At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Josh Hamilton and Rangers general manager Jon Daniels announced that Hamilton is returning to the Rangers in 2017 on a minor-league contract. In spring training, he’ll be given a chance to win a job on the team’s opening roster, probably at first base, a…
In Austin, a season of gun bills has begun in the 2017 legislative session. There are 28 gun bills introduced in the House and the 12 gun bills introduced in the Senate. They appear on the heels of 2015 victories for gun rights activists, with the passage both of open carry…
A funny thing happened to spaceflight in the late 20th century: Engineers began to design new launch vehicles that could reach space but operate like airplanes. Instead of a rocket standing upright on a launchpad, blasting into space under tens of thousands of pounds of mixed fuel and oxidizer, aerospace…
Fine. Any day now Dallas is going to go hat-in-hand down to the Texas Legislature, that famous factory of therapeutic thinking, and ask it to cure the city’s police and fire pension problems. Me, I’d just as soon walk into the bus station and ask if anybody could help me…
The saddest thing is that there aren’t any more games. For the better part of five months Cowboys fans have enjoyed a steady stream of Sundays — well, Thursdays and one Monday. The 2016 Cowboys were young, talented and abundantly fun to watch, all rarities in the last 20 years…
All hands were on deck Sunday at AT&T Stadium for what Dallas Cowboys fans thought was going to be the start of a deep playoff run against the Green Bay Packers. What went down, though, was one of the most heartbreaking ends to a season in team history. Social media reacted accordingly.
On Saturday afternoon, a white SUV plowed into Sherron Berry, 36, on a Martin Luther King Boulevard sidewalk in South Dallas. Police arriving on the scene a little after 12:30 p.m. quickly discovered from witnesses that the deadly collision was no accident, as video from the scene would make clear. The…
On Friday afternoon, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings withdrew his request for a temporary restraining order barring the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System from making certain payments. Rawlings made it quite clear, however, that he has no plans to end his lawsuit against the system’s Deferred Retirement Option Program. When it was open…
In sharp contrast to the bomb-throwing radical some whites may have taken him for in the past, the Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price whom people will see in a federal bribery trial next month may look more like the best friend rich Dallas white people ever had. Next surprise:…
We know you’re busy, so here’s a roundup of the news you may have missed, from the news desk of the Dallas Observer. Texas Convention Industry Calls Patrick’s Bathroom Bill a “Multi-Billion Dollar Disaster” Business interests across the state, including VisitDallas, worry about the backlash against Senate Bill 6, which…
If there wasn’t so much at stake, this is the one game Cowboys fans would’ve wanted. If they knew, rather than just hoped, that this team and its two personable rookie leaders are part of a Cinderella season, they’d want this match against the Packers. Green Bay is the Cowboys’ longest standing…
A little more than a week after the Cathedral of Hope’s Interfaith Peace Chapel was defaced with bizarre graffiti, the Dallas Police Department released video of the man it believes did the spray painting. The graffiti, discovered the morning of Jan. 5, according to the church, features the phrase “kitty porn,”…
Before the 85th Texas Legislative Session formally opened on Tuesday, state lawmakers had already filed a handful of bills that would curb or strike down the law enforcement practice known as civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement officials to seize assets from those suspected, not charged or convicted, of involvement…
Texas’ tourism industry is placing itself on the front lines of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s effort to regulate where people use the restroom. Fearing a similar backlash to those which have happened in Indiana and North Carolina, convention and tourism wranglers from across the state Wednesday joined together at…
Documents released this week in the trials slated to begin next month in the federal conspiracy case against Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price expose a bizarre little window on the history of corruption, Dallas-style. Charges against Price, his political consultant, Kathy Nealy, and his administrative assistant, Dapheny Fain, are…
Candace Evans, the Candy behind the popular Dallas real estate blog CandysDirt.com, is running against Lee Kleinman for the District 11 City Council seat Kleinman’s held for the last four years. Evans says that while Kleinman is a good neighbor and a good guy, she feels like their North Dallas…
By the time spring arrives, the Dallas Police Department will have completed the plan to equip 1,000 of its officers with body cameras. According to Dallas Assistant Police Chief Paul Stokes, almost 800 cameras are currently in the field, with the last 200 expected to arrive at the department sometime…
Kelly Loter, 48, the owner of Dallas’ Level Two advertising firm, has admitted his role in what he describes as a massive healthcare fraud scheme. The U.S. Department of Justice says Forest Park Medical Center paid more than $40 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals. Surgeons, primary care…
Winter is a state of mind. The changes of the season prompts us to look at familiar things a little differently. In a similar way, commercially available drones can offer similar (and more literal) changes in perspective. The video above was filmed with what we’ve dubbed Observer-1, a Phantom 3 Standard…
In a bombshell development on the eve of a January 10 U.S. Senate hearing, the Dallas-based online classified site Backpage.com has shuttered its controversial adult listings section. “The government has unconstitutionally censored this content,” every “Adult” page on the site now reads, followed by a hyperlink to Backpage’s “Media Resources”…
Navy veteran Kate Cochran-Morgan starts her day in her usual way, with a little lawbreaking and a cup of coffee. Morning, she says, is the best time to smoke marijuana. It’s just a small amount of a medical-grade cannabis of the sort available now or soon in Colorado and 27…
Dallas’ final crime numbers for 2016 are out and while crime remains historically low, Dallas’ murder clearance rate for the year, as reported by the Observer last month, took a dip last year to well below the department’s three-year average. Monday morning, interim Dallas Police Chief David Pughes told the Dallas…
