Do we focus on local things because we can’t stand to think about the big picture? What’s really going on in our heads? This week we learned that an upcoming U.N. report based on 15,000 scientific studies will say one million living species are faced with extinction, some within decades,…
Following months of criticism, VisitDallas President and CEO Phillip Jones is out of a job, following what the organization is calling a “mutual decision.” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is expected to announce a new, interim CEO for the agency later this week. Jones came under fire in January after the…
As the crow flies, Dallas and St. Louis are separated by 547 miles. In this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the distance between the Stars and the Blues was much closer. Through the first six games of their playoff series, each team had won three games. Each had scored sixteen goals…
Democrats flexed their newfound muscle in the Texas House on Tuesday, ending a push led by Gov. Greg Abbott to increase Texas’ sales tax, which is already one of the highest in the nation. While there’s a chance a sales tax increase could be shoehorned into another bill already making…
Crazy, goofy and idiotic are not good explanations for people who are hard to understand. I’m going to buy a Cub Scout wood-burning kit that makes engravings on plywood and put that on a plaque. Maybe I’ll hang it from the rearview mirror of my pickup. But for years I…
Texas Senate Republicans are tired of uppity cities like Dallas taking down monuments to the Confederacy. That’s the message from the state Capitol, where the Senate voted 19-12 along strict party lines to require a two-thirds, super majority vote from any municipal government that wants to get rid of their…
When it happened Sunday afternoon, it was devastating. Up 3-2 in the series but trailing 2-1 on the scoreboard in the third period, the Stars were desperately pushing for an equalizer. The game seemed to be tilting their way, but the Stars had been unable to get a second puck…
If the first round of Dallas’ municipal election taught us anything, it’s that nobody — except D Magazine contributing editor Eric Celeste, who went full-Nostradamus on the mayoral results — knows anything when it comes to low-turnout free-for-alls. Rumor had it before the election that the race between former Mayor…
It wasn’t getting shot in the head by a sniper that made the worst day of Rick Turner’s military career. Getting shot while cradling a fellow soldier in 82nd Airborne wounded by the same sniper didn’t either. Watching him get shot again — and killed — made it the worst…
For the last year or so, it’s been like watching watching an aunt or uncle’s gradual descent into madness as he or she consumed a little too much Fox News. Slowly but surely, The Dallas Morning News’ editorial page, the one that purports to speak for the city it serves,…
As lawmakers in Austin work out details of a plan to fix the state’s college transfer process, two North Texas institutions are looking to ease that process between their schools. The University of Texas at Arlington and the Dallas County Community College District signed an agreement Friday that they say…
In 1995, somebody in the business leadership of Dallas figured out that Dallas had a serious amount of catch-up to do to be a contender on the larger stage of history. The answer, brought forward by the city’s business elite, was the city’s first black mayor, a brilliant young lawyer…
A little after 10:30 Saturday night, Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs finally hopped onstage at Trees in Deep Ellum to declare a kind of victory. He’d apparently — because all the precincts hadn’t come in and there’s no Dallas election decision desk — finished second in Dallas’ mayoral election,…
Former Richardson Mayor Laura Jordan and her husband Mark Jordan will get a new trial, a federal judge announced Thursday, because of improper communication between a federal court officer and a juror during the couple’s original trial, which concluded in March. The juror, No. 11, sent a note to U.S…
This weekend is about as good as get for Dallas sports fans. The Stars have critical playoff games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the Rangers are in town all weekend and the Kentucky Derby is Saturday afternoon. Stir in what should be an entertaining scrap between Canelo Alvarez and…
It’s hard to find anyone who likes Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program. Civil rights groups hate it. The Texas Tea Party hates it. The Observer’s readers, judging from the number of emails we’ve received about it, hate it. With a unanimous vote Thursday, the Texas House of Representatives showed that it…
Dallas’ final early-voting numbers are in, and while they don’t show a wave of new voters like the one that hit Texas’ polls in 2018, they do reflect an electorate that seems at least a little more engaged than it was during city elections in 2015 and 2017. According to…
All nine candidates on the ballot for mayor of Dallas in the election Saturday have come out officially in opposition to corruption. Several have offered specific plans for combating corruption. Most of those proposals are aimed at catching people in the act of being corrupt. We could do that all…
A Tarrant County grand jury has indicted an Arlington Police Department officer in the shooting death of a 24-year-old man who tried to drive away from a traffic stop in September 2018. Arlington police Officer Julie Herlihy pulled O’Shea Terry over because he had expired temporary tags on his SUV…
On Wednesday, a Dallas County jury answered the only questioned that remained about a gruesome 2015 murder on White Rock Creek jogging trail. Thomas Johnson, a former football star at Texas A&M and Dallas’ Skyline High School, will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering Dave Stevens…
The Texas Legislature’s latest attempt to reform the state’s marijuana laws appears to have gone out not with a bang or a whimper but with a tweet. Monday night, the Texas House of Representatives passed a landmark bill that, if it becomes law, would reduce Texas’ penalty for possessing an…
For more than a year, Dallas officials and others have struggled to come up with a plan for offering shelter to homeless people on nights when it’s too cold to sleep outdoors. It’s a problem many other communities have already solved. Across the region and nationwide, other cities offer examples…
