Good evening. Here are some stories you may have missed today.
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Wealth alone won’t make Dallas residents immune to growing poverty
Dallas is starting to come to grips with the toll its high poverty rate takes on the tens of thousands of working poor and their families. Less widely understood is how it dims the prospects for everyone in our city, rich or poor.
The editorial board has followed three families for six months to give you a glimpse into what it’s like to work full-time and come home just as poor as the day before.
The path to the middle class is full of twists. Even those headed in the right direction often find that stability is tenuous.
Don't miss: Six months in the life of two women trying to make ends meet in Dallas.
Also: 10 viral essays from 2017 that all Texans should read.
Democrats stall Texas climate skeptic, forcing Trump to resubmit pick for key environmental post
Democrats successfully stalled the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White, the climate change skeptic as the top White House environmental adviser.
If President Donald Trump still wants the former Texas regulator to lead his Council on Environmental Quality, he'll have to submit her nomination again.
Sen. Tom Carper, the senior Democrat on the committee that oversees EPA and environmental policy, vowed Tuesday to block White from rolling over into 2018 automatically with other pending nominations. He delivered on that late Thursday, when the Senate excluded her from a list of nominations the Senate will pick up where they left off in the new year.
And: Farenthold ethics probe expands after ex-aide claims pressure to perform campaign work.
Also: Cornyn offers a peek at how GOP's tax revamp came together. 'That's basically how legislation gets written'
Traffic nightmare puts shorthanded Dallas police force in a jam: 'We just can't be everywhere'
Driving in Lakewood sometimes seems like a high-stakes round of bumper cars. Motorists zip through stoplights, disregard the 35-mph speed limit and, occasionally, lay on their horns. They often brake abruptly, sometimes creating a pileup of fender-benders behind them.
Residents say increased traffic and reckless drivers have made a mile-long stretch of Abrams Road, between Lakewood Boulevard and Monticello Avenue, a nightmare in recent years.
Dallas police say they know about the problem and are working to address it. This fall, they handed out 151 traffic tickets in a four-day period. But they couldn't patrol the trouble spot indefinitely, unlike in other cities with more resources and less ground to cover.
And: A man was killed and another was critically injured after a motorcycle race went awry Thursday night, Dallas police said.
Also: The Arlington Police Department announced Thursday that it is issuing body-cams to its more than 600 sworn officers, sergeants and lieutenants.
Photo of the day
Jennifer Houghton spent 26 days decorating for Christmas. She started Nov. 4 -- after spending four days pulling her Halloween decorations down -- and finished Nov. 30.
But she's never really finished, anyhow. "I'm always tweaking!" she says. Her five-bedroom, nine-bathroom University Park home has to be the most decorated home we've ever seen in Dallas at Christmastime.
Around the site
Preservation: Former Dallas Morning News HQ, historic Oak Cliff neighborhoods top most-endangered list.
Commentary: A little boy, praying for his sick dad, reminds us what Christmas is all about.
Sports: Legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg, who called all three Cowboys Super Bowls in '90s, dies at 82.
Transportation: Tesla to help Plano's Frito-Lay boost truck fleet fuel efficiency.
Business: AT&T and Time Warner have again pushed back the date that they have to complete their $108.7 billion merger.
Opinion: Please, Disney, expunge 2017 from the canon.
Food: This Dallas restaurant makes list of the world's best dinners this year, says Forbes writer.
Finally,
For this Mexico City earthquake survivor and Beatles fanatic, all he needs is love
Hours after the buildings collapsed around him, the earth stopped shaking and the stench of death lingered, Ricardo Calderon turned to the only thing that’s ever helped him make sense of life. Music.
He took out a vinyl record. Amid the rubble, he instantly knew what to play. It wasn’t just any song. He began to sing softly, his eyes filling with tears.
“There are places I remember all my life though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better.
Some have gone and some remain.”
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