Monday marked 30 days until the March 6 Texas primary. It was the deadline for Texans to register to vote in the primary and the second fundraising deadline for candidates running for state office. For former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, considered a favorite to make it into a runoff…
It’s not Groundhog Day, but it’s close. Late Monday afternoon, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, still under felony indictment and still taking on all comers, announced that his office has new plans to curb what he frames as an epidemic of in-person and mail-in voter fraud in Texas. In a…
For more images from the Denton protest, see our slideshow. A white veteran, a black veteran and a Mexican veteran stood behind the old Confederate soldier statue on the courthouse lawn in downtown Denton, debating its meaning on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s a familiar debate. The white veteran says the…
It’s something that feels like both a really big step and a tiny one at the same time: On Thursday, Compassionate Cultivation will open Texas’ first licensed cannabis oil dispensary just outside of Austin in Manchaca. Don’t plan on skipping work. Don’t bother gassing up the car. The people who…
President Donald Trump spent about a minute highlighting the casualties and the heroes of the opioid epidemic in his first State of the Union address in late January. “My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need, for those who have been…
Mercifully for Cowboys fans, the 2017 NFL season is over. Like seemingly every Cowboys team with high expectations over the last decade — here’s looking at you, 2008, 2010, 2015 — this year’s team crashed and burned thanks to regressions from key players — hello, Dak Prescott and Dez Bryant…
When she saw her 24-year-old son sleeping in his brother’s bed, Rebecca Alexander grabbed a heavier blanket and tucked it in around him. It was early in the morning in late April 2016, and she’d just gotten up to get ready for work. She was worried when Jubal told her…
I have a great idea. OK, so it’s not my idea. But it could be. My idea — OK, it’s actually Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s idea, technically — is that the city set up an independent agency to analyze the real value of all these huge giveaway deals people…
If Amazon’s Alexa has a say in which North American city will house the company’s second headquarters, it’s not likely to be Dallas. But her favorite city, like Dallas, is among the 20 finalists for Amazon’s HQ2. It’s a pretty predictable choice. “My favorite would be New York City,” says…
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said something he wasn’t supposed to earlier this week. Commenting on the uproar over the potential release of sensitive intelligence information in a memo drafted by Republican U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Miller compared the situation to slavery. While this isn’t the first…
A little more than three weeks ago, Cowboys writer Bob Sturm — winner of the Observer’s best sportswriter award two of the last three years — made a mysterious announcement. He was leaving The Dallas Morning News, Sturm said on Twitter, the paper for which he’d written, off and on,…
Barring a last-minute reprieve, Texas will execute one of Dallas’ most notorious murderers at 6 p.m. Thursday. John Battaglia, 62, killed his daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty, in 2001 in his Deep Ellum loft while on the phone with their mother. He’s been on death row in Livingston since his…
Whatever you think of President Donald Trump, his racism, his behavior towards women and his unpleasant demeanor, you might have been shocked, or will be in shock, when the IRS’s new withholding tables take effect at your workplace. Those tables contain new tax rates, created by Trump’s massive new tax…
Nearly four months have passed since the Las Vegas mass shooting spurred outrage over bump-fire stocks, which gunman Stephen Paddock attached to 12 of his semiautomatic rifles before he killed 58 people and injured hundreds more. A bump-fire stock replaces a rifle’s butt stock, or “shoulder stock,” and lets the…
A Dallas County grand jury declined Wednesday to indict any of the Dallas Police Department officers who helped kill the gunman who shot and killed six Dallas officers in a July 7, 2016, ambush, according to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. The decision closes the books on an investigation…
After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal for a stay, Texas executed William Rayford on Tuesday night for murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1999. At the time, he was on parole for killing his wife in 1986. Rayford, 64, was the second Texas inmate to die by lethal injection…
About a year ago, Jess Herbst became the first transgender mayor in Texas when she wrote an open letter announcing her transition to New Hope town residents and posted it on the town website. “As your Mayor I must tell you about something that has been with me since my…
Earlier this month, Facebook announced a series of changes to the way posts are funneled to users’ news feeds, beginning with a prioritization of content from friends and family members (like your racist Aunt Millie) over that of commercial sources (like the thoroughly open-minded, delightful, informative Dallas Observer). That’s a…
Oh, no. Not again. Forgive me, but I know this setup so well by now, it’s like my old pal, Count Dracula, dropping by again for another visit from the tomb. I open my Dallas Morning News yesterday and choke on my coffee when I see the front-page headline: “DALLAS…
Like clockwork, every couple of weeks since new Chief U. Renee Hall took over the Dallas Police Department, one Dallas media outlet or another has dared to ask the question: Why isn’t the chief in uniform yet? This week, it was The Dallas Morning News’ turn. As part of its…
Within hours of publication by the Dallas Observer on Tuesday of a story detailing flaws in the unopened Margaret McDermott Bridge over the Trinity River, the Texas Department of Transportation fired off a heated response — but not to the Observer. The three-page TxDOT letter sent yesterday, which alleged “inaccurate and…
(After learning that a nonprofit based in Dallas-Fort Worth was sending volunteers and equipment to help Puerto Ricans and other aid groups get internet access, Dallas photographer Hannah Ridings traveled to Puerto Rico to collect images of devastation from Hurricane Maria. See more of her photos in our slideshow.) More…
