Hostess Brands announced this morning that it’s over. America’s premier snack-cake maker will seek permission from a bankruptcy judge to sell off its assets and lay off its 18,500 employees. This comes after a bitter dispute with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, whose members rejected…
Remember those allegations that Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant beat the shit out of his mom in June? That now officially never happened. The DA’s office, after going to the trouble of filing a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, decided to dismiss them so long as he completes a counseling program…
This week, to our great excitement, Texas legislators started pre-filing bills for the upcoming legislative session, which