After only a minimal amount of mind-numbing bureaucratic discussion, Dallas City Council members voted Wednesday afternoon to approve a new ordinance regulating the city’s boarding homes. Set to take effect October 1, the rules apply to around 200 of the cities 300 boarding home facilities, where several thousand people with…
Skip the throat-clearing and jump right to the People Issue. If you hang around in the Observer’s orbit in the coming days, or if you happen to glance at the newsstand in your favorite bar, you’ll notice we’re offering something a little different this week: our first-annual People Issue. Given…
Every year, when temperatures in Texas inevitably hit triple digits, the inside of the state’s prison cells heat up like an ovens. Only 21 of 111 units in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system are fully air conditioned; the rest have some AC but mostly not in the inmates’…
So the Mavs have a very legitimate shot at landing the NBA’s top free agent, current New Jersey Net Deron Williams. This is his hometown. His mother lives here. The entire city would go apeshit if he took his talents to Victory Park. That hasn’t yet definitively tipped the scales…
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 22-year-old Saudi national and former Texas Tech student, was convicted in federal court today of plotting to acquire a weapon of mass destruction and blow up home of former President George W. Bush, among other targets. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office,…
The 2004 summer night when David Cunniff took his two teen daughters to an Old 97’s show at the Gypsy Tea Room rattled Deep Ellum to the core. How it all went down depends who you ask, but the end result left Cuniff bloodied and beaten to the point that…
When it was announced last week that CLEAR, “the nation’s pre-eminent biometric secure ID program,” was setting up shop at DFW Airport’s Terminal E, it struck me as odd. Seemed that TSA was abdicating some of its responsibility to a private company, which of course it was, but I had…
A lot of things have changed in Dallas in the past 40 years — just look at the skyline or Uptown or the exploding suburbs — but not everything. I was reminded of that this morning by the city’s Facebook page. There, spokesman Frank Librio posted a brief history of…
The Cotton Belt Regional Rail Corridor, will someday stretch some 60-plus miles from Wylie to southwest Fort Worth. If, of course, DART and its partner agencies can find the money for the $2 billion project, envisioned as a public-private partnership. DART spokesman Morgan Lyons points me to the North Central…
In April 2009, assistant Denton County District Attorney Cary Piel walked into the office of his colleague, assistant DA Nadiya Williams-Boldware, to discuss a case he was preparing for trial. He had just watched video of the crime that showed a black woman drive drunkenly through a cemetery, then fought…
News has been trickling out as DISD Superintendent Mike Miles has filled out his leadership team. Thursday, it was Seattle Public Schools’ Aurora Lora as assistant superintendent. Friday it was Ft. Worth ISD’s Sylvia Reyna as school leadership chief and the fifth and penultimate member of Miles’ cabinet. The burning…
Perhaps you’ve heard by now: the Morning News reports that negotiations “have all but broken down” between the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, who own the neighboring Museum Tower, which its critics say is really lighting up the neighborhood. But a statement sent to…
Dana Allen, a Lakewood parent, is thrilled with the education her 5-year-old receives at Lindsley Park charter school, but is displeased that the school has no gym, no cafeteria, no library and no computer lab. She attributes the absence of such basic niceties to the school’s lack of state funding…
Update at 2:41 p.m.: I just heard back from Garcia. It was his personal account that was targeted, and it’s still down. “They changed the email to the account and changed the password, and they unfriended everybody,” he told me. Why someone would do that, he wasn’t sure, but he…
Six Republican members of the U.S. Senate — including Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn — have requested an investigation of the EPA’s decision to accuse a natural gas producer of contaminating a North Texas water well. In a letter sent last week, the senators asked the EPA inspector…
Back in April, the DMN, noted that John Kirtland had snapped up both the Tower Petroleum Building and Corrigan Tower downtown. There weren’t many details then, just that Kirtland planned to do something with the two vacant art deco structures, but now we know exactly what. Kirtland, who in addition…
Dallas Fire-Rescue has not, judging by the lawsuits, always been the best place to work if you’re a woman. A for instance: way back, oh, three years ago, one might have found semen in one’s coffee cup. But the department’s working to change that, making considerable progress, in fact, DFR’s…
After years of struggle, Dallas may be on its way to regulating the city’s boarding home facilities. Finally. City Council members are set to vote Wednesday on a new ordinance that would require licenses and annual inspections for boarding homes, as well rules aimed at keeping the homes “safe, sanitary…
The Dallas County Commissioners Court will vote today on whether to keep in place the rope barriers that sparked an outcry (from the media at least) put up three weeks ago. County Judge Clay Jenkins said he made the order to maintain order and decorum, but, coming as it did…
Is “Stuff Dwaine Caraway Likes” officially a meme yet? If not, can we make it one? Because every time he opens his mouth, something fascinating emerges. (See sagging pants and, again, sagging pants, and the roof at Fair Park Coliseum, all in just the few weeks I’ve been paying attention)…
Over the weekend, 28-year-old James Ramirez was leaving Thrive at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday when he got into an argument with another Hispanic man in the night club’s parking garage. The argument over, Ramirez and a friend left the garage. When they stopped at a red light at the intersection…
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona’s illegal immigration law Monday morning, leaving its most controversial, show-me-your-papers provision standing, and that only provisionally. Experts say the decision provides a road map to federal courts evaluating immigration laws enacted in places like Alabama, Georgia and even Farmers Branch, Texas…
