas campus about $128,000.

First, they have disclosed the name used by a man who received the funds: William "Bill" Ryan. They describe him as white, in his 60s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 150 pounds, with wavy, graying hair. He is "very personable and animated," and has "a distinguishable New York accent."

The officials say he is a "con man" who posed as a parishioner and probably is using a fake name. They say they have no photo of him -- but maybe somebody reading this does?

Ryan and three others the diocese won't name received a series of Western Union payments in New York "over three and a half months," diocese spokeswoman Annette Gonzales Taylor said.

She said the FBI has dropped its inquiry into the matter without coming to any conclusions about what happened. The FBI would not confirm or deny that.

Let's catch up on a couple of public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Many readers are outraged by Jennifer Emily's story on a cop who was caught on audiotape ignoring a robbery suspect's request for an attorney. They complain that the Dallas DA's office is soft on crime because it dismissed robbery charges against Mario Wright; they don't like The Dallas Morning News' slant on the story. Now, I share their frustration that a violent man might have escaped justice. But folks, think before you whine: Cops who don't follow the rules wreck cases for prosecutors. And it's a waste of taxpayer money to pursue cases you can't win in court.

2. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, is mad at the press, too. He says liberal media bias is a greater threat to the nation than recession or terrorism.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

A reader called in to ask, "Why are Plano's bond referendums only in English and Spanish, since the city's population is 10 percent Asian?"

The 2000 U.S. Census did show that Plano's population at the time was 10.2 percent Asian. But that percentage was made up of several separate Asian populations, who speak different languages.

But the Asian populations are believed to have grown, so Plano is watching closely to see what happens with the 2010 census, said Diane Zucco, the city's secretary. "While we may have seen a marked increase in the Asian population, it's not reflected during elections yet, because we have not had a census since 2000," she said.

Crime, damned crime and statistics: That's our theme for today's roundup of public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. We're No. 2!!! Dallas is celebrating the loss of its standing as the big city with the worst crime rate in America, The Dallas Morning News' Tanya Eiserer reports. But keep reading her report to find the caveats.

2. We're No. 1!!! Dallas County is cementing its standing as the nation's leader in exonerations. Jerry Lee Evans is the latest man to go free for a heinous crime he didn't commit, The Dallas Morning News' Jennifer Emily reports.

3. We're not as bad as Mexico!!! The Los Angeles Times offers a new measure today of how far narco-corruption has spread into local governments in our neighbor to the south.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Let's catch up on a few public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. They're not calling it another exoneration, but that's what it amounts to: Antrone Johnson won a retrial Wednesday for a sexual assault that the original prosecutor's notes say never happened, The Dallas Morning News' Jennifer Emily reports. Dallas County DA Craig Watkins says he won't retry Johnson. (Sidebar: Anybody out there know what has become of the defendant's original lawyer, Vivian Ray Davis, who was convicted of bribing another prosecutor and surrendered his law license?)

2. DA Watkins, meanwhile, is warring over money with powerful fellow Democrat John Wiley Price, The News' Gromer Jeffers Jr. reports. What will the outcome of the budget fight mean for justice?

3. Here's a breaking story I want to know more about: American Airlines pilot fails breath test and is barred from operating a London-Chicago flight.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

A cool new online tool lets you check out those phone solicitors who say they're raising money for law enforcement.

The Texas attorney general's office built this little database, which shows that donations to many of the fund-raising groups are not tax-deductible. And a lot of the donations go to overhead, not to needy cops.

"Each year, many generous Texans provide financial support to organizations that purport to benefit peace officers and their families," AG Greg Abbott said. "The online resource launched today ensures contributors have easy access to these organizations' financial information. As a result, Texans can make informed decisions and determine the percentage of their dollars that will actually benefit peace officers."

Let's catch up on a few public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Information = immunity for airline workers who report safety violations. But government regulators have tolerated "inconsistent use" and "potential abuse" of the reporting program, The Dallas Morning News' Dave Michaels writes. His story is based on a federal safety audit that began after a Texas mechanic checking on an oil leak was sucked into a jet engine.

2. Abuse of mentally disabled people at the Corpus Christi State School was far worse than state officials claimed, records obtained by Dallas Morning News investigative reporter Emily Ramshaw show.

