When the Observer first reported on the burgeoning “sanctuary cities” for the unborn movement last summer, the whole thing seemed like a sideshow. Waskom, a town smack-dab in the middle of Gohmertland in East Texas, banned abortion clinics within its city limits. The town based its decision on the fact that,…
A federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday morning blocking the executive order that allowed Gov. Greg Abbott to reject all new refugees to Texas. In a 31-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte blocked the order, stating that the plaintiffs…
In early 2018, the city released a plan to build thousands of new units of affordable housing. When the plan was introduced, then-Mayor Mike Rawlings said, “This is a very important day to show that government works in America, and we can take complex issues and get 15 of us…
I’m struggling through a bunch of dense academic articles and data about crime and social equity for a column I’m working on that I’m sure no one including my loved ones will ever read — well, they don’t really read my stuff anyway — because I think writing stuff that no one can stand…
One of Dallas’ oddest but still really consequential fights limped through another round at City Hall on Tuesday, as city staff, council members and advocates for the homeless pushed, pulled and tugged at a proposed ordinance that will finally codify just who, and who isn’t, allowed to provide shelter for…
Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision last week to reject all new refugees to the state of Texas has left Dallas area refugee and immigrant organizations confused and frustrated but committed to reversing the decision. “We’re in the largest refugee crisis since the Holocaust, and in response to that our country is…
The quickest emotion to crowd its way to most Rangers fans’ minds Monday was schadenfreude. The Astros, the team they’d had to watch bring the state of Texas its first World Series championship in 2017, six years after the Rangers gave theirs away, ended up not being so special after…
A former University of Texas at Arlington student is suing the university’s chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity, saying fraternity members forced him to drink Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey until he blacked out during a hazing ritual. Plaintiff Roc Riner suffered serious injuries and received treatment for alcohol poisoning at…
When Donna Pryor walked into her new three-bedroom home on a tree-lined street in Plano, she was mesmerized. There was a clean yard, a huge kitchen and a swimming pool out back. Finally, her children would be safe. Pryor left home when she was 13 to escape her drug-addicted mother. Pregnant…
The city of Dallas has started collecting hotel taxes on short-term rental properties — but only from those whose owners have bothered to sign up. Since November 2019, the city of Dallas has campaigned to get short-term rental residences — rooms and apartments listed on sites like Airbnb and VRBO…
In 2018, one of the North Texas stops on the PGA Tour was moved to southern Dallas from Las Colinas in Irving. It was the fulfillment of a promise by Trinity Forest Golf Club’s backers that the new course — and the city’s $12 million investment — would attract a premier…
Thousands of people, as we’ve reported and a few Texas politicians have lamented, come to North Texas from California every year. On arrival, they have to deal with the heat, higher property taxes and a political climate they may or may not welcome, but they get not having a state…
Dallas Police Department Chief Renee Hall had to see it coming. If there was a chance that she’d get out of the Dallas City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting Monday unscathed, it disappeared Thursday, when Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson made clear his issues with the business Hall had scheduled for…
As of January 1, all complexes in Dallas with eight or more units are required to offer recycling to their tenants, but not all of them are yet.
Dallas County confirmed on Thursday that the teenager who died late last year as a result of vaping was 15. That makes the teenager the epidemic’s youngest victim, underscoring North Texas’ outsize role in the nationwide outbreak of vaping-related illnesses. The state has reported the most hospitalizations in the nation,…
Study after study blames violence and social dysfunction in poor, racially segregated neighborhoods on a roster of causes, from extreme poverty to environmental pollution to segregation itself, but the elected leadership of old South Dallas has insisted for 15 years that their crime problems are caused by a car wash…
First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress has some instructions for all of you out there who might be looking for a little amusement as your week gets rolling: Pay no mind to a new video from a group calling itself the Lincoln Project. The Lincoln Project — made up of…
Texas, thanks to a letter sent to the U.S. secretary of state by Gov. Greg Abbott, is closed to refugees. The state needs to take care of its own before it seeks to help others, Abbott told Secretary Mike Pompeo. “At this time, the state and nonprofit organizations have a…
The Dallas Police Department is promising reform in the wake of a new city audit, which uncovered widespread faults in the department’s processes for investigating and addressing misconduct complaints. Last year, auditors found hundreds of inexplicably missing records in an internal database that tracks misconduct complaints. Internal Affairs Division officials…
Last year Texas generated more energy from renewable sources than from coal, according to data from the Electronic Reliability Council of Texas.
However a government might seek to restrict abortion, people with pregnancies they don’t wish to carry to term are going to seek the procedure out. It’s a fact one will hear again and again from pro-choice researchers and activists, and a new study from TxPEP, the Texas Policy Evaluation Project,…
Thursday morning, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson trotted out his task force’s four recommendations for curbing violent crime in Dallas. The mayor, with the support of key members of the City Council, wants to clean up abandoned buildings and lots in areas with high levels of violent crime, provide better lighting…
