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Dean Loses Appeal. Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean lost his bid to have his 2022 manslaughter conviction reviewed by the state Court of Criminal Appeals. Dean was convicted of manslaughter in the 2019 shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson, who was up late playing video games with her nephew. Body camera footage showed that Dean never identified himself as an officer before the shooting and only gave Jefferson seconds to comply with a command to put her hands up.

New Children’s Campus Gets Big Donation. Mack Pogue, the late founder of Lincoln Property Co., and his wife Jean donated $100 million to Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center. The money will go toward the new $5 billion, 2 million-square-foot pediatric hospital set to open in about seven years. It’s not only the largest donation yet to the campus, but it’s also one of the largest philanthropic gifts publicly announced in North Texas history, Children’s says. The green space around the 33-acre site will be named Pogue Park.

Docu-series About Alleged North Texas Serial Murderer Streaming Now. Paramount+ is airing Pillowcase Murders, a series examining Billy Chemirmir and his alleged crimes. Chemirmir was convicted of killing two women but is suspected of killing many more. The majority of the murders happened at senior living facilities, where they were smothered with pillowcases. The perpetrator would then steal their jewelry and pawn it.

Prepare for a Soggy Day. It’s 73 degrees, and there’s a 30 percent chance that it’s already raining. If it’s not, it will be—the National Weather Service predicts an 80 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms after 10 a.m. It’ll drop to about 60 percent this evening and taper off overnight into Friday.

Every great hamburger starts with the bread. It’s maybe not the most important element, if you had to single one out, but the bread is the first thing to meet your lips and teeth. Plus you couldn’t pick the thing up without the bread. Above all, a burger is a sandwich.

Nick Rallo, a Dallas writer with an artery-clogging death wish, tackled this month’s cover story for D Magazine. I got to wondering how many burgers he ate for the assignment and how he survived it. Here’s what he said:

Southlake Families Call for Carroll ISD to Cooperate. The Department of Education has invited the district to negotiate a resolution on four claims that kids had been subjected to race and gender-based discrimination and that the district did not respond. Federal investigations that substantiate discrimination claims generally result in the district agreeing to some sort of action plan. Now, parents are urging Carroll ISD to come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

First Quarter Sees Hike in Apartment Demand. More than 5,000 units filled up in Dallas-Fort Worth during the first three months of 2024, which is the highest quarter since 2019. Rental rates had fallen for six months in 2023 as more and more new units came online, but analysts CoStar report seeing small increases that reflect the higher demand. About a third of the growth happened in Frisco and Prosper, Allen and McKinney, and North Fort Worth.

Walmart Wants Dallas Workers to Move to Arkansas. The company is shifting its corporate staff, remote and office workers, to headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. to use its new corporate campus. Walmart canceled its plans to open clinics in many of its stores and had already asked Austin workers to office out of its Sam’s Club innovation center in the West End.

About 10 minutes ago, Dallas officials announced that White Rock Lake has improved its bald eagle population by two: city conservation manager Brett Johnson says there are two eaglets in the nest at Lake Highlands Park.

“We are excited the bald eagles have two new members,” Johnson said in a news release. Dallas Park and Recreation’s conservation team and birding enthusiasts have been watching the eagles since March.

It’s a happy ending to what was a sad story. Two years ago, eagles nested in a tree at the same park. High winds blew the nest out of its tree, destroying the eggs inside.

This time, the city, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are keeping a watchful eye on the fledgling (see what we did there?) family. That includes making sure the nest remains undisturbed.

Mavs Lose. The headline from the Oklahoman: “How on Earth Did Thunder Pull off Game 4 Win vs Mavericks?” Joe Mussatto wrote of the 100-96 Thunder win: “It looked as if the Mavericks had snatched the Thunder’s soul. Game over, series all but over. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had the magic elixir. He revived the Thunder with one mid-range jumper after another. He ventured into the teeth of the Mavericks’ defense and kicked out to teammates who had missed 3-pointers all night until they didn’t.” The Mavs would have won if they’d made free throws. They went 12 of 23, while the Thunder shot 23 of 24. This one had me swearing at my TV.

