Texas’ loathed Driver Responsibility Program is hanging on by a thread. Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Senate voted 31-0 to kill the long-standing program, leaving it one Gov. Greg Abbott signature from death. The program imposes surcharges on those drivers who do things like driving without a licence or driving under…
Dallas Police Department officers searched Catholic Diocese of Dallas properties across the city Wednesday as part of a continuing investigation into alleged abuse by Dallas priests. According to DPD Maj. Max Geron, police searched Diocese headquarters in Oak Lawn, St. Cecilia Catholic Church in North Oak Cliff and a storage…
Every spring in Dallas, one of two things happens: The Dallas Mavericks either play a couple of weeks of playoff basketball or lose the NBA Draft Lottery. No matter how bad the previous season or how good their odds are, the Mavericks never, ever move up so much as a…
Barring an upset, Texas looks poised to become the 14th state to raise its smoking age, after the Texas House passed an amended version of a Senate bill raising the state’s tobacco-use age on Tuesday. Under the bill, the purchasing age for all tobacco products in the state would be…
A majority of mayoral candidate Scott Griggs’ colleagues on the Dallas City Council, including Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, endorsed his opponent in the mayor’s race Tuesday afternoon. State Rep. Eric Johnson is the best choice to lead the city, Rawlings and the council members said, because he will unite Dallas…
Turns out the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill wasn’t dead after all. Monday afternoon, the Texas Senate went tit-for-tat with the Texas House’s LGBTQ caucus, executing a maneuver to advance the upper chamber version of one of this legislative session’s most controversial bills without a committee hearing. Thursday night, Sen. Julie Johnson,…
Nearly five months after his arrest, John Wetteland made his first court appearance on child sex abuse charges Monday. Though he didn’t enter a plea at the Denton County Courthouse, his attorney made it clear to reporters how he and his client plan to fight the accusations against the former…
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a piece of anti-abortion legislation that left Texas, one of the pro-life movement’s biggest hotbeds, in the dust. Thanks to Kemp’s signature, Georgia law now bans any abortion occurring more than six weeks into a pregnancy, creating an almost impossible window for women…
There’s a little more than two weeks left in Texas’ regular legislative session. Dozens of bills will pass the Texas House and Senate and make their way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk between now and May 27. But thanks to an annual Texas House deadline, hundreds more died as Thursday…
Texas House Democrats banded together with some of the chamber’s most conservative members Thursday to pass legislation that would stop Texas juries from sentencing killers with severe mental illnesses to death. Dallas Rep. Toni Rose’s bill would require juries who find that a defendant convicted of capital murder was suffering…
Two years ago, Texas got in line with many of its conservative sibling states and passed a law addressing one of its most pressing concerns — preventing any companies that participate in the boycott, divest and sanction movement from doing business with the state. This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott…
After months of back-and-forth between neighborhood groups and those pushing for expanded homeless services outside of downtown Dallas, the Dallas City Council signed off unanimously on a zoning change that will a new campus for the Salvation Army to be built in northwest Dallas. The new campus, located on North Stemmons…
Following months of criticism, VisitDallas President and CEO Phillip Jones is out of a job, following what the organization is calling a “mutual decision.” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is expected to announce a new, interim CEO for the agency later this week. Jones came under fire in January after the…
Dallas’ parents, its dads specifically, got a leg up from the City Council on Wednesday afternoon. From now forward, any newly built or renovated city-owned building, privately owned restaurant, theater or retail store will have to provide at least one “safe, sanitary and convenient diaper changing accommodation” in each restroom…
Texas Senate Republicans are tired of uppity cities like Dallas taking down monuments to the Confederacy. That’s the message from the state Capitol, where the Senate voted 19-12 along strict party lines to require a two-thirds, super majority vote from any municipal government that wants to get rid of their…
Democrats flexed their newfound muscle in the Texas House on Tuesday, ending a push led by Gov. Greg Abbott to increase Texas’ sales tax, which is already one of the highest in the nation. While there’s a chance a sales tax increase could be shoehorned into another bill already making…
If the first round of Dallas’ municipal election taught us anything, it’s that nobody — except D Magazine contributing editor Eric Celeste, who went full-Nostradamus on the mayoral results — knows anything when it comes to low-turnout free-for-alls. Rumor had it before the election that the race between former Mayor…
When it happened Sunday afternoon, it was devastating. Up 3-2 in the series but trailing 2-1 on the scoreboard in the third period, the Stars were desperately pushing for an equalizer. The game seemed to be tilting their way, but the Stars had been unable to get a second puck…
For the last year or so, it’s been like watching watching an aunt or uncle’s gradual descent into madness as he or she consumed a little too much Fox News. Slowly but surely, The Dallas Morning News’ editorial page, the one that purports to speak for the city it serves,…
A little after 10:30 Saturday night, Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs finally hopped onstage at Trees in Deep Ellum to declare a kind of victory. He’d apparently — because all the precincts hadn’t come in and there’s no Dallas election decision desk — finished second in Dallas’ mayoral election,…
It’s hard to find anyone who likes Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program. Civil rights groups hate it. The Texas Tea Party hates it. The Observer’s readers, judging from the number of emails we’ve received about it, hate it. With a unanimous vote Thursday, the Texas House of Representatives showed that it…
This weekend is about as good as get for Dallas sports fans. The Stars have critical playoff games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the Rangers are in town all weekend and the Kentucky Derby is Saturday afternoon. Stir in what should be an entertaining scrap between Canelo Alvarez and…
