DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Mavericks have a preliminary agreement on a site for a new arena that would move the club out of downtown for the first time in 2031, a year after the franchise's 50th anniversary.
The Mavericks said Monday the agreement is for 104 acres on the former site of a mall about 10 miles north of downtown. Demolition of Valley View Mall in north Dallas was completed three years ago.
The team also was considering a downtown site at the current location of City Hall. The Dallas City Council is deep into deliberations over whether to renovate or replace that building.
Mavericks CEO Rick Welts has said the club wanted to have the potential site settled by July in order to be able to complete construction of a new arena by 2031, when the lease with American Airlines Center expires.
Welts and Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont have made it clear for nearly two years that they wanted the club to stay in Dallas, and they wanted to build a basketball-only arena.
The Mavericks and their co-tenant, the NHL's Dallas Stars, are in a legal dispute related to arena relocations for both franchises. The Stars are considering whether to remain in American Airlines Center or build their own arena in Dallas or one of the suburbs.
The Mavericks brought Welts out of retirement with the intention of putting him in charge of the arena project. Before he retired, Welts led the Golden State Warriors' move to the Chase Center in San Francisco after that franchise had spent the previous 50 years in Oakland.
“We have the opportunity to create a vibrant mixed-use destination anchored by a state-of-the-art arena, along with restaurants, entertainment options, public green spaces and family-friendly experiences,” the team said in a statement. “Done thoughtfully and with community engagement, a project of this scale will serve as a meaningful economic catalyst for Dallas and its residents.”
The Mavericks spent their first 21 years at Reunion Arena in the southwest corner of downtown before moving to the AAC a little more than a mile to the north.
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FILE - Fans line up outside the doors of American Airlines Center before the start of an NHL hockey game between the Washington Capitals and Dallas Stars, Oct. 28, 2025, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — In a remarkable sign of the turmoil at CBS’s top-rated “60 Minutes,” correspondent Scott Pelley said CBS News head Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job, according to reports.
Pelley made his accusations in an introductory meeting Monday between the newsmagazine’s staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website, which said it had heard a recording of the meeting. Weiss herself was not present, according to the report. Status specializes in media news and analysis.
Status reported that Pelley, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, began grilling Bilton at the 10 a.m. meeting about the firings last week of Bilton's predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Status also reported that Pelley told Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, that his qualifications for the position were “slender."
Pelley also charged, according to Status, that Weiss herself had “no qualifications for her job,” and said the changes she had made to “CBS Evening News,” which Pelley once anchored, “have been catastrophic.”
It added that Bilton insisted that “Bari loves this institution” and “she loves ’60 Minutes'" — to which Pelley countered, “She’s murdering ‘60 minutes.’ She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and she’s doing exactly that.”
Two spokespeople for CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But a person close to CBS News leadership, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that both Weiss and Bilton had tried to reach out to Pelley late last week when the changes rocked the 57-year-old show to tell him that he was an integral part of “60 Minutes” and wanted him to remain so.
The person said Weiss and Bilton felt it was disappointing that Pelley's accusations were being aired publicly despite efforts to engage with him privately.
The New York Times, which also reported that it had listened to a recording of Monday's meeting, noted that Pelley's “newscaster's baritone” was shaking during the exchange. The newspaper also quoted an unnamed executive at the meeting as saying Weiss had been prepared to come, but “we asked her not to.”
Reports about the contentious meeting came four days after Weiss, who has become a polarizing figure in the media world since taking the reins at CBS last October, told staff in a memo that it was time for a “new approach” at the top-rated newsmagazine.
In the memo, Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski said their goal was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”
“That requires a new approach,” they wrote, defining that approach as “expanding ‘60 Minutes’ beyond a one-hour television broadcast, deepening its role across CBS News, and holding everything we produce to the ambition, fairness, and fearlessness that have defined ‘60 Minutes’ at its best.”
Bilton, they said, “embodies the energy and ambition that animated the founders of the show. We cannot imagine a better fit.”
The Status report noted that Pelley was applauded multiple times by other staffers during the meeting. It said Pelley focused on the firings last week, calling them cruel.
Bilton reportedly replied that he was not intimidated. “I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott," Status quoted him as saying. "I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have. None of it intimidates me, OK? So you are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people.”
FILE - Scott Pelley, anchor of "CBS Evening News," at the CBS Upfront in New York, May 15, 2013. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
