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Mavs Eclipse Suns, Advance to Western Conference Finals. When was this one over? Take your pick: end of the third quarter, halftime, midway through the second, from Luka Doncic’s first basket, as soon as the Mavs forced a Game 7. The 33-point final score didn’t even reflect how thoroughly the Mavs dominated the Suns. You would never guess which team was in the Finals last season and had the best record in the league in this one. The Western Conference Finals against Golden State tip off in Oakland on Wednesday. I love this team so much. Mike and Iztok will have more over on StrongSide shortly.

Stars Fall In Overtime. I don’t know a ton about hockey. Actually, scratch that. I know almost nothing. Even after editing a ton of Stars posts on StrongSide, not much has been able to penetrate my brain. But even I can tell you how amazing Jake Oettinger played in the Stars’ Game 7 loss to Calgary. The Stars goalie faced 64 shots (the Stars, on the other hand, shot 28 times on Calgary’s goal) and finally was taken down 15 minutes and 9 seconds into overtime, on a sort of flukey shot right after he had held off a flurry of chances without his stick. Mike and David have more on StrongSide.

What a Dallas sports night.

The management next month may change for WRR, the city-owned classical music station, but the station will retain its locally programmed classical format.

KERA and the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture are hammering out a management agreement for the station, which is the first licensed broadcast station in Texas and, at 101-years-old, one of the oldest operating radio stations in the country.

Until now, the station was expected to be self-supporting, the Friends of WRR explained on its website.

Dr. Ximena Lopez has received recognition from a body of her peers and a brief reprieve in the courtroom just as the state again gears up to investigate families with children who have received gender-affirming care.

In the same week that she received the Pediatric Endocrinology Society’s first-ever Clinician Award, a Dallas County court ruled that the entire suite of gender-affirming care can continue for the next two weeks at Children’s Health, which housed her GENECIS clinic in partnership with UT Southwestern Medical Center.

A Dallas County judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order that temporarily reverses the administration’s decision to stop providing care to new transgender pediatric patients. This frees Lopez’s clinic to provide puberty blockers and hormone treatment for 14 days while the court considers the merits of her case.

Lopez’s lawyer framed the strategy as a way to keep offering services to new patients while getting to the bottom of who made the decision to un-brand the clinic and stop accepting newcomers. Lopez had already filed a petition in court against UT Southwestern in an attempt to depose her former bosses; she argued to a judge that deposing top administrators was necessary to determine who to name as a defendant in a lawsuit.

This recent decision is not a victory for Lopez, but does allow for a flicker of normalcy. In unbranding the clinic, UT Southwestern and Children’s stopped providing new patients with hormone therapy and puberty blockers. Existing GENECIS patients were already able to receive hormone therapy and puberty blockers even after the clinic was disbanded, but the specialties were no longer housed under the same program.

“The hospital and UT Southwestern were very proud of this program and they should be,” Lopez said in a statement. “But all of that changed when this became a political issue rather than a medical one. I’ve seen patients across all sectors of society from families conservative, liberal and everything in between. They need this care.”

Children’s Health declined when asked for a statement: “We do not comment about ongoing legal proceedings.”

Mavs Force Game 7. Mike Piellucci gets no sleep. Game 7’s start time, as I type this at 7 a.m., is “TBD,” which must be stressful for our sportswriting ilk. At least he doesn’t have to go back to Phoenix, like the Athletic’s Tim Cato. ANYWAY. I was at the game last night and the American Airlines Center could’ve popped. The Suns never looked like a team that won 64 games and the Mavericks took advantage of that, forcing 22 turnovers and scoring 29 points off them. Here is Christopher Paul: “It’s win or go home. I feel like we worked as hard as we did all season to get homecourt. Just ’cause you have homecourt doesn’t guarantee you’re going to win the game, but we’d rather play at home than play here.” The Arizona Republic has its take here.

Three Shot in North Dallas Salon. Three women of Korean descent were shot by a masked gunman in the salon where they worked. Police Chief Eddie Garcia, citing “the elements of the crime,” said that “we can confidently say that hate was not a motivating factor.” Police offered few other details, but the salon was also hit by a drive-by last month. The department didn’t say whether that was connected to the more recent shooting. The women are all hospitalized.

Two Killed, Three Injured in Deep Ellum. A group had gathered outside a barbecue truck near Elm and Crowdus at about 2 a.m. when, police say, an “interaction happened” and shots were fired. A worker at the truck said there were shell casings and a weapon nearby; it appears the incident was captured on surveillance footage. An assistant police chief believes the incident was isolated. NBCDFW reports that two people are in custody “in connection to the shooting incident.”

