Five stories that have North Texas talking: Meet Dallas Zoo’s newest 330-pound baby; there’s a fine science to fried chicken; how “cannabis beer” might make its way to Texas; and more.
Texas’ biggest cities and neighboring suburbs have been steadily swelling with newcomers. From 2014 to 2015, a quarter of the state’s overall growth was concentrated in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Dallas, The Texas Tribune reports. And suburbs like Frisco, Georgetown and New Braunfels are some of the fastest-growing towns in Texas.
New numbers have come out projecting the population of the state’s metropolitan areas in the next 25 years. Currently, Dallas-Fort Worth is the largest metro in the state with 7.1 million residents, Dallas Business Journal reports. By 2040, a projected 10.9 million people will be living in North Texas, according to theAmerican City Business Journals'population database. That's a 53.5 percent increase.
But, if projections prove true, D-FW would be dethroned as the top metro. The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land area is expected to have 11.1 million people by 2040, a 66.7 percent increase from its current 6.6 million residents, Dallas Business Journal reports. What will Texas look like in 2040?[Dallas Business Journal]
- San Antonio police officers violated city policy Tuesday when they appeared in a short video with Donald Trump. More than a dozen officers appeared in the video wearing Trump’s signature campaign hats with the slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Police Chief William McManus said “the officers wearing the campaign hats while in uniform violated SAPD policy and will be disciplined appropriately,” the San Antonio Express-News reports. The officers helped escort the Trump motorcade during his visit. [San Antonio Express-News]
- The love for fried chicken is simple, but the science behind it is pretty complex. In a two-part “Breakthroughs” dig into one of the country’s favorite foods, KERA’s Stephanie Kuo met with three different fried chicken experts in North Texas to break down the physics of the perfect fry. In part two, Keith Hicks, executive chef at Buttons in Fort Worth, who’s been cooking since age 9, says frying chicken is as much a science as it is a “spiritual process.” Below: The chefs at bbbop Seoul Kitchen take a different approach with Korean fried chicken. [KERA News]
- The Dallas Zoo introduced its newest baby elephant, Ajabu, to the public on Wednesday. Zoo officials have been baby-proofing ever since they learned Mlilo, one of the zoo's five elephants who arrived in March from Swaziland, was pregnant, The Dallas Morning News reports. When he was born in mid-May, Ajabuweighed 175 pounds, reasonably small for a baby elephant and about 9,800 pounds less than the zoo's biggest elephant. Now six months, Ajabu weighs 330 pounds and stands at four feet tall. Below: Even baby elephants need kiddie pools:
- There’s such a thing as cannabis beer, and it’s might come to Texas. Dad and Dude's Breweria in Aurora, Colorado created General Washington's Secret Stash IPA, and beginning in 2017 it will be available nationwide. GuideLive explains that the only buzz you’d get from the beer would be from the alcohol. The IPA is brewed with cannabidiol, which is a derivative of hemp. Unlike marijuana, hemp has little to no tetrahydrocannabinol, otherwise known as THC or the active ingredient that produces a high. [GuideLive]