Stars Win. From the Denver Post: “For about 16 minutes Monday night, the shorthanded Colorado Avalanche, buoyed by a sensational start from goalie Alexandar Georgiev and a full-throated Ball Arena crowd, looked capable of pulling off the improbable. Alas, reality set in soon after that.” The Stars won 5-1, and they could probably shoot free throws better than the frickin Mavericks.

SEC Sues North Texas Man. The feds say Robert Tye Cournoyer spent $755,000 from his hemp business, Green Equity, on a lavish lifestyle and gambling. I wonder if he took the Mavs last night and is as pissed as I am.

DMN Argues to Keep Police Chief. Houston and San Antonio are both eyeing Dallas’ top cop. Says the newspaper’s editorial board: “We hope Dallas can keep Eddie García in town. He’s been a ray of hope and an example of excellence.” I hereby call on García to arrest several Mavs for their criminally boneheaded play.

The Southwestern Medical District has succeeded—if your metric is world-renowned healthcare and research—despite how inhospitable the neighborhood can feel to actual people. The home of UT Southwestern Medical Center, Parkland, and Children’s Health is also Dallas’ largest heat island, where miles of concrete soak up the sun. Its wide streets encourage speeding and can make it perilous for pedestrians, a troubling reality considering physicians, nurses, and students split their time between the district’s sprawling campuses. This pocket off of Interstate 35 was formerly an industrial area, and it still feels like it, despite its hospitals treating 3.3 million patients and employing more than 42,000 workers.  

For the last seven years, the Texas Trees Foundation has been imagining a new reality for the city’s critical economic and healthcare hub. The Medical District overhaul has turned the humble nonprofit into a project manager of an ambitious bit of urban design, daring to reengineer a neighborhood of more than 1,000 acres where patients can find solace in nature while doctors don’t have to dodge Chargers.

Tonight Texas Trees will announce that the project has reached 30 percent design status, a critical milestone that allows the city to begin planning engineering and for the federally mandated environmental clearance to begin. Too, the feds can now consider the project “shovel ready,” which increases the likelihood of the project getting more federal funding.

It is a practical extension of the organization’s research around curbing urban heat islands while adding to the city’s tree canopy. But the work in the Medical District has a more holistic goal, too. Modern healthcare architecture has responded to a bevy of studies that show patient outcomes improve when design considers their experience. This has led to more spacious rooms, windows, improved lighting, and other ways to make patients more comfortable that had rarely been considered in hospitals. All three of the largest entities in the district have employed tenets of “social design” in their new buildings. But the conditions outside reflect this neighborhood’s history as an industrial center, when trucks rumbled along Motor Avenue (now Medical District Drive).

Huge Story About Toll Roads. The Morning News just dropped a package of stories that took a year to research and assemble. The umbrella headline for the kit and caboodle is “Toll Trap.” It would be unfair of me to summarize the entire thing because I haven’t yet read it all, but let me summarize the thing for you: we’ve got a lot of toll roads. For rich people, a $20 toll is no big deal, but for poor people, that’s a lot of money. As a result, some people would rather not pay tolls. Oh, and most publicly available toll calculators can’t be trusted.

$150k Offered in Mail Carrier Robbery. The US Postal Inspection Service is offering a big reward for information on a robbery of a carrier in Addison. They are searching for two male suspects who are possibly in their teens.

Another Night of Sports Conflict. Dallas sports fans get screwed again tonight as the Stars and Mavs both play at 8:30. If you can, squeeze in a nap today, and get that two-screen setup squared away.

A few days ago, our Will Maddox did his level best to figure out what the heck is going on with that spot in Uptown where an Albertson’s once stood. It seems a Central Market is coming. But in trying to figure out who owns the land, all Will could decipher is that a Florida-based entity is listed in appraisal records.

I’m here to help (with a huge assist from a FrontBurnervian who is a way better sleuther than I).

As indicated on the DCAD site, the land that is being leased by H-E-B is owned by Pan Coastal Limited Partnership, which bought up propery all over Uptown starting in the 1980s. The S&L crisis was no fun. Except for people with lots of liquidity! Pan Coastal has owned the site since 1989 and leased it to Albertson’s in 1992.

