Just after 1 p.m. Thursday, Dallas firefighters received a call about a burning upholstery warehouse in the 2400 block of Irving Boulevard in the Design District. Lots of smoke was coming from the building, but no one was inside when firefighters showed up. After a roof collapsed, the fire department…
The Dallas County public defender’s office plans to hire social workers to help keep its mentally ill clients out of jail. It’s one more attempt to end the cycle of hospitalization, incarceration and homelessness caused by the criminalization — rather than treatment — of mental illness. Nonprofits and county administrators…
The Observer’s news vertical is, for the most part, a local concern. We do our best to stay focused on DFW, while occasionally allowing our eyes to wander further afield to the rest of Texas. So we are, for the purposes of this article at least, going to disregard about 99.8%…
Last week an attorney for indicted Dallas housing developer Ruel Hamilton filed a federal court document (see below) describing “outrageous government conduct” by FBI agents going after Hamilton. Outrageous government conduct is a legal term. But let me tell you what’s outrageous to me as a non-lawyer. I’ve been out…
In Texas, at least, impeachment didn’t mean a damn thing. Wednesday, three weeks after Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz were sworn in for the trial of President Donald Trump, both Texas representatives voted to acquit the president on both articles of impeachment with which Trump was charged — abuse…
The Dallas City Council is requesting a review of a city contract to develop nearly 100 units of affordable housing in southern Dallas after a member accused the developer of having a conflict of interest. Notre Dame Place, the nonprofit that submitted a bid for the project, is led by…
The ground being fought over is getting smaller, but, five years after the fact, the Dallas County Commissioners Court is still fighting among itself and with activists over phone calls at the Dallas County jail. Tuesday, a plan that would’ve seen Dallas inmates paying some of the lowest per-minute rates…
The document by which Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall announced the outcomes of a two-year crooked-cop investigation of the vice squad reads like it was written by Joseph Heller, the guy who wrote Catch-22. Only Heller was funny. The memo made public a week ago makes Hall look far worse…
Former Dallas police officer Christopher Hess had no choice but to shoot Genevive Dawes on Jan. 18, 2017, his lawyers said during opening statements Tuesday. Dawes posed an immediate threat to Hess and his colleagues. She was a felon committing another felony, incapable of following officers orders’ to show her…
The Environmental Protection Agency has promised to test soil in neighborhoods bordering a southern Dallas Superfund site in an effort to address community concerns about the presence of heavy metals. The announcement came at a community meeting Thursday, when the EPA presented the results of an initial report showing heightened…
For the last two years, Dallas’ headlines have been dominated by cops on trial. In 2018, Dallas County juries convicted ex-cops Roy Oliver and Ken Johnson on murder charges. Last year, Dallas County juries acquitted former Mesquite officer Derick Wiley of aggravated assault after he shot a man in the…
It’s officially put up or shut up time for all of you out there who consider yourselves true, degenerate pro football fans. With Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs having put the cherry on top of the NFL’s 2020 sundae, it’s time, this weekend,…
Are you sick of staring at cubicle walls all day? Tired of getting stiffed on the tip after serving a table of 10? Completely finished with the thought of going to a tedious day job that never seems to change, unless it’s becoming either more tedious or simply less rewarding?…
The Dallas Morning News editorial page is schizzy. Most of the time, it’s pretty smart, even measured and thoughtful, at least on local non-partisan issues. But every fifth Thursday or something, a whole different crazy newspaper appears on my lawn. Right toe forward, hands on the hips of its checkered…
“Pod Bless Texas,” like a lot of ideas, was born out of failure. It was election night 2018 and Kendall Scudder, fresh off a suicide mission against incumbent Texas Sen. Bob Hall, no longer had anything to run for. Lillian Salerno, Scudder’s future co-host, had lost her own race a few…
Before Dallas can build a new plan for its public transit infrastructure, it must decide what kind of system it wants: one that attracts the largest number of riders possible, or one that serves everyone in the city equally, a transit expert told a crowd of 200 people at a…
Three Texans are going to see the future before everyone else. Late Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in San Antonio issued a preliminary injunction requiring Texas to allow the online voter registration of three plaintiffs in an ongoing suit against the state. The court is expected to make a ruling…
The Dallas County Community College District will seek approval from its accreditor later this year to merge its seven schools into one in an effort to help more students graduate. Joe May, the district chancellor, said he was motivated to pursue the change after realizing that thousands of students were being…
Ellis County is now, officially, a safe space for guns, fetuses and conservatives. This week, the Ellis County Commissioners Court voted 5-0 in favor of a resolution declaring itself a sanctuary city for the unborn, hopping on a bandwagon started by anti-choice activists last year in Waskom. In the succeeding…
When a centuries-old bronze statue now on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art was stolen from a Hindu temple in Nepal 36 years ago, it became one of hundreds of ancient cultural artifacts that have been illegally removed from the country over the last six decades. Since the 1950s,…
Six Dallas social services organizations are teaming up with the county hospital and jail to help some of their most frequent users: the homeless. Newly hired caseworkers will find them housing, which will get them off the street and out of taxpayer-subsidized emergency rooms and jails, according to the initiative’s…
This may be an ill-informed and over-personal approach to a very serious matter, but I truly believe the whole Trump/Bolton imbroglio is about the mustache. Hear me out. OK, hear me part of the way out. Right after he was elected president, Donald Trump declined to hire John Bolton because…