3. I see Dallas smokers toss their butts on the ground every day, and it drives me nuts. But is San Francisco's new plan -- a 33 cents-per-pack trash tax -- the way to go?

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

DART warned its drivers in a memo seven years ago not to use cell phones while operating a bus or train. But you don't have to look far for reports that the policy is ignored.

A reader of my blog post yesterday said DART should follow Massachusetts' lead and ban drivers from carrying the things. Massachusetts acted after a Boston trolley driver crashed while texting

, injuring 49 (lower right).

"It bothers me, especially given the driving habits of some DART operators, that many of them wear Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) or talk on handsets while driving," the reader wrote. "Driving distracted when you're hauling people seems criminally stupid."

DART spokesman Morgan Lyons says violators face the full range of discipline, including termination. He says there is no talk at the transit agency of banning bus and light rail drivers from carrying phones.

DART changed course in 2000 and began allowing drivers (except Trinity Railway Express engineers) to carry cell phones on duty, the memo shows. But the phones were supposed to be out of sight, turned off and used only in emergencies.

Here are a couple of public-interest stories from around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Dallas' venerable Majestic Theatre is in deep trouble, Channel 8 reports. DSM Management Group is punting control back to the city at a time when the overall economy stinks and the Majestic is about to face new competition from the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.

2. Worried about those bus/train drivers who love their cell phones too much? Massachusetts is cracking down after a trolley operator who was texting his sweetheart injured nearly 50 people in a crash. Should DART follow suit?

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Let's catch up on a couple of the public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Looking for broader perspective on the case of the North Texas soldier accused of killing five fellow troops in Iraq? Check out this award-winning investigation by the Hartford Courant.

2. Federal law bars nonprofit groups from engaging in partisan politics. But it apparently allows a foundation funded by some of Gov. Rick Perry's wealthiest backers to court pastors at election time, according to Dallas Morning News writer Wayne Slater. Here's a tax filing by the Niemoller Foundation, which dubbed its wooing campaign the Texas Restoration Project.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Let's catch up on a couple of the public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Your car warranty is about to expire!!! So claim the automated phone calls that pester Americans by the millions and that a U.S. senator wants to stop.

2. Federal regulators accuse former Dallas Cowboys player Michael Kiselak, his Westlake firm and related parties of misleading investors, The Dallas Morning News' Eric Torbenson reports. An online bio says Kiselak also founded the Sports Business Network to help fellow ex-pro athletes.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Bad weather recently wreaked havoc on airline schedules in North Texas - not surprisingly, since some of the thunderstorms were accompanied by microbursts, which are downdrafts of 70 mph or more. Add to that at least 3.89 inches of rain, and you wind up with a bunch of delayed, hungry and tired passengers at the airport.

A couple of them wrote to me to complain about how American Airlines handled the weather. I'm aware of what bad weather does to airline schedules since I've had plans disrupted waiting for my husband - an American pilot - to get home.

So I made some calls. One reader was really happy with how things turned out. The other -- not so much.

Looks like a late postmark wasn't just a freak problem for our reader last week.

I heard from David Walters, a Certified Public Accountant in DeSoto, about problems he experienced with late postmarks.

"I mailed an envelope with 30 corporation tax extensions on March 16, 2009 (due date for mailing is Mar 15, which fell on a Sunday.) The postmark showed March 19 !! The IRS disallowed all 30 extensions," he wrote.

A Canadian engineer linked to design flaws in a 2003 Philadelphia warehouse collapse is the same guy listed as responsible for design of the Dallas Cowboys' ruined practice facility, Metro reporter Brandon Formby and I are now showing on dallasnews.com.

The engineer says he didn't work long at builder Summit Structures and didn't have much to do with the project. Dallas' Manhattan Construction Co., the general contractor, says it, too, had little involvement. The company listed as civil engineer on a building permit application says it had no involvement at all.

What's next? Stay tuned.

Let's catch up on a few of the public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Two law enforcers are facing questions about their conduct. The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety quit after a female officer complained of sexual harassment, Christy Hoppe of The News' Austin bureau reports. And a Dallas County constable's job status is under review after an off-duty incident that led to police involvement, Ed Timms and Tanya Eiserer tell us.

