DMN INVESTIGATES

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.

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."

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.

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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Where, I wondered Friday, is embattled Dallas real estate mogul and arts philanthropist Eric Brauss (right)?

Some commenters pointed toward Brazil. Now Dallas Morning News reporter Gary Jacobson is finding some evidence of that in court documents.

One filing in Dallas state court quotes a Nov. 17 email from Brauss as saying he was on a "very primitive tour in the Amazon rainforest."

And a Nov. 20 email from Brauss to one of his investors purportedly said: "Sorry I did not get back to you until now, but needed to wait for my lawyer's directions...Until we come to an agreement with you...I need to stay here in South America."

As The News reported last week, Brauss' Today Realty Advisors, which invested in hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of projects, has closed its Far North Dallas headquarters. In court, several investors seek restitution of what they allege are millions of dollars in diverted funds.

Gary's working on a longer story now. Among the questions he's trying to answer: Has Brauss already made good on his $1 million donation to the new performing arts center in Downtown Dallas?

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.

Dallas Morning News archives drip with references to Dallas real estate mogul Eric Brauss' wealth.

In 2004, he and wife Christine (right) were described as owners of three Maybachs -- German luxury cars worth over $300,000 each. Eric was also named as the owner of a $160,000 watch.

In 2007, they made the list of million-dollar donors to the new performing arts center downtown. And they gave $50,000 that year for a Dallas Opera gala.

Now comes word from News reporter Steve Brown that Eric is nowhere to be found. And the Far North Dallas headquarters of his Today Realty Advisors is shut down.

Late last month, a Dallas court granted investors a temporary order that bars the Brausses from spending or transferring millions held by real estate partnerships.

Local real estate execs told Steve they don't know whether Brauss is still in the country. He's from Germany and also has lived in Canada, where Today Realty has another office.

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

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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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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 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.

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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With this morning's Hot Links, we wonder about the behavior of men with guns:

1. Attention family-violence victims in Dallas: Was Mickey East (right) the detective assigned to your case? Did he work it or just stash the file in his garage? That's the question raised by Dallas Morning News reporter Tanya Eiserer's story today. East has been put on auto-pound duty while officials reassess more than 2,000 cases. This mess comes close on the heels of another massive DPD review -- of crime reports the police labeled unfounded without investigating. That probe followed an investigation by Tanya and colleague Steve Thompson into car-burglary claims that were ignored.

2. How tight is security at U.S. airports? An American Airlines passenger flying from San Antonio to Thailand via Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has been arrested while changing planes in Japan. Seems he had a loaded handgun in his bag, the Japan Times reports. U.S. Transportation Security Administration officials say that the security breach occurred in San Antonio and that they're investigating.

Do you have a tip about Mickey East? The Transportation Security Administration? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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You missed a lot if you missed the paper this weekend. You can catch up quickly with these Hot Links:

1. Yes, utility operator Ken Weaver (right) really was a stock car driver. But college football star? College baseball star? College degree? That stuff was all made up, my colleagues Steve McGonigle and Ed Timms discovered. They found that Weaver also has a record of plane and car theft. But the Texas Public Utility Commission didn't seem to notice. It let him run Freedom Power, which sells prepaid electricity to the poor and amassed the highest rate of consumer complaints of any electricity provider in Texas.

2. Comments posted on my colleague Dave Tarrant's report from Jordan suggest that many readers don't want any back story on Ellis County terrorism suspect Hosam Smadi. But for those of you who do, this piece is a must-read.

3. Keashia Matthews, the Arlington mom at the center of a scandal we exposed over how Child Protective Services works, is defending herself to Channel 8. Sort of, anyway. My favorite quote from the TV piece regards the thought that has haunted her since she left her toddler to die in a hot truck: "Just what I could have done different."

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

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Alan and Kathy Lynn Dieken of Kaufman did get their money back after taking a honeymoon cruise to nowhere. The couple booked a trip at the end of April on Carnival Cruise Lines out of Galveston that was supposed to port in Mexico. But when swine flu broke out in the country, cruise ships all headed to other ports.

Not theirs. It parked in the Gulf.

It also returned to Texas early because of a medical emergency.

Despite my intervention, Carnival only refunded the couple a total of $80 in port taxes and offered 50 percent off a future cruise.

So the Diekens disputed the remaining $1,770 they paid to their credit card. "They took it off completely," said Dieken. He said he is now satisfied with the result.

Turmoil in the suburbs. A drug war near the Texas border. What's a politician to do?

1. Irving's power structure is under siege. The local icon, Texas Stadium, is turning into an eyesore. The Dallas Cowboys will soon be playing in Arlington, leaving behind controversy over their practice facility's collapse and the city's dubious role in inspecting it. Now comes a federal judge's ruling that the city's at-large system for electing the City Council is illegal, as reported today by Jeff Mosier and Katherine Leal Unmuth of The Dallas Morning News. Members of the all-white council said they thought things were working just fine. Hispanics are about 40 percent of the population -- the largest group in town.

2. The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating look today at possible ties between drug lords and elected officials in Mexico. Seems a recently elected member of Congress there, Julio Cesar Godoy, is now a fugitive. He has been linked to a narco gang that has killed at least 16 police officers in recent days. He is also a half-brother of Michoacan state's governor.

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

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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.

Someone in England stole Martha Weempe's credit card number last year and went on a buying spree, purchasing a British Airways plane ticket, Gatwick Express train ticket and more than $20,000 worth of goods.

Each month, Weempe would get another fraudulent charge and then would ask Capital One to shut down the account.

"I just want the thing closed, but they say they can't cancel it until it has a zero balance for two months. I can't get a zero balance with this yahoo over there charging things," she said.

"I do not know where to turn," she continued. "I have begged and pleaded, sent them letters, talked to the Attorney General's office. I've called my state representative and reported it to the police department. They just threw up their hands. Can you help me?"

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.

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.

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.

Here are some of today's interesting stories from The Dallas Morning News and around the Web to help your water cooler conversation:

1. Is your wallboard making you sick? There are growing complaints about fumes from Chinese drywall, which began pouring into this country after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Associated Press reports. Government agencies are investigating, lawsuits are flying in the Southeast, and some national politicians want to ban the stuff. Is there a problem in North Texas?

2. Dallas is not alone in charging drivers a fee for crashing their cars. Other cash-strapped local governments are trying this and even wilder ways to raise money, The New York Times reports. Would you believe a "streetlight user fee?" Know any other charges we ought to check out?

3. State employees who care for Texans with profound disabilities are working huge amounts of overtime, costing taxpayers millions and possibly endangering patients. That's the conclusion of Dallas Morning News database editor Ryan McNeill and investigative reporter Emily Ramshaw.

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