Dallas County Commissioners removed Randy Smith from his post as election judge of precinct 4070 in Oak Cliff Tuesday. Smith, who is also the Democratic chair for precinct 4070, referred to black people as “niggers” on Facebook last summer. On July 12, Smith posted the following statements: 1. “why do people…
Tuesday afternoon, Texas Agriculture Commissioner and top Donald Trump surrogate Sid Miller’s Twitter account called Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a “cunt.” The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before the Observer screengrabbed it. Just after 4 p.m., whoever was operating Miller’s account tweeted that the account had been hacked…
Over the weekend, law enforcement officers in West Texas finished searching landfills in Alpine, Presidio and Odessa without finding any sign of missing Sul Ross University student Zuzu Verk. Monday, the Alpine Police Department increased the reward for information to $200,000, raised entirely through private donations. Verk graduated from Timber Creek…
No one, it seems, will be charged with a crime in the South Dallas dog mauling death of Antoinette Brown. The Dallas Police Department announced Monday that there is no conclusive link between Brown and the seven dogs impounded near the Rutledge Street vacant lot on which Brown was killed…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and the head of Dallas’ Domestic Violence Task Force, Dallas City Council member Jennifer Gates, have paid a lot of attention to domestic violence. For all of that, the city still has a gaping hole when it comes to the care and resources that are available…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and, most of all, Attorney General Ken Paxton are not content to leave well enough alone when it comes to the protections afforded to Texas’ same-sex married couples. On Friday the trio waded back into the waters they’d seemingly abandoned in 2015,…
The first six games of the Cowboys 2016 season have gone better than anyone possibly could’ve hoped. Despite Tony Romo not taking a snap after injuring his back during his first preseason game and Dez Bryant having failed to make much of an impact thanks to a knee fracture suffered…
At its core, the Texas-tied, India-based, multi-million dollar phone scam ring broken up by the feds this month was a sophisticated exploitation of the unsophisticated. Now, those the U.S. Department of Justice are accusing of fraud are facing decades in jail and millions of dollars in fines and restitution. Here’s…
The city of Dallas is not going to be the test case for the state of Texas’ ban on ordinances that require landlords to take affordable housing vouchers. Wednesday, the Dallas City Council voted 9-6 against enacting an income non-discrimination, later adopting a half-measure that will require builders getting certain…
There was a mutiny of sorts at Tuesday night’s DART board meeting. Five Dallas-appointed members voted against the expressed will of the Dallas City Council, despite being appointed by the council members. As a result, DART will attempt to build the D2 subway line through downtown Dallas and the suburb-connecting…
Most of the good stuff already happened in the primary. Since North Texas’ local and federal electoral districts are so gerrymandered, the real election fights are usually of the intra-party variety and happen in the spring. DFW does not have a single competitive U.S. House race, and both of Texas’…
Accusations, with accompanying audio, have been flying throughout the city of Dallas’ fight with the Khraish family. At stake are the fates of the tenants of the hundreds of rent homes that the Khraishes own in West and South Dallas. The city, through Mayor Mike Rawlings and West Dallas City…
As early voting starts across Texas this week, the remainder of the state’s early voting law is still largely inscrutable. Sure, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has slapped down the state for implementing a voter ID law that the court ruled unduly effected the state’s poor and minorities,…
Nina Pham’s time as poster child for Ebola is coming to an end, a little more than two years after contracting the Ebola virus while working as a nurse at Dallas’ Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Monday afternoon, Pham and Presbyterian’s parent company, Texas Health Resources, announced that they’d settled Pham’s lawsuit…
Crying Jordan is one of the weirdest, best, memes on the internet. Born out of Michael Jordan’s tearful Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech, it plasters the greatest basketball player of all time’s crying mug on anyone or anything that’s had a particularly tough moment. It’s a little cruel, but…
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, for better or worse, is inextricably linked to North Texas. Last Tuesday, following one of the toughest weeks of his campaign, Trump hit Dallas for a private fundraiser, his second cash grab in the city in 2016. Trump’s held three of his mega-rallies in DFW, including…
Dallas City Council’s plan to hand over the day-to-day operations of Fair Park to a private foundation headed by Walt Humann is on hold. In a Thursday afternoon memo, new Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto told Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and the rest of the council that the city would…
The Cowboys, somehow, have stumbled into the best type of quarterback controversy: They have two really good ones. Thanks to Tony Romo’s back injury in the preseason, 2016 fourth round pick Dak Prescott got a chance and he’s run with it, playing largely mistake-free football while leading the Cowboys to…
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced plans for the upcoming Texas legislative session that he says will ease the burden on the Texans he says “stand between society and anarchy.” His ideas blend two of Patrick’s favorite political causes: love for law enforcement and hatred of property taxes. “We want…
Ken Paxton’s string of good publicity ended Wednesday. Last Thursday in Dallas, Paxton celebrated the arrest of Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer on a pimping charge from California. On Friday, the Texas attorney general saw a judge throw out the Securities and Exchange Commission securities fraud lawsuit that was hanging over…
Fresh off a Sunday night debate performance, GOP presidential nominee and admitted genital-grabber Donald Trump swung through Texas on Tuesday to pick up a pile of cash at private fundraisers in San Antonio and Dallas. The media was not allowed inside either event but Katrina Pierson, Trump’s Dallas-based spokeswoman, streamed…
The Dallas City Council has unanimously signed off on its vision for DART’s future priorities, and it came with a message. “We want to make sure that we as a city send a strong message to DART,” City Council member Casey Thomas said. “We beat [DART President] Gary Thomas, last time;…
