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Boat-Sized Vortex In Lake Texoma Mesmerizes National Audiences

U.S Army Corps of Engineers Tulsa District
A bird's eye view of the vortex in Lake Texoma.

Five stories that have North Texas talking: Watch and listen to a giant vortex in Lake Texoma; a Garland man performed illegal dentistry; Rhett Miller says Michael Bublé sounds like “nails on a chalkboard;" and more.

All that flooding in recent weeks created at least one good thing – a swirling, roaring vortex in Lake Texoma, near the border of Texas and Oklahoma. The vortex is approximately 8 feet in diameter, big enough and strong enough to swallow a boat, officials say. The vortex, near Denison Dam spillway, was created by the Coriolis Effect. A video of the phenomenon has gone viral —popping up on local sites, regional and national websites—three weeks after the Tulsa District of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers posted it. The Dallas Morning Newsreported: “Brannen Parrish, spokesman for the Tulsa District, says the Texoma managers have done countless interviews in the last couple of days, from FOX to ABC News to the Weather Channel. It appears the vortex got the folks at Business Insider wet yesterday; now it’s sucking up the entirety of the internet, because it’s so danged...well...awesome.” [The Dallas Morning News]

See for yourself:

Thursday morning brought a pair of big decisions that will affect millions of Texans. First, the Court ruled that “federal housing laws can prohibit seemingly neutral practices that harm minorities even without proof of intentional discrimination.” The ruling spawned from the 2009 case in which The Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas nonprofit advocating fair housing, sued the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for perpetuating segregated housing through its Low-Income Tax Credit program. The Dallas nonprofit cited a legal argument called “disparate impact,” which the Court ultimately validated on Thursday. Second, the Supreme Court upheld the nationwide tax subsidies under Obamacare, which will preserve health insurance for nearly 1 million people in Texas, the state with the highest number of uninsured in the country.  Read more on housing here and health care here. [Associated Press and KERA News] 

Given recent events, what should Dallas do about its numerous Confederate symbols? The Dallas Morning News writes: "A recent push to remove Confederate imagery from public places and store shelves began after last week’s racially motivated massacre during a Bible study session at a Charleston, S.C., church. The white gunman espoused racist comments online and posed with the Confederate battle flag in photos.” The next day, “the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could deny a request by the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to put an image of the Confederate battle flag on specialty license plates.” Then the three statues of Confederate leaders residing on UT Austin’s campus were vandalized earlier this week. So, what about the abounding Confederate images in the form of park statues, schools and graveyard memorials, like Robert E. Lee Park in Oak Lawn, which has the been a site of racial violence in the past? Read varying viewpoints here. [The Dallas Morning News]

A man from Garland pretended to be a dentist from Honduras, injected a woman with drugs, pulled out several of her teeth and left her with an infection. Sound like your worst nightmare? The Associated Press reported Thursday: “Mario Sabillon-Mejia, of Garland, was being held Thursday on charges of practicing medicine without a license, possession of dangerous drugs and alias warrants. A woman who allegedly assisted him faces the same counts.” The injured woman contacted Dallas police about the ordeal, which happened in May and was a house call. She told police she agreed to pay $1,500 for the dental work. [Associated Press]

Dallas’ Rhett Miller of the Old ‘97s kind of hates Michael Bublé. Miller participated as a “hater” in The A.V. Club’s series, HateSong, where they ask their “favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world.” Miller qualifies his hatred saying, “So, Michael Bublé is eminently hateable on his own without any personal reasons. It’s just his persona or his music. I don’t know him personally. I have heard some stories, but that’s all secondhand stuff.” But it got personal a couple years ago when Miller heard Bublé’s song, “https://youtu.be/5QYxuGQMCuU">It’s A Beautiful Day” at a restaurant and discovered it shared a similar chord progression and even the lyrics, “it’s a beautiful day” with The Old ‘97s 2011 song, “https://youtu.be/VdoORaaplRA">Perfume.” Check out Miller’s recently released seventh solo album, The Traveler  and his KXT Live Session to see what Bublé might pull from next.