2. Plano's new animal-control rules are causing confusion. Plano beatwriter Ted Kim has a handy tip sheet to help. (Residents, for instance, can be fined for failing to "visibly carry" pooper scoopers when walking pets.)

3. A government panel said yesterday that KBR, the Houston-based contractor assisting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the subject of at least 16 reports of alleged fraud or improper conduct. A company spokeswoman defended KBR's record and told the Associated Press that it has been quick to report employee wrongdoing.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

If you read far enough into today's Dallas Morning News coverage of the Cowboys practice facility's collapse, you'll see Irving police say their city suffered no other structural damage in Saturday's storm.

So was this building just in the wrong place at the wrong time? It's an odd thought, given that the whole point of the steel-framed, fabric-covered building is to give the team a place to practice in bad weather.

The manufacturers, Summit Structures and Cover-All Building Systems, tout their work in building other sports facilities, including ones for the New England Patriots and Texas A&M. But I can't find any mention on the company Web sites of the Cowboys facility. Why?

Another issue we're looking at: A Summit-built warehouse in Pennsylvania partially collapsed during a 2003 snowstorm, less than two months after opening. A 2007 court order blamed Summit for design flaws.

"We design for snow load and wind load," an executive for the manufacturers told a Canadian newspaper in 2003, as I reported today in The News. "It's not a bubble."

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton of Arlington likened it to "communism" and called it "BS" -- a system that "you can't fix." Colleague Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois wondered "how is this fair"?

Barton demanded corrective action or else he'd blitz with proposed legislation. After the House subcommittee hearing in Washington, a spokesman for the lambasted system said, "Any time Congress speaks, you take it seriously."

So what pressing matter is at issue? College football's method for picking its best team.

Now, I love college football. Great atmosphere. Better than the NFL, I say. But as the Associated Press reminds us, "Congress is grappling with a crowded agenda of budgets, health care overhaul and climate change." I might add one of the worst economies since the Great Depression and two years-long wars.

Setting aside any discussion about whether college football actually needs a better system, I wonder if this is really the best use of congressmen's and their staff's time? How much did the travel and preparation for this hearing cost taxpayers?

Watch an excerpt from the hearing and tell me what you think.

Here are a few public-interest stories catching our eye in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. Rich guys with money trouble, Part I: Dallas sports magnate Tom Hicks is dumping his rodeo (left), Dallas Morning News reporter Gary Jacobson writes. Hicks recently quit paying interest on Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars loans. Will he lose the teams?

2. Rich guys with money trouble, Part II: Another Dallas financier has been accused of participating in a pay-to-play scheme involving a big New York pension fund, Dallas Morning News reporter Brendan Case writes. This time it's Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, who denies wrongdoing. Previously, hedge fund manager/classical music impresario Barrett Wissman pleaded guilty in the case.

3. For much of the world beyond our borders, today is Labor Day. So here's a sweet little tale from the Austin American-Statesman about government rewarding strike breakers.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Here are a few public-interest stories catching our eye in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. I said it in yesterday's Hot Links, and I'll say it again: Swine-flu news coverage needs more perspective. Every kind of flu kills. Today's gold star for combating hysteria goes to this report in the Los Angeles Times.

2. Dallas Morning News reporter Tanya Eiserer dug out the outrage story of the day: A police officer who was branded a liar, fired and banned from testifying got his job back and went right on testifying. Now an untold number of court cases may be ruined.

3. Federal transportation officials are finally ordering a national review of bus safety. This comes after a series of deadly accidents, including one blamed on a retread tire that killed 17 religious pilgrims near Dallas.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

Today we have another update on the Coppell seller of test-prep software that consumers have been complaining about and that two arms of state government are checking into.

Here's what I've learned: SAT and ACT Prep Center co-owner John Joseph Stuart (right) is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of sexually exploiting a child in Arizona six years ago.

State law requires offenders to tell authorities where they live and work. Stuart apparently did fine on the first requirement -- he disclosed his address to police in the Dallas suburb of Cedar Hill, where he owns a home.

But he didn't tell the cops about the prep center, which shares a parking lot with a day care center and is around the corner from Coppell Middle School West. He said he was self-employed as a housing remodeler.

Stuart, who is 32, didn't respond to my messages this week. His wife told me to call their attorney, who didn't respond to a message either.