The Dallas native, who specialized in writing about Dallas-Fort Worth's 'bold-face' names, is staying mum about his future plans.

With Plano representative Matt Shaheen opting to drop his bid for the Texas Senate and seek re-election in the House, the lane is clear for businessman Phillip Huffines to join his brother, Don, in the Senate chambers.

A betting man would put Phillip in that seat, so let’s do just that before going further. They’ll be the first brothers in Texas history to serve as senators at the same time. Which, obviously, also would make them the first twin senators. Don Huffines said as much in March, when his brother announced that he’d lent himself $1.5 million to run for Van Taylor’s seat. Taylor’s expected to make a go at a congressional seat, so he’s out of the way. According to the Texas Legislative Reference Library, Don Huffines is right. The closest we’ve come to that rarefied air is Ross and Doss Hardin, the former of whom served in the House from 1935 to 1941, the latter in the Senate from 1938 to 1940. 

Dallas’ four black City Council members gave their support to a task force, proposed this week by the mayor, that will study the issue of Confederate monuments erected in public places. Speaking at a press conference early Friday afternoon, Dwaine Caraway, Casey Thomas, Tennell Atkins, and Kevin Felder were unequivocal in saying that the statues must eventually come down, but only as part of a discussion that addresses broader problems of racism afflicting the city.

Caraway stressed one point: Trust the process.

“Who’s going to pay for it, who’s going to do it, where’s it going to be stored,” the mayor pro tem said. “Those are concerns that we must take a look at, and to make sure that we reach deeper into the effect that racism is having on our city.”

Each of the council members echoed that call for a more thorough examination of the institutional barriers erected against the city’s black communities, and of the legacy of racism in Dallas, going beyond the symbolic weight of the statues.

It’s been percolating for years and still has a long ways to go, but development of the Texas bullet train connecting Houston and Dallas just rolled past a significant milestone.

On Thursday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner inked an agreement with Texas Central, the company plotting the privately-funded 240-mile line, which would transport passengers between the two cities in about 90 minutes. This got a lot of press in Houston. The memorandum of understanding signals the city’s support for the project, although any major agreements must still get full approval from city council members. The Dallas City Council approved a similar memo regarding the high-speed train last year.

Texas Central hopes to start turning dirt in late 2018, and two contractors signed on this week to help design and build the project, which would cost up to $15 billion and will take about four to five years to finish. The bullet train has been generally welcomed in Dallas, where speed, size, and glitz are part of our civic creed. It’s met with slightly more opposition in Houston, although a promise that the line will avoid many residential neighborhoods and end about 10 miles outside of downtown has put much of that to rest. (Plans call for the Dallas stop to be placed closer to the city center, in the Cedars.) Texas Central still has some reckoning to do with the rural landowners in between, unimpressed as they are by the prospect of a bullet train roaring through their property. There are regulatory hurdles that remain to be cleared, and of course, money that needs to be raised.

Still, it looks more and more like this — with all the jobs and development and tax revenue Texas Central is advertising, not to mention the futuristic cool — is happening, sooner rather than later. Choo choo.

For the past year or so, since the domestic violence allegations against Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott became public, the prevailing narrative has focused on a single incident that occurred in a car outside a club. The district attorney decided not to pursue formal charges, citing a sort of he-said-she-said contradictory back and forth. We all, I think, attributed the domestic abuse claims to that one incident.

But hiding in plain sight on the Columbus city attorney’s website are police reports, intake interviews, photographs, and more that broadens the picture. We all should have found it sooner. It includes disturbing allegations of days and nights during which the accuser says Elliott choked her, beat her, and held her against her will in an apartment that his father had rented. Our Kathy Wise spent the beginning of the week poring through those documents and put together, for the first time, this lengthy report that gave a voice to Tiffany Thompson.

Elliott’s camp spent the time since the NFL announced a six-game suspension disparaging Thompson’s character, painting her as a liar and as a spurned lover who was trying to take advantage of Elliott. Reading the other side of it makes it more difficult to accept that narrative and leaves you with at least an understanding of why the NFL acted as it did when the district attorney chose not to pursue a case. As the headline of Kathy’s story says, even a liar can be choked and beaten.

Before her media blitz began (The Ticket and Fox 4 on Thursday, I Heart Radio in Houston on Friday), Kathy sat down at Table No. 1 at the Old Monk to record an episode of EarBurner. Show notes and streaming player for the episode, as always, are after the jump.

Dallas School Board Talks Taxes. Dallas ISD needs more money. How much more money? Trustees will decide today which of three tax plans should go to voters this fall. Or, as was the case last year, they’ll fail to get anything on the ballot at all. Here’s a cogent analysis of what’s at stake for 158,000 schoolchildren.

Some Lawmakers Want to See Dallas’ Confederate Statues Gone. State Sen. Royce West and four Democratic state representatives from Dallas told Mayor Mike Rawlings in a letter that they support his plan for a task force to study the issue, as long as it ultimately results in the removal of the controversial monuments. Sen. Ted Cruz, speaking Thursday in Addison, said we should not “sanitize history” by taking down the statues, but that the decision should be left to individual communities.

Doctor Accused of Serial Drive-By Flashing, Definitely Guilty of Having Terrible Vanity Plate. A Keller doctor suspected of sharing too much of himself with people in Deep Ellum and the parking lot of the Cityplace Target faces a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure. Police said the vanity license plate on Dr. Reginald James Newsome’s BMW, “ISPINE,” also the name of the pain control clinic he works at, helped ID the alleged exhibitionist.

Police Try to Ease Concerns About SB4. Cops in Grand Prairie and elsewhere in North Texas are “waging a public relations campaign” and holding public meetings over the new immigration law, which goes into effect Sept. 1.

Your Texas Rangers Beat the White Sox, 9-8. And get back to .500. Still in this thing, baby. Keep hope alive.