Agents working out of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Dallas office arrested nearly 17,000 people in 2017, according to a new study from the Pew Research Group. That’s the highest number of arrests in any ICE region — the agency calls them “areas of responsibility” — and an uptick of…
Mayor Mike Rawlings is proposing that we move our local elections from May to November in even-numbered years as a way to do something about our deplorably low voter participation. And we do need some tricks. Short of hanging all the losing candidates, it’s hard to imagine anything that could…
Last week, Gloria Copeland, matriarch of Kenneth Copeland’s Tarrant County TV ministry empire, told everyone the truth they needed to hear: The flu season, the same one that’s killed more than 60 people in Dallas County and sickened thousands of others, didn’t really exist. Anyone with true faith didn’t need to…
Sid Miller has done it again. Over the weekend, the Texas agriculture commissioner, not content with comparing the release of sensitive intelligence information to freeing slaves, posted a glowing tribute to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, smack in the middle of Black History Month. The commissioner, best described as a cross between…
Nadiya Williams-Boldware has dreamed about becoming a lawyer since she was child. “My fantasy is to someday be the greatest lawyer in the world,” her 13-year-old self wrote in an English class paper dated November 2, 1989, her birthday. “To be a fighter for justice, and to overcome any case,…
Dressed in what looked like SWAT gear and armed with a hammer, the killer came upon fitness instructor Terri “Missy” Bevers in the early morning hours of April 18, 2016. The 45-year-old Red Oak mother of three was setting up a Camp Gladiator exercise class at the Creekside Church of…
Former Texas Rangers starting pitcher Esteban Loaiza — best known for being the biggest piece in one of the best trades in franchise history — is in a San Diego County jail after being arrested on three drug felonies Friday. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s Border Crimes Suppression Team found…
Dallas’ favorite muckraker, Jim Schutze, will be live on video at 4 p.m. Wednesday on the Observer’s Facebook page. After his first Facebook Live appearance last month drew literally dozens of viewers, including members of his family, Schutze decided he wanted to take another crack at answering readers’ questions. So,…
On Feb. 4, for at least the fourth time in the last three years, someone attacked a Dallas Police Department substation. This time, Gregory Simpson, 58, allegedly busted up 12 squad cars at DPD’s Deep Ellum outpost with a sledgehammer a little after 5 a.m. Simpson’s alleged act of vandalism came…
Sometimes it’s a good exercise to listen closely to what Dallas City Council member Rickey Callahan says is going on. Take whatever he says. Turn it upside down. Now you’re looking at reality. He’s a coffee table puzzle. Last week at a meeting of the council’s Patronage and Payola Committee…
As a franchise, the Mavericks have done almost everything. They won a championship in 2011. They fielded one of the worst teams in NBA history, going 11-71 during the 1992-93 season. They made one of the greatest comebacks in NBA Finals history in Game 2 of the 2011 Finals, and…
The Dallas Mavericks, for this season and probably a couple more, aren’t going anywhere. Despite having some good players, including forward Harrison Barnes and star rookie point guard Dennis Smith Jr., the Mavs simply don’t have the talent to compete in a Western Conference that includes two championship-caliber teams —…
One thing we should all be able to agree on about now. The Trump debate — against, for — really does not get anybody one inch off the dime. Most of the time, I don’t even think any of us can really remember what we started out thinking we were…
Dallas ISD wants its students and employees to be prepared in the event that the federal government allows protections provided by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to expire later this year, district Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said Thursday at event unveiling his district’s new website for DACA recipients and their…
Well, I have to say this for Tarrant County televangelist Gloria Copeland: She has truly steered me back into the Bible. It’s been a while, but I find I am on familiar ground even after all this time. I grew up in a religious household and attended a church-based high…
Throughout the winter, much has been made about a feature in Google’s Arts and Culture app that uses an algorithm to match a user’s selfie to a piece of art from around the world. The results have ranged from amusing to terrifying, but Dallas has largely been left out on…
The 2017-18 flu season, according to both experts and rising death tolls around North Texas, is one of the worst of the last two decades. In Dallas County alone, 54 people have died from the flu. As the flu season continues to take its toll on DFW, schools around the…
A final fix for Dallas County’s broken bail system is still a way off, despite a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas filed against the county in January, which alleges the county unconstitutionally keeps poor people locked up because they don’t have cash for bail. Meanwhile, the county’s…
For the second time in less than a month, a man hunted around a Walgreens parking lot on Ross Avenue, searching for an unlocked car. At about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, he found one and hopped in the back seat, just as a man had early in the morning of Jan…
Last year, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) ace investigative reporter Brett Shipp told a story about poor and abused tenants in Dallas right out of Charles Dickens’ early 19th century London. In a wretched hovel owned by a cruel and indifferent landlord, a Dallas man was unable to defend himself against a rat…
Dallas County Commissioners Court refused a request for cash from Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings on Tuesday, turning down the mayor’s plea for $1.2 million to help the city make up the costs of the school crossing guard program that fell into Dallas’ lap after voters decided to disband Dallas County…
Two cable-stayed structures across the Trinity River, collectively called the Margaret McDermott Bridge, remain closed to traffic for one reason and one reason alone: No one is willing to certify the structures intended for use by hikers and bicyclists are safe for human beings. The difficulty is that no one…
