Abortion Providers in Neighboring States Note Increase in Patients From Texas. The president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates clinics in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, says the wait for an appointment at some of its locations has jumped to three to four weeks because they’re serving Texans. The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Roe v. Wade in June, which means that 26 states—including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri—have trigger laws that will make providing an abortion illegal. Texans are already seeking care outside state boundaries following the state legislation barring abortions after six weeks; experts believe the delays and demands will be a precursor to what will happen. New Mexico is the only neighboring state that will still allow the procedure.

DPD Makes Arrest in Street Racing Death. A street racer struck and killed 73-year-old Linda Pearson as she was walking her dog in Casa View on November 26. Police have made an arrest, but have not released further details. The hit happened on the six-lane Ferguson Road, which could benefit from having a lane or two taken in. At least a pilot project—that’s already happening on Jefferson in Oak Cliff, after a man mowing a lawn was killed by a speeding driver.

Mark Cuban Now Owns Wispers Cabaret. And the entire town of Mustang, in Navarro County. Big Schitt’s Creek energy here. The town has only 23 residents and was once on the market for $4 million, which was halved but still didn’t generate interest. Cuban said he bought it to help a buddy out, which means he now owns a fire department building, at least one pond with an alligator, and the defunct strip club off I-45 that is apparently in bad shape. For years, there were a pair of what appeared to be 1980s-era champagne brown limousines parked out front; I wonder if he gets those, too.

Cowboys Continue Saints Free Fall. Let’s check in on the New Orleans Times-Picayune after the Cowboys bested the Saints 27-17: “The Taysom Hill era of New Orleans Saints football began Thursday night the same way the Trevor Siemian era ended — with a loss. The 27-17 setback to the Dallas Cowboys was the Saints’ fifth consecutive, and the quarterback change ultimately failed to change trajectory of what is quickly becoming a lost season for Sean Payton’s reeling outfit. The losses are mounting with each week, and they’re all beginning to look and feel the same. It’s like gridiron Groundhog Day. The opponents change but the script remains the same.” Sounds like a good team for the Cowboys to break out of their own funk. Mike has more on the game over on StrongSide.

The areas of Dallas with the highest risk for COVID-19 infection are also the areas least protected against the virus, according to new data from the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation. It shows the ZIP codes with the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates are also the areas with the highest levels of asthma, a comorbidity that can increase the severity of the virus in children.

Vaccines are now available for kids ages 5 to 11, but for several reasons, many low-income neighborhoods still lag behind others when it comes to their vaccination rates. Risk factors like heart disease, cancer, and obesity have made the virus much more deadly for adults. And while the virus has been less lethal for children, asthma increases the likelihood of a more severe infection in pediatric cases.

Part of the solution will be outreach. Internet access and healthcare providers are often limited in these neighborhoods. In ZIP codes 75217, 75211, 75228, 75227, and 75243, overlapping high pediatric asthma and low COVID-19 pediatric vaccination rates collide. Pleasant Grove’s 75217 has the region’s highest pediatric asthma rate and the lowest COVID-19 pediatric vaccination rate in Dallas County. Cockrell Hill and Oak Cliff’s 75211 has the same problem. These are two of Dallas’ poorest areas and have already been ravaged by the pandemic. The other ZIP codes include Far East Dallas and Mesquite (75228), southeast Dallas (75227), and northeast Dallas around Forest Lane (75243).

According to the American Lung Association, 11 percent of families below the poverty line ($26,500 for a family of four) had children with asthma in 2018. Only 6.8 percent of families who made at least $52,400—200 percent of the poverty line—had children with asthma. A study from the National Institutes of Health also found that substandard housing and environmental triggers are linked to greater asthma morbidity and mortality for low-income and Black and Latino children living in urban areas. 

Dallas is making progress on youth vaccinations: more than 50 percent of high school students and more than one in three middle school students have been vaccinated. The issue is that many unvaccinated children are likely to have asthma.

Just before 1 a.m. on Tuesday, November 30, video surveillance shows what appears to be a white Subaru barreling down Commerce Street in Deep Ellum. Then the road forks. Commerce splits off into Second Avenue, and this is where Thunderbird Station sits, nestled in this angled wedge. It’s this point where the car, turning too late and driving too fast onto Second, crashes into the bar’s patio barrier.

No one was hurt—though we can’t speak for the presumably impaired driver. “I’m just super thankful and lucky that we were closed and nobody was here,” says Thunderbird owner Kim Finch, who’s still trying to find the humor in this weird and wild thing we call life. “That’s why I can laugh about it: We now have a drive-thru!”

Had Thunderbird not been closed, as it usually is on Monday nights, Finch says that’s when staff is cleaning up and putting things away. (You can watch Thunderbird’s outdoor camera footage here.) The collision flipped three tables and crumpled the exterior fencing, a heavy-duty metal that Finch got custom made in case of events like this. It’s not the first time Finch has seen recklessness in the neighborhood.

“We’ve had this happen at Doublewide, too,” Finch says of her other bar located northeast of Thunderbird just on the other side of Exposition. “There’s a curve—we’ve watched people Dukes of Hazzard launch over that, too,” taking out a tree, says Finch, who says she has tried notifying the city about these drivers going full Hot Wheels around her bars.

Yesterday, Ross Perot Jr., who holds a world record for circumnavigating the planet in a helicopter, donated a helicopter to the Dallas Police Department, landing the chopper himself in front of City Hall to make the announcement. As far as rich guy stuff goes, it was pretty cool. Mayor Eric Johnson said, “We need partnerships like this one to build for our city’s future. We need business leaders in this city to say Dallas is more than just a great and growing market for them to make a profit. Our police department must have more resources and more help to achieve our shared goal, which is to make Dallas the safest large city in this country.”

I couldn’t agree more. Toward that end, I hereby challenge Victor Vescovo to step up and follow Perot’s lead. Vescovo, as you might remember, holds a world record for piloting a submarine to the deepest parts of the earth’s five oceans.

Bam! Let’s get DPD a submarine. I look forward to enjoying an even safer White Rock Lake.

Dallas ISD Building New Campus. The John Lewis Social Justice Academy at O.W. Holmes should open in southern Dallas in 2024.

High-Profile Activist Pleads Guilty to Theft Charge. Dominique Alexander, founder of the Next Generation Action Network, was sentenced to two days in jail and given credit for time already served.

Ross Perot Jr. Gives Dallas PD a Helicopter. The billionaire landed the helicopter on the plaza in front of City Hall before a press conference.

It’s Rosa Parks Day in Texas, and DART is reserving a seat at the front of each of its buses this week to honor the civil rights hero, the transit agency said in a press release.

This follows state Sen. Royce West and state Rep. Toni Rose getting the holiday passed by the Texas Legislature in its last session. It was on Dec. 1 in 1955 that Parks refused to let a White passenger take her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and set off the Montgomery bus boycott.

DART has paid tribute to Parks before, with a statue it commissioned in 2008. The brass statue sits at Rosa Parks Plaza downtown, near Lamar Street and Pacific Avenue.