Tonyita Hopkins

It was the murder of Deanna Cook, more than anything else, that forced the city of Dallas to take a hard look at its 911 call center. There was simply no way to explain away the lackadaisical response to the horrifying, 11-minute 911 call in which Cook pleads for her life as she's attacked by her ex-husband.

That's not to say that City Hall and the Dallas Police Department didn't try to explain it away. They placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of 911 operator Tonyita Hopkins, who resigned after an internal investigation found she hadn't adequately communicated the severity of Cook's plight. Meanwhile, DPD quietly beefed up staffing and reassigned call center's top brass.

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The Hearthwood Condominiums is a total loss at this point. The Northeast Dallas complex has been consumed in a massive, six-alarm fire that broke out there early this morning, bringing dozens of firetrucks to the intersection of Abrams and -- in a case of unfortunate irony -- Emberglow Lane.

Residents of the complex were reportedly all evacuated and are safe. The same can't be said of the men and women who came to fight the flames. One of those remains trapped, various media outlets are reporting. NBC 5's Kendra Lyn tweets that it's been more than an hour since the firefighter radioed "I'm trapped" before losing contact with his colleagues.

It's been more than an hour, Dallas firefighters still searching for trapped firefighter inside burning condo building @nbcdfw

— Kendra Lyn NBC5 (@KendraLynNBC5) May 20, 2013

NBC 5 has live video Updates as they come.

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Vibha Marks

A 1-year-old child died after being left in a locked car in the parking lot of Frank Guzick Elementary School in Pleasant Grove. The child's mother is a teacher at the school, according to a statement from Dallas ISD.

A statement from the Dallas Police Department says that a witness observed the child unattended in a locked car around 1:20 p.m. The witness called 911, then broke a window out of the vehicle, removed the child, and started to perform CPR. Dallas Fire and Rescue arrived to taken the child to Baylor Hospital, where he or she was pronounced dead.

Although the police haven't confirmed this, FOX 4 reports that the witness was a student from a nearby school. NBC, meanwhile, reports that it was a teacher's aid.

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Wikipedia

The USS Dallas, somewhere that's not the Trinity.

Tom Clancy buffs are already well-acquainted with the USS Dallas. The 5,700-ton nuclear submarine, a hair longer than your standard football field, was a main player in The Hunt for Red October. Back when the novel was published in 1984, the ship was still young, having joined the Navy's fleet just three years before.

Fast forward three decades. The ship is no longer such a vital part of U.S. maritime strategy and is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2014, at which point it will need to find a new home. And a new home is exactly what Dallas leaders are proposing to build, according to The Dallas Morning News. Mayor Mike Rawlings is expected to unveil plans for the Dallas Maritime Museum, which will be located on the banks of the Trinity River.

The logic here goes something like this: The USS Dallas travels in water; the Trinity contains water; therefore it makes perfect sense to build an $80 million naval museum in Dallas, several hours from a coastline or navigable waterway.

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NBC 5

State Fire Marshal Chris Connealy at this afternoon's press conference.

The Morning News broke the news this morning that officials had narrowed the cause of last month's deadly West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion to one of three things: a golf cart, an electrical short, or criminal activity. That wasn't terribly narrow, but there was a press conference scheduled this afternoon, so we thought investigators might be more specific.

They didn't.

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Say farewell to Mary Suhm. The Morning News' Rudy Bush broke the news this morning that, come September, she's stepping down as city manager. She said so to the City Council and top staff.

The announcement begins the close of a remarkable 8-year career as city manager that saw the city become a safer place to live and return its focus to its center, restoring its downtown, opening paths to West Dallas, installing miles of trails and bicycle lanes and making major progress on projects that have frustrated city leaders for decades.

The construction of the convention center hotel, the opening of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge over the Trinity River, the agreement that will see a championship golf course built in one of the poorest parts of Dallas. Each project had Suhm's stamp. In fact, it was her conception to have the architect Santiago Calatrava design three white bridges to span the river and create a new iconic image of Dallas.

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Billy Pemberton, drinking from the spring a short walk from his house.

Neighbors were growing concerned about the fate of Pemberton Spring. In recent months, surveyors with the city had come within spitting distance of the site as they drilled soil samples and staked out buildings for $10 million Texas Horse Park. They feared the imminent disappearance of the spring, which has stayed remarkably pristine in the generations since Sam Houston camped there with his treaty party and Dallas founder John Neely Bryan built his home nearby.

The grassroots campaign to protect the site had barely gotten underway when the city swore off plans to build anywhere close to the water.

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Image via KRGV.com

Bryce Reed

Updated below.

Original story, 10:05 a.m.: An EMT and incident commander with West Emergency Medical Services was arrested early this morning on charges of possessing a "destructive device," multiple media outlets are reporting.

Bryce Reed, 31, is in federal custody. There are two different interpretations of the arrest being presented: Fox 4 reports that he's been arrested "in connection to the investigation of the explosion in West, Texas, that killed 15 people." They say the source of that information is unnamed agents with the federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms bureau. But The Dallas Morning News reports that officials haven't yet said whether Reed's arrest was related to the explosion. Under state and federal law, a "destructive device" can mean almost anything: a grenade, a bomb, a missile, poison gas or certain types of firearms.

See also: As West, Texas Counts Its Dead, Some See a Chance to Make a Profit

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Investigators still haven't determined the official cause of the fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people and injured at least 200 others in West last month, but all signs point to the large quantities of highly explosive ammonium nitrate that were stored there.

What's also become clear is that neighbors by and large weren't aware of the danger the fertilizer plant posed. At a hearing in the Texas legislature this week, a parade of state agencies testified that it wasn't their responsibility to inform residents that 270 tons of ammonium nitrate, enough to level a good chunk of the town, was stored nearby. Similarly, West Mayor Tommy Muska has said that, because the plant was outside the city limits, local officials had no control.

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Occupy Dallas

The men and women who gathered alongside Central Expressway this morning to protest the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center were mostly well-behaved. They marched by peacefully by in their Jason-esque hockey masks, Guantanamo prison garb and comically oversize papier mache heads.

But then something went wrong. A Dallas policewoman tweeted a while ago that three protesters were arrested. Police have provided no other detail, but the Morning News' Scott Goldstein brings us this important piece of news:

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