The vibe coming from Dallas City Council on Monday morning as they were briefed on the long-awaited Dallas Police Department staffing study was recognizable to anyone who’s ever disappointed someone with a Christmas gift. Council members appreciated what KPMG, one of the United States’ biggest auditing firms, had done for…
Texas’ Planned Parenthood clinics are, as of last week, on the same footing as the organization’s clinics in the rest of the country. That’s not a good thing. A week ago today, the family planning, women’s health and abortion provider announced that it would leave the federal government’s Title X…
If he cares about his public reception at all, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott can’t be happy with his Thursday, the day he convened the first of a series of roundtable discussions he’s called in the wake of the Aug. 3 massacre in El Paso. Gun rights advocates held a rally…
Proving the axiom that even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut this week is Texas Attorney General and friend of the Observer Ken Paxton. Thursday afternoon, Paxton — who’s still under felony indictment and still trying to get Texans with pre-existing conditions kicked off their health insurance — found his…
Dallas’ six weeks-running municipal mystery is over. Police Chief U. Renee Hall will be back on the job Monday, Dallas City Manager TC Broadnax announced Wednesday night. Hall’s been on medical leave since July. According to the department, Hall’s personal doctor suggested she undergo major surgery after Hall’s mother died…
Everything about Dallas’ new XFL team is warmed over. It’s participating in a once-defunct league in a stadium — Globe Life Park — that would be defunct if not for the XFL saving it from implosion. Its coach, ballyhooed as his prospects once were, won his only college football national…
Tuesday afternoon, the message went out. The Cowboys were planning a press conference to “announce a contract extension for a current member of the team’s roster.” Sound the alarms, right? One of the team’s ongoing contract headaches was about to be solved, bringing the team a step closer to being…
Dallas didn’t get left at the altar this time. After nine months of licking its Amazon-inflicted wounds, the city landed its own big-tech big fish, thanks to nearly $36 million in economic incentives from the city, county and state. Tuesday, Dallas County Commissioners approved the final piece of the incentive…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is taking the first step toward memory-holing his ill-fated nomination of former Texas Secretary of State David Whitley. Abbott announced Monday that he’s appointed the chairwoman of the Texas Workforce Commission to the post. Ruth Ruggero Hughs, also a former associate in the Texas Attorney General’s…
Taking a page from former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ preferred form of leadership, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson took his first swing at addressing the spate of high-profile murders that have shaken his city in 2019, announcing Monday that he’s created a civilian task force to look into violent crime in…
On one level, the whole thing’s absurd, that there are so many legal questions to argue about as we approach former Dallas Police Department Officer Amber Guyger’s murder trial. The facts are not in dispute. Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean almost a year ago, as Jean hung out alone…
The first shoe in the case of Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, the Tea Party activists and the secret meeting has officially dropped. State Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, is no longer the chairman of the Texas House’s GOP caucus. Burrows, the third man in the meeting between…
Forty-six years ago, Dallas Police Department Officer Darrell Cain murdered Santos Rodriguez. Dallas is finally getting closer to building a permanent memorial to the slain 12-year-old. Cain killed Rodriguez in the back of a police car on July 24, 1973. He’d picked up the preteen, along with his brother David…
The Dallas Police Department said Thursday afternoon that they’ve identified a suspect in the shooting death of 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett. She was shot and killed Wednesday evening as she sat in her apartment on Munger Avenue in Old East Dallas. According to Dallas Police Maj. Danny Williams, the first link in…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced his plans Wednesday to address the Aug. 3 mass murder in El Paso. It sounds an awful lot like his response to the school shooting in Santa Fe last year. This time around, the governor will be holding roundtable discussions and convening a task force…
Dallas, despite having been bitten by Amazon, isn’t shying away from the latest tech giant to bat its eyes at the city. Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas City Council approved throwing itself at Uber’s feet, to the tune of more than $9 million in hopes that the ride-sharing company will plant…
Dallas got a peek at how its new City Council is going to work Tuesday afternoon. The results, giving bonus points for about half the members being new on the job and all the members being freshly returned from vacation, were a mixed bag. The council didn’t hamstring its budgeting…
An activist who became one of the biggest stars of Texas’ 2018 election is seeking office herself. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the co-founder and former executive director of Jolt and the Workers Defense Project, is running for U.S. Senate, joining a Democratic primary field that includes Dallas state Sen. Royce West, Houston…
One might have hoped, with the Texas House’s powerful General Investigating Committee getting in on the action Monday, that a little light would have been shed on what exactly transpired between Texas Speaker of the House Dennis Bonnen and Empower Texans gadfly Michael Q. Sullivan on June 12. The committee, led…
For the better part of two decades now, Texas has been Lucy with the football and Democrats have been Charlie Brown, thinking, “If we just target these voters, moderate on these issues or raise this much money, maybe we’ll have a chance.” It hasn’t happened. However much hype a candidate…
At this point, it seems like everyone’s going to be disappointed either way. If Empower Texans activist Michael Q. Sullivan’s tape of his June meeting with Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen never gets released, we’ll always wonder what might have been, given the gnashing of teeth over the recording’s alleged…
Robert Quinn, the newly acquired pass rushing complement to DeMarcus Lawrence, is the latest in a long line of Dallas Cowboys to run afoul of the NFL performance-enhancing drug policy. Thursday, the league suspended Quinn, who is currently recuperating from a broken hand, for the first two games of the…