Arrests Made in Concert Shooting. Astonial Calhoun and Devojiea Givens were charged with felony deadly conduct related to a shooting at an unpermitted concert in southern Dallas on April 2. Sixteen people were shot and one man was killed.

When we decided to devote our May cover to beer, we didn’t know what auspicious timing we had chosen. Not perfect, but close: it had been almost exactly a decade since June 27, 2012, when the Dallas City Council passed a new zoning law that allowed wineries, distilleries, and breweries to operate within the city limits. (How do we do it? I wish I could teach you. It’s a combination of experience, of course, and also skill so deep in our bones that all editors of D Magazine are legally prohibited from making marrow transplants.)

Anyway, because other cities in the area followed Dallas’ lead, that council vote kicked off a brewery boom in North Texas that continues—and the growth is sort of mind boggling once you see the numbers. Peticolas Brewing Co. and Deep Ellum Brewing Co. opened in the fall of 2011, just before the new law, and they were the first production breweries in Dallas since the late 1990s. In 2014, there were 24 breweries in North Texas. Two years after that, the number was over 30. And now we are up to more than 100, with at least 20 on the way.

That’s why the audacious claim we made on the cover, calling Dallas the “biggest beer city in Texas,” is absolutely defensible. (Give us one beer and two uninterrupted minutes.) The other claim we made inside the magazine, in the subhead of the story, needs no defense, because it is 100-percent true and immediately obvious to anyone paying even the barest minimum of attention: it is a great time to be a beer drinker here.

The cover story is online today. Read our coverage of the current scene to find out more.

In November, we published a story titled “The End of a Playboy,” about allegations of sexual assault made by women against the real estate developer Bill Hutchinson. His highest-profile project in town has been the Virgin Hotel. He also starred in the A+E reality series Marrying Millions. Yesterday, another accuser stepped forward, by way of a third amended petition filed in a civil suit against Hutchinson.

What follows is the narrative put forth by Jane Doe 4, quoted from the suit. Trigger warning: her allegations include details of sexual assault. I have asked Hutchinson’s lawyer if his client has a response and will update this post if necessary. According to Jane Doe 4, here’s what happened:

Three Women Were Shot at Northwest Dallas Hair Salon. A masked gunman opened fire inside the Hair World Salon on Royal Lane, which is home to several blocks of mostly Asian-owned businesses. Law enforcement officials are determining if the incident was related to a dispute with a customer, or if it was a hate crime. None of the women had life-threatening injuries.

The Flames Take the Series Lead. The Calgary Flames now lead the series 3-2 after last night’s 3-1 win over the Stars. It looked good for a while, and then it didn’t, and then it really didn’t. The Game 6 puck drops Friday at 8:30 p.m. at the American Airlines Center. David Castillo and  Mike Piellucci also have their analysis of Wednesday’s game here.

Texas Social Media Law Will Go Into Effect. A lower court had blocked a Texas law that aims to punish social media platforms that “censor” users, but a panel of federal appeals court judges issued a stay, which will allow the law to go into effect for now.

Cooking Oil Might Be Powering Your Plane. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is one of the first major hubs to utilize jet fuel created by recycling old cooking oil. The airport says about 32,000 pounds of cooking oil is recycled every month, with a conversion rate of about three-quarters of a gallon of jet fuel for every one gallon of old french fry oil.

The city’s redistricting commission has officially approved a map that will define new City Council districts for the next decade. It took weeks of meetings to winnow down 46 maps to two maps. The final decision came after a meeting went so late into the night that the discussion had to be resumed the following morning.

And in the end, not a whole lot changed—much to the dismay of some residents and neighborhood coalitions that say the city’s redistricting commission voted for the status quo instead of opening up new opportunities for more Black and Latino representatives in the future.

The Redistricting Commission met for a marathon session that lasted until nearly midnight Monday, and picked back up Tuesday morning before landing on a version of map 41 with amendments. It was approved by a 9-6 vote.

The 15-member commission’s discussion centered on which map (17 or 41) did a better job of creating a Dallas City Council that accurately represented the makeup of the city, while also respecting the wishes of communities that voiced the desire to not be split up.

Commissioner Roy Lopez said that while he heard the arguments of his fellow commissioners, he ultimately felt it wasn’t realistic to expect the map the commission chose to right every social wrong in Dallas.

“This is not the forum where we solve Dallas’ socio-economic problems,” he said. “It’s a tool, but it’s not the only tool.”

He reminded commissioners that they had heard from many residents who pleaded for a map that didn’t split longstanding neighborhoods and communities, and while the map they were voting on, 41B, was “not a perfect map,” it did take those wishes into consideration.

“Who are we to go against the people?” he said. 

