Oprah, teeth cleanings and nascent beards. Among a few other tidbits, that’s where we are in Beto O’Rourke’s presidential flirtation. The maybe candidate still isn’t doing anything that actually means anything, so social media gawkers and the media are left to project their own meaning onto everything the newly out-of-a-job…
The Texas State Capitol’s ahistorical Children of the Confederacy plaque is finally coming down after a unanimous State Preservation Board vote Friday morning. The plaque, which features the “Children of the Confederacy Creed” has long been a source of controversy at the capitol. Over the last year, Democratic Dallas state Representative…
As of last night, it’s official. Scott Griggs, North Oak Cliff’s long-serving City Council member, is running for mayor. “Dallas needs a new kind of mayor, a mayor we can trust to champion our neighborhoods and our diverse communities and lead us to reclaim Dallas for the people of Dallas,”…
Saturday is one of the nights that’s happened far too little for Cowboys fans over the last decade. Their team takes the national stage in prime time in Los Angeles, one upset away from playing in its first NFC Championship Game since January 1996. Defense travels, and the Cowboys have…
As rumors surrounding Dan Patrick and a potential White House job reached a fever pitch, the Observer’s thoughts turn, naturally, to Henny Youngman. “Take our lieutenant governor … please.” Patrick, the most powerful politician in the state, couldn’t be a better fit for the White House. Throughout 2016, he was…
The Dallas city auditor released a report last Friday painting the outfit that promotes the Dallas Convention Center as a runaway, money-burning, out-of-control party barn. Soon after, Mayor Mike Rawlings had words to say. Rawlings told The Dallas Morning News: “The narrative in the audit is about vaguery. That ultimately…
Two adults are the first Dallas County residents to die from the flu this season, Dallas County Health and Human Services officials announced Wednesday afternoon. The two victims were 59 and 66 years old, according to the county, which does not provide any additional identifying information about those who succumb…
As is typical for the first day of any session of the Texas Legislature, there was a lot of ceremony in Austin on Tuesday. Dozens of kids and other visitors were at the Capitol, gathered to see their parents and loved ones take the House or Senate oath of office…
Do you care who the next mayor is? Who any mayor is? I mean really. Lots of people want you to care. The field of candidates for mayor of Dallas in the election next May, already swollen to just over a half dozen with the announcement Monday of school board…
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Here we are, 65 days from being totally sure that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was going to dump head coach Jason Garrett after the season, and things have done a 180. Up is down, left is right, cats are chasing dogs and Garrett has…
The events followed a familiar pattern for newsrooms around the country that are slowly suffocating. A tweet from Dom DiFurio, one of the surviving staffers in The Dallas Morning News’ newsroom, broke the word just as the paper’s employees heard it: Layoffs were coming again. Word trickled out slowly for…
For two or three weeks before November’s midterm election, there was no better parlor game in Texas than trying to figure out what the daily early voting numbers coming in from the Secretary of State’s Office actually meant. Was 2018 going to be politics as usual in Texas or was…
And then there were six. Or is it seven? Nine maybe? Whichever it is, former Dallas ISD School Board President Miguel Solis announced Monday morning that he’s joining Dallas’ burgeoning herd of mayoral contenders. Solis, rumored for months to be looking at a run, officially kicked off his campaign on…
If it’s anything, the Ridgecrest apartment complex, located almost all the way to Mountain Creek Lake in far West Dallas, is proof that in the last half-century most local and national government programs designed to end poverty have been stupid. The good news is that Dallas is beginning to figure…
Dallas’ airports are feeling the effects of President Donald Trump’s government shutdown but aren’t likely to face any serious pain for another couple of weeks, Transportation Security Administration union officials say. Quoting unnamed local sources, CNN reported Friday afternoon that “call-outs” (sick days) by DFW Airport TSA agents are up…
As recently as Friday afternoon, the TEXRail, Trinity Metro’s new rail project, was supposed to start taking paying customers from Fort Worth and other points west of DFW Airport to the hub’s Terminal B on Saturday. The Tarrant County transit agency was practically counting down the hours on its social…
Thursday should’ve been — and was — a triumphal day for Dallas’ newest U.S. House representative, Democrat Colin Allred. He got his reward for beating incumbent Pete Sessions in their grueling 2018 campaign, finally being sworn in as member of the 116th Congress. Allred, who’s contributing a diary about his…
Saturday night’s the thing for the Cowboys. Put together a solid performance — nothing out of line with what they’ve done over the last couple of months — and they’ll get a shot at making 2018 a truly special season. Succumb to history, their worst impulses or the turnover monster,…
Adding insult to whatever one might call Lupe Valdez’s quixotic gubernatorial campaign, Texas Monthly announced Thursday that the former Dallas County sheriff was the second runner-up in the magazine’s annual search for Texas’ biggest bum steer. Valdez’s 13-point loss to incumbent Governor Greg Abbott, the largest for any statewide candidate,…
If the state of Dallas’ streets leaves you in fear for your front axle, you might not want to read the rest of this story. The city’s long way back from its status as a pothole-ridden Thunderdome hasn’t even begun, might not begin for a long time and, if it…
One part of the police reforms advocated by Dallas police Chief U. Renee Hall worries me. Apparently in response to calls from community activists for a more level playing field where police shootings are concerned, the chief is in favor of doing away with the so-called 72-hour “cooling off period”…
Texas traveled a bumpy road in 2018. We re-elected our felony-indicted attorney general, the one who’s dead set on ending health insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and ending any hope of the Dreamers ever becoming citizens. Same thing with our junior Sen. Ted Cruz, perhaps the most unlikable…
