Leading Off (4/2/12)

Fighter Milestone Comes As Next Generation Aircraft Breaks Bank: Tomorrow, Lockheed Martin will mark the delivery of the 4,500 F-16 fighter jet, which will make its way from Fort Worth to Morocco, a milestone for the aircraft that keeps 1,600 people employed at Lockhead. The milestone comes as the next generation of Lockheed fighter, the F-35, is saddled with all sorts of cost overruns — about $1.4 trillion, equal to the cost of the entire Iraq war. Texas representatives still advocate for preserving funding (paywall) for the program, in part, they argue, because there’s no backup plan, and in part because of a cool $3.8 billion injected into the Texas economy each year by the F-35.

Creepy End to Search For Missing Child Who Was Starved to Death: An 11-year-old boy was locked in his room and fed bread and water by his parents until he starved to death. The “punishment,” according to police reports, was retaliation by his parents against the boy for violent behavior, including allegedly punching his stepmother in the stomach and causing her to have a miscarriage.

Student Science Project Prompts Love Field Evacuation: A “robotic device” was found on board a Southwest Airlines flight, prompting an evacuation of 13 gates at the airport. Turns out it was only a student’s science project forgotten on the plane, but 11 people were detained before that was sorted out, some of them in handcuffs, as captured by the video in the WFAA report.

DART Starts Charging For Parking: If you don’t live in a DART member city and you park at Parker Road or North Carrolton/Frankford Road Station to use the light rail, you’ll have to cough up an extra $2 to park beginning today as DART tests out a new pay-for parking program. The agency believes it will raise money (paywall) while only turning away about 5 percent of non-member city ridership.