City council hands off Fair Park, Cruz denounces mail bombs: Your Thursday morning roundup

October 25,  2018 By Carla Solórzano and Dom DiFurio Good morning! Here is a look at the top headlines as we start the day. ☁️ Weather: Cloudy and cool. High of 62. 🔎 Prefer the online view? It's [here](. The last rays of sunlight fell over Big Tex as crowds filled the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park on Saturday. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News)  city council 'A great day for south Dallas': Dallas City Council unanimously hands Fair Park off to outside partnership After years of false starts on how the City of Dallas should move forward in Fair Park, the final resolution on what to do with the aging landmark came without rancor and with surprising unanimity. On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council [unanimously approved a plan to transfer oversight for the 277-acre park to an outside partnership]( between a newly created nonprofit and a for-profit venue manager. The vote is a coda to nearly two decades of debate surrounding the park, dating back to a comprehensive development plan created in 2003. “I think this is a great opportunity for the true gem of Dallas, good for the community, the current operators, as well as the whole city,” council member Jennifer Staubach Gates said. “I really hope that Fair Park becomes the destination place that, at one time, it was. I think this gives it hope to have a future.” Also: Exxxotica, the porn convention banned by Dallas City Council in 2016, [will return to a Dallas federal courtroom]( following a ruling Wednesday by a federal appeals court. Voters' guide: [We invited the 12 candidates in the special District 4 Dallas City Council election]( to answer questions on important issues facing the east Oak Cliff district. Advertisement [ politics After joke about Beto sharing a cell with Hillary, Cruz denounces overheated rhetoric and mail bombs On Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz joked that his opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, could share a jail cell with Hillary Clinton and spoke darkly of Democratic mobs. A day later, federal authorities said they'd found seven mail bombs sent to the former secretary of state and others, among them former President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and CNN -- a network that drew chants of "CNN sucks!" at Cruz's big rally with President Donald Trump on Monday night. Stumping in Dallas on Wednesday,[ Cruz denounced overheated rhetoric and political violence of any kind]( -- and lay the bulk of blame on the left for poisoning the nation's civic discourse. "Violence is wrong wherever it falls in the political spectrum. This is a deep polarized and divided time. That division, that anger is not good for our country, and it is my hope that everyone can just -- calm down a little bit," he said after a rally at Gilley's honky-tonk near downtown. Commentary: That sensational [New York Times story about LBJ saving America from nuclear war]( in Vietnam is wrong. Also: 2 teens were arrested [after authorities found a loaded handgun]( at an Arlington junior-high school. courts Plot to kill Uptown dentist unlike any case Dallas detective has seen, he testifies [The killing of pediatric dentist Kendra Hatcher in an Uptown parking garage was the most planned case one Dallas police detective has ever investigated](, he testified Wednesday. It's a murder scheme that prosecutors say involves a jilted lover, a getaway driver and a triggerman who told police he believed he was doing cartel business. The shooting suspect, 34-year-old Kristopher Love, is on trial this week on a capital murder charge in the September 2015 slaying of Hatcher. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. Hatcher, 35, was found dead from a gunshot wound in the back of her head about 8 p.m. Sept. 2, 2015. Surveillance footage from the garage showed someone walking toward Hatcher's car and then back to a black Jeep Cherokee. Meanwhile: An ex-firefighter who hung a doll with a noose to threaten his black neighbors [got a year in prison for the hate crime](. And: The City Council voted Wednesday to [have a city board decide the fate of a South Dallas car wash]( in a high-crime stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Advertisement [ EDITORS' PICKS - Flavortown, Texas: Tacos Mariachi —once featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives — [plans to open a location on Greenville Avenue](. - Business: A hearing is set for Nov. 1 to help determine[if Grapevine can move forward with its ban on short-term-rentals]( offered through services such as Airbnb. - Weather: A new weather station [can help Texas Motor Speedway fans and competitors track weather in real time](. - Frisco: A deal to restart [Frisco's $2 billion Wade Park project is close](, the developer says. - Crime: A Red Oak couple is [accused of embezzling $14.5 million from retirement plans]( they managed, according to a federal indictment filed Wednesday. Finally... Have questions for journalists? Join Dallas Morning News reporters during our community office hours We are excited to invite you to join our reporters and editors for a series of community office hours around North Texas. [We want to meet you in person](. We want to answer your questions and hear your stories. We're partnering with the Dallas Public Library for our office hours series. A couple of times a month through the end of the year, reporters and editors will spend half a day at different libraries throughout the area. [Our next office hours will be Wednesday, Oct. 31 at the Polk-Wisdom Branch]( of the Dallas Public Library. Reporters Elvia Limón and Obed Manuel will be there from 4 to 6 p.m. 👋 That's all for this morning! For up-to-the-minute news and analysis, check out [DallasNews.com](. Share the love! If you like this newsletter, please forward this email to a friend and [check out our other newsletters here](. Do you have feedback? Send your thoughts, questions, praise and corrections to [newsletter-feedback@dallasnews.com](mailto:newsletter-feedback@dallasnews.com?subject=). 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