Dallas County District Judge Tammy Kemp ruled late Monday afternoon that the trial of former Dallas Police Department officer Amber Guyger will remain in Dallas, denying a defense motion for a change of venue. Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean as Jean hung out in his own apartment on Sept…
For the last eight years, a group of Baylor University students has been trying to persuade the school to allow them to form an LGBTQ student group. Earlier this month, the group got an official answer from the university. It wasn’t the one they’d hoped for. Baylor officials notified members…
The end, sadly, is here. Globe Life Park, the stadium formerly known as Rangers Ballpark In Arlington, Ameriquest Field and The Ballpark in Arlington, has just one homestand left in front of it. Six games against the Red Sox and Yankees, and the Rangers will move across the parking lot…
On the one hand, this new story about the city screwing over some affordable housing developers is depressingly familiar. On the other hand, it’s utterly inexplicable. Every single thing I ever reported in some 15 years covering the Lockey & MacKenzie case about the city shafting affordable housing developers is…
A week ago, Texas, and the rest of the country, got their first look at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s evolving priorities on guns, gun violence and domestic terrorism through a series of executive orders issued by the governor. While there was a decent amount of meat in Abbott’s eight decrees…
Turns out, the Observer’s fears over the retirement of Bedford state Rep. Jonathan Stickland may have been a little exaggerated. The Republican firebrand and official large adult son of the Legislature may be stepping down from the Texas House in 2021, but he is still, as he proved this week,…
Federal officials announced Wednesday that they’ve arrested a Dallas-based man on sex trafficking charges. Tremont Blakemore may have trafficked hundreds of victims, according to the feds, keeping them under his control through violence, intimidation and frequent threats. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s investigations arm began looking into Blakemore in…
Texas, for a week at least, is the center of the Democratic political universe. There have already been a couple of major polls of the state released, a declaration of intent by the state’s Democratic Party, pushback from Texas Republicans and some crowing from national Democrats about their chances of…
Wednesday morning in a clearly written, earnest, heartfelt letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News, Susan D. Cox conveyed her dismay about a big zoning case at Northwest Highway and the Dallas North Tollway that would go before the City Council later that day. The council member for…
For a second consecutive year, more people in Texas were without health insurance in 2018 than any other state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents, both in terms of raw numbers and as a percentage of the population, according to the…
If old South Dallas can bloom, if the open wounds of racism and red-lining up and down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard can be closed and healed, then the entire body of the city will breathe heartier and happier. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we are beginning to see…
As many as 14 Dallas County residents have come down with “severe pulmonary disease” related to their use of e-cigarette or vape products, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services. Five of those reported to the county by local hospitals have required intubation and been placed on ventilators. Two…
A wind farm proposal is dividing a quiet, rural community. Residents who oppose the wind farm say that the companies tactics have been misleading and don’t properly take into account the impact the towers would have on the community.
The case of Austin Shuffield, the bartender accused of a brutal, caught-on-video assault in Deep Ellum this spring, will move forward without the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. “Due to the bias the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office has shown in the prosecution of this case, the defense filed a…
Among dozens of changes included in a school finance reform bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed earlier this year, lawmakers included a provision that sends new money to school districts across the state and requires them to use it to expand their half-day prekindergarten classes to full-day. But weeks into the…
If you were a time traveler from all the way back in 2018, there’s a good chance the noise emanating from Austin this week would have made your head spin. Following a pair of mass murders in El Paso and the Permian Basin, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov…
Let’s play a game called, “What is Dallas so worried about?” The city has ordered all of its cops not to take time off beginning this week for the duration of the trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. Guyger, who is white, is accused of murder in the…
CNN hosted a series of climate-focused town halls Wednesday, starring 10 Democratic presidential candidates. You’re forgiven if you didn’t tune in. The forums ran seven hours, were moderated by CNN’s less-than-stellar anchor staff and had way more talk about banning plastic straws than anyone needs to listen to. One person…
Wednesday, Texas House Democrats made a show of force, or as close to a show of force as a party out of power can make, around the state. At a series of media events, dozens of Democrats laid into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, calling on him to convene a special…
As you know, shortly after Eric Johnson took a job as mayor of Dallas, he took another job as an attorney with the Locke Lord law firm. He said he could do both jobs at the same time, no problem, and that he would keep a sharp eye out for…
Dallas’ property tax rate, the subject of several weeks of municipal drama, appears set to stay the same or lower than it was in 2018, despite Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax proposing a small tax rate increase in his initial draft of the city budget. Despite the decrease in expected…
Texas House Democrats are totally united. Sixty-three of the 66 members of the party’s House caucus signed a letter Wednesday calling on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to address the rash of gun violence that’s marred Texas’ summer. As they repeated at news…