But other commissioners, like LULAC President and former Dallas City Councilman Domingo Garcia, feel the map does little to address historic racial divides in the city.

“You’ve packed Black and Brown folks, like it’s been done in Dallas since 83,” he said. “Map 41B perpetuates the inherent institutional racism that Dallas has had since the beginning of its founding. This map lacks social justice, it lacks fairness, it lacks equality.”

Kebran Alexander told his fellow commissioners that their meeting with residents who attended a town hall at Beckley-Saner Recreation Center made it clear to him that residents in South Dallas “had entirely different desires of this process than people from the northern end of Dallas, north of I-30.”

Doing the “best thing for the city of Dallas,” he said, “tends to benefit certain parts of Dallas consistently.”

For what it’s worth, it’s not a total Groundhog Day for the 41B map, but it is close. Ready to talk numbers? 

Despite last year’s rain, strict attendance limits, and mask requirements, the 2021 AT&T Byron Nelson gave a hint of what would be possible at the tournament’s new venue, TPC Craig Ranch. Now, with plenty of sunshine in the forecast and having had a year to work out the kinks, organizers are excited about what’s ahead this week in McKinney.

The event is already a success, having attracted seven of the top 15 players in the world. And, for the first time since 2008, tickets have sold out. That means millions in funds for the Momentous Institute, the nonprofit beneficiary of the tournament and its host, the Salesmanship Club of Dallas.

This year it’s all about enhancing the fan experience, both for those who are serious about seeing great golf and for those who are more about the party atmosphere, which the tournament became known for when it was hosted at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas. In 2021, the Byron Nelson averaged about 10,000 fans per day. This year that number is expected to triple.

Did you ever drive by the white house on Glendora, the one with the wooden fence and all the rose bushes? When a writer named Claire Collins told me it was going to be torn down, I encouraged her to do a little digging on the people who had lived there. Turns out, the Witts family history involves World War II, the FBI, the Terlingua Chili Cookoff, and Carroll Shelby (of Ford v Ferrari fame). Claire’s story was published in the May issue of D Magazine, and it went online today.

As you read the story, pay special attention to all the family photos that accompany it. They all came from Elane, who was the third generation of Witts to live in the house. She grew up there. And she has a storage unit absolutely jammed with photo albums and documents and furnishings that span the 75 years that the Witts family owned that house.

If I were in Elane’s shoes and I’d just packed all my dearly departed parents’ stuff into a storage unit, and if some magazine editor asked to come see it all, I think I’d tell him to pound sand. Instead, Elane drove to Carrollton and met me and our creative director, Lesley Busby, on a sunny Thursday in March. Naturally, she forgot the key and had to get the storage unit company to cut the lock on her unit. That would have put me in a foul mood. Not Elane. I learned something about patience that day as she spent three hours with us digging through boxes, poring over old pictures.

So cheers to Elane. Thank you for helping us make this story so fun to look at. And now we wait to see what will replace that white house at 6007 Glendora—without the roses.

Emily Zawisza’s winding road to Fort Worth’s Four Day Weekend involved the following: Louisiana State University, an unfortunate and abrupt exit from filmmaking, the University of North Texas, a U-Haul van, Chicago, Second City, iO, Groupon, and The Onion.   

Later this month, the improv group Four Day Weekend celebrates 25 years in business. It operates in its original location, in Sundance Square, but expanded into Dallas in 2018, opening in a converted church in Lowest Greenville. Zawisza often hosts in Dallas, but her main gig is director of corporate sales, merging the group’s “yes, and …” culture—a structural way to encourage discussion and experimentation, as well as being a tenet of improv—with the needs of its corporate clients.

With the Dallas location, Zawisza says, “we had the chance to really create what we wanted.” During the pandemic, that turned into a streaming studio that allowed the group to keep doing business: Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price’s retirement party, a gig for the U.S. Men’s National (soccer) Team, the Vienna/Fort Worth-based eye care company Alcon’s global regulatory affairs meeting. All sorts of stuff.

That revenue kept Four Day humming while it was unsafe to do what it does: perform, in person, for an audience that’s sharing space and sharing air. Zawisza helped the show go on.

And about that show. Next weekend, Four Day has some special stuff lined up to celebrate its 25th year. The original cast will be in Fort Worth on May 20 at 8 p.m. and Dallas on May 21 at 8 p.m. The younger cast—which the group is calling “The Futures”—will perform in Dallas on May 20 and Fort Worth on the 21st. All the details, including tickets, are right here.

Zawisza joined us at the Old Monk to record an episode of EarBurner. Listen with your favorite podcatcher or with the embedded player after the jump. Oh, and revisit S. Holland Murphy’s D Magazine profile of the group from 2017 right here.