The top local stories this evening from KERA News:
Opening statements are expected to begin Thursday morning in the federal corruption trial of John Wiley Price, the longtime Dallas County commissioner who is accused of accepting nearly $1 million in bribes in exchange for providing insider information and voting in favor of certain contracts.
Kevin Krause is a reporter with The Dallas Morning News, and he’s covering the trial, which could last four months. He told KERA’s Eric Aasen that based on the questions lawyers asked during jury selection this week, there's a sense of how the trial might unfold. Prosecutors are expected to make the case that Price accepted bribes specifically to benefit a political consultant’s companies.
Krause says the defense is expected to argue that Price has been instrumental in promoting commercial diversity over the course of his decades-long career in office and that the trial is politically and racially motivated.
Other stories this evening:
- Poverty is surging at Kimball High School in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood. A decade and a half ago, 57 percent of the families were economically disadvantaged. Today, that number is 83 percent. In the latest installment of our American Graduate series “Race, Poverty and the Changing Face of Schools,” KERA’s Bill Zeeble looks at one way Kimball is battling those numbers, and turning around a dismal academic record.
You can listen to North Texas stories weekdays at 8:22 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. on KERA 90.1 FM.