Yes, Pan Coastal traces back to Florida, but there is a Delaware company also registered to that same address in Florida. That’s the one Will reached out to (unsuccessfully) for comment. But wait! A little more digging reveals a list of company directors for that second entity. Those directors have (or had) addresses in the United Kingdom. Which is where you’ll find the actual owner. In Switzerland.

Remember the Panama Papers? A lot of the shell companies involved here were exposed in 2016. (I hasten to add that I’m not suggesting anything untoward is at play here; that’s just where the info leaked.) The only surviving family member named as an officer in that Delaware company is a Swiss woman named Hanah Willmott, who was born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani-Austrian parents. Willmott has a blind dog and makes art out of recycled Nespresso pods. I am not making this up. Here is her website.

The point of all this? There isn’t one, really. It’s just fun to learn. And maybe when this Central Market is finally built, H-E-B should commission a Hanah Willmott original to hang near the check-out aisles.

Dallas Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert will have one more change to make on her new organizational chart. Assistant City Manager Robert Perez is leaving for Topeka, Kansas.

Perez has been chosen as the lone finalist for Topeka’s open city manager’s job, according to a well-placed source at Topeka City Hall with knowledge of the hiring process who did not have permission to speak on the record. Perez will replace former City Manager Stephen Wade, who was fired over the summer after only 10 months on the job. The city later alleged that he had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.

Topeka confirmed Perez’s hire around noon Friday in a press release. The City Council is expected to formally approve Perez’s contract in its May 14 meeting. Perez will be offered a one-year contract with a base salary of $255,000. His start date is being finalized, the city said, but it’s anticipated to be between late June and early July.

Blame calzones for ending the tenure of this magazine’s first-ever dining editor. To hit a deadline, David Bauer consumed eight of the Italian turnovers within a few days, and the ricotta cheese did him in. In truth, Bauer never set out to cover food. In 1974, he was a long-haired and bearded Dartmouth grad looking for a job in journalism because, he says, “I couldn’t think of anything else to be.” 

“The first person you’re going to hire is not going to be that hippie, right?” said D Magazine’s founding publisher, Wick Allison, after editor Jim Atkinson brought Bauer on board. Some months later, when Allison announced that someone would need to build a dining directory modeled after the one at Philadelphia Magazine, Bauer volunteered. 

“Except for the fact that I liked to eat, I had no credentials, no expertise,” Bauer says today. 

His mini-reviews gave Dallas its first taste of dining criticism: “An old Market St. warehouse brought back to life and loaded with antiques. … It’s possible the spaghetti is also antique,” he wrote in the magazine’s first issue. Word got around among the city’s restaurateurs to watch out for “a guy who looks just like Jesus.”

Inexperience aside, Bauer did have an ace up his sleeve. His girlfriend at the time was Nancy Nichols. Longtime readers will recognize the name, as Nichols was D Magazine’s dining critic from 1996 to 2015. But back in the 1970s, she was not a writer at all. Nichols had worked the line at a buzzy Austin restaurant called MarCo’s and then served as a chef and waitress at La Cave in Dallas, which she claims was Dallas’ first authentic wine bar. “But The Grape fights me on that every time,” she says. So while Bauer could write, Nichols knew food and often joined him on dining expeditions. 

Mavs, Stars Even Their Series. Critical games in Oklahoma City and Dallas, with the Mavs sailing past the Thunder behind a Luka Doncic bounce-back game and the Stars putting up five goals. StrongSide will have more shortly. The Oklahoman spent its lead arguing that maybe Paycom Center shouldn’t chant “Lu-ka Sucks” next time.

Sergeant Fired for Faking Overtime. Sgt. Katherine Silva lost her job after Police Chief Eddie Garcia ruled that she had falsified her time cards and forged documents. She also engaged in “adverse conduct” when she was arrested for theft between $2,500 to $30,000 as well as tampering with a government record. Silva had been with the department since 2004. She can appeal the decision.

Mother’s Day Rain? There’s a 40 percent chance on Sunday, but the weekend should be in the mid-70s. That might be the last time we say that until fall. Rain and storm chances begin Saturday night and continue into Sunday morning, but the forecast doesn’t expect it to be severe. Bring an umbrella for your walk into brunch and you’ll be just fine.