“Now, the world knows that I’m innocent,” Miles told reporters beforehand. “I’ve always known that I was innocent.”

Miles was sentenced to 40 years in prison after being convicted of the murder of Deandre S. Williams and the attempted murder of another man.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week determined that “actual innocence” existed in Miles’ case — a rare declaration for someone exonerated without the help of DNA evidence. Miles was released after an advocacy group found evidence implicating another man in the murder hadn’t been turned over to Miles’ attorneys before trial.

One undisclosed police report included information of a call made by someone who claimed to know Williams’ actual killer. The call occurred about three months before Miles’ trial. The other report was about an altercation between the victims and a third person just before the shootings.

Released on bond in 2009, Miles said he has struggled to find work because he was labeled an ex-offender.

He now plans to apply for compensation under the state’s Tim Cole Act, which pays freed inmates $80,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration. And he hopes to start a nonprofit group, Miles of Freedom, which would build transitional housing for ex-inmates.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose office’s conviction integrity unit has helped to free more than 20 wrongfully convicted inmates, attended the hearing. Watkins thanked Miles for continuing to fight for his freedom after being convicted, calling him “just another example of the problems we’ve had and the future that we do have.”

As other exonerated ex-inmates watched, Watkins also took on the state’s death penalty. Without calling for a moratorium on executions, Watkins questioned whether Texas had executed an innocent person.

“When we have all these men that have been exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit, as to whether or not we have executed someone in this state that didn’t commit the crime, I think that’s a fair question,” Watkins said. “I think anyone that does not — that sits in a (district attorney’s) seat — have doubts, they shouldn’t be DAs.

“It’s a miracle, really,” he said. “Think about it. I shouldn’t be here.”

Dallas health expert Dr. Kenneth Cooper said Salewske is “one of his favorites.”

In 2000, Salewske’s boss paid for him to go to the Cooper Clinic to lose weight.

When the money stopped, Cooper picked up the expenses so he could continue on his weight-loss journey.

Cooper said Salewske’s success has lessons for anyone trying to lose weight.

“I would say, No. 1, it can be done successfully,” he said. “No. 2, it has changed his life. He wasn’t even dating when he first came to us. Now he has three kids. And then the example he set for others — I delight in seeing this man working out in our center. He has discovered that discipline is the key to keeping it off.”

Salewske is so disciplined that he hasn’t had ice cream in 12 years.

“I’m afraid of it,” he said.

Salewske said ice cream was his big weakness during his days of extreme weight and he fears that even a small taste could spiral out of control.

His discipline extends to his workout routine, too.

Four days per week, he runs 2.5 miles at lunch and rides a bike for 30 minutes after his children go to sleep.

He also adds basketball and time on a StairMaster.

“I just make sure that I exercise at least half an hour to an hour every day,” he said. “If I have more time — like the weekends — I do more.”

However, Jay Ashore, clinical director of the Behavioral Health Center at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, said there are genetic, biological or psychological factors that can make weight loss a tougher struggle for some.

“What I don’t want to do is send false hope,” he said.

Ashmore knows Salewske from his days at the Cooper Clinic, where he helped him manage his weight.

He said Salewske’s resources at Cooper gave him an advantage others may not have.

But Ashmore also said that the lifestyle changes that worked for Salewske are proven in the National Weight Control Registry, a database of 10,000 people who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off.

“We see reductions in TV time, reductions with the frequency with which they go out to eat,” he said. “They weigh regularly.”

Mr. Fanning will address insurance company executives, investigators, and local, state and federal law enforcement officials at the TDI Fraud Conference, scheduled for February 28-29, 2012, at the Commons Conference center on the University of Texas J. J. Pickle Research Campus in Austin.

Mr. Fanning, Chairman of the Dallas law firm Fanning Harper Martinson Brandt & Kutchin, will present “Examinations Under Oath” during the conference’s second day.

Examinations under oath (EUO) represent an important tool for insurance companies in first-party claims involving fires and thefts. Most insurance policies permit EUOs, which allow carriers to fully investigate the claim, answer unresolved questions, and pursue elements of potential fraud.

Mr. Fanning will address several aspects of the EUO process, including offering advice for conducting an effective EUO and the proper timing of an examination. He also will discuss several red flags that should alert investigators to possible fraud, such as a policyholder’s prior claims history, inconsistent statements, losses shortly after a policy was issued, or missing or altered receipts and documentation.

“Insurance fraud is an unfortunate reality that the industry must learn to combat, especially as tough economic times lead to more claims,” says Mr. Fanning. “We have handled many cases where attempted fraud was uncovered and averted through examinations under oath. It is my hope that presentations such as this will help others to detect and prevent future fraud.”

The annual TDI Fraud Conference brings together insurance company investigators and law enforcement to learn about new investigative techniques, fraud scams and changes in laws affecting the insurance industry.

The new service, which comes on the heels of the carrier’s 30th anniversary of its route between DFW airport and the UK capital, is to operate six days per week, officials said.

The short answer, I suppose, is this kind. But I know what I’m doing. The parallels I want to draw have not one thing to do with race, color or national origin. These are universal principles.

Swear. Check me out on this.

Last week we saw a big blowup at City Hall over an attempt by a charter school organization to enlist the help of city government in financing the construction of some new schools. The exact mechanics of the issue had to do with interest rates and tax-free bonds.

Can we not talk about that? It’s just that it’s basically root-canal boring, and if I really understood high finance, would I be doing this job? Let’s move on to something I do understand — City Hall cluster-love.

This complicated charter school finance issue was slipped into a portion of the city council agenda normally reserved for small, noncontroversial housekeeping issues, which the council votes on all in one big batch to save time. Usually a controversial issue is slipped into the council’s “consent agenda” only as a trick — an effort to slide it past them when they’re not sure what they’re doing, which is most of the time.

Charter schools are controversial. They are funded with public tax dollars, but they are run by private organizations — people the public can’t vote for or against. Charter schools take tax money out from under public control and spend that money as if it were their own.

The theory is that some forms of public control over public money are bad. School boards, for example. They achieve lousy results. During the debate on this particular issue, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings made an emotional speech in which he pointed out that only 12 percent of high school graduates in the Dallas public school system are prepared to go on to college.

The idea behind charters is that they will produce better results and in so doing exert competitive pressure on traditional public schools to improve their acts.

Recent national and state research suggests the charters rarely live up to that promise. But I spent some time last week looking at the test results for Uplift Education, the organization that got caught in the headlights here last week, and their results are impressive.

I spoke with Yasmin Bhatia, Uplift’s chief executive officer, who told me Uplift took its request to City Hall last December and then had nothing to do with it and no idea how or why the question was brought to the city council as it was — the timing, the place on the agenda, none of it.

The council, by the way, refused to vote on it and asked for a full briefing at this week’s meeting before it makes a decision.

I believe Bhatia. Know why? Because she also told me they did not hire a professional City Hall consultant to carry their water for them. They just went down there like a bunch of American citizens and made their request, trusting City Hall to take it from there.

People. You cannot do that. That’s like taking your nest-egg to Vegas, handing it to a casino lady with no top on and asking her to invest it for you.

It’s not even City Hall’s fault anymore how screwed up City Hall is. We won’t raise taxes. They’ve had to can two-thirds of the key staff. The price you pay for low taxes, if you have a really important City Hall issue, is that you have to hire protection. They didn’t do that. It blew up in their faces.

But here’s why it blew up. Uplift runs nine schools within the boundaries of the Dallas Independent School District. DISD just closed 11 schools the district said were underutilized, in spite of passionate opposition from parents and community leaders in southern Dallas.

The juxtaposition of the school closings with this request for city assistance for charter schools created massive paranoia in the community, especially given the appearance of a parliamentary scam.

Was this some insider plot by a bunch of Lady Bountifuls to begin shutting down the public school system and replace it with schools only the Bountifuls will control?

You know what? It’s a fair question if for no other reason than its inevitability. It’s like that question I raised right at the top here about Kenya and Dallas.

So what about Kenya? Last week I had dinner with Patrick O’Sullivan, a retired Apple executive and founder of a foundation called Build African Schools. By recruiting a host of well-heeled sponsors, including tennis star Serena Williams and Dallas’ own digital inventor/entrepreneur Russell Fish, O’Sullivan has been able to build 11 schools in remote Kenyan villages.

Andrei Loktionov contributed a power-play goal for the Kings, his second goal of the season and the sixth of his career.

With the game tied at 2, Nolan skated hard to the net and fired Mike Richards’ centering pass by Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen at 11:29 of the third period.

Nolan and King were both called up from Manchester of the AHL on Friday. Nolan was playing in his second NHL game, King his eighth.

“It was pretty special for me and King to get our first one tonight,” said Nolan, whose father, Ted, is a former NHL coach now in charge of the Latvian national team. “We’re trying to work the hardest, trying to stay in the lineup.”

Jonathan Quick stopped 26 shots and Anze Kopitar added two assists for the Kings, who completed a 2-3-1 road trip.

Justin Williams added an empty-netter with 2.1 seconds left for the Kings, who managed only six goals in the first five games of the trip. The Kings are last in the NHL with 124 goals.

“We’ve struggled to score goals, obviously, so four is quite an accomplishment,” Williams said. “This was a four-point game against a team right behind us in the standings. Everything seems so important at this time of the season.”

Loui Eriksson and Michael Ryder scored for the Stars. Alex Goligoski had two assists.

Los Angeles improved to 65 points, tied with Chicago for sixth in the conference. Dallas is 11th in the West with 59 points.

The Kings lost 2-1 in overtime at the New York Islanders on Saturday.

Los Angeles capitalized on a turnover by Stars defenseman Nicklas Grossman for the game’s first goal, with King tapping a rebound past Lehtonen at 8:54 of the opening period.

The Kings made it 2-0 at 8:21 of the second when Jack Johnson’s pass bounced into the net off Loktionov’s skate. The goal was upheld after a video review showed that Loktionov didn’t kick the puck into the net.

Dallas was guilty of seven turnovers in the first period, which set a negative tone for the home team.

“We didn’t start good, that’s for sure,” coach Glen Gulutzan said. “We gave them a goal early and had to press from behind. We should have been ready to play from the beginning. We had a couple guys not ready to go.”

Eriksson notched his 18th of the season off Goligoski’s centering pass at 13:22 of the second to pull Dallas within a goal. Eriksson broke a nine-game goal drought.

Ryder’s wrister from the slot for his team-best 21st of the season drew Dallas even at 2 at 4:37 of the third.

But there was calm on the Kings bench even after wasting the two-goal lead.

Dallas police swarmed the complex looking for a man who allegedly robbed two people.  The victims gave a description of the getaway car. When police spotted the PT Cruiser, they followed the driver a short distance to the complex.

Police said the suspect then jumped out of the PT Cruiser with a gun in his hand.

“Officers pursued him on foot and chased him around the back of the laundry room at which time, the suspect turned with his weapon an confronted the officer,” said Sr. Cpl Kevin Janse, Dallas Police Department. “Several officers fired at the suspect, striking him multiple times.”

The robber died at the scene. Reports indicate he had just been released from prison less than a year ago.

The three officers involved in this shooting have been placed on restrictive duty, which is normal under the circumstances. An internal investigation is scheduled into this shooting.

A spokesman for the Dallas Independent School District said officials took only boys to see “Red Tails” Thursday because space at the movie theater was limited. Jon Dahlander told The Dallas Morning News that leaders of the district also thought boys would enjoy the movie more than girls.

Dallas police and the federal Transportation Security Administration reached out to Dallas Area Rapid Transit after Tuesday afternoon’s shooting on a platform in Richardson, which is north of the city, DART spokesman Mark Ball said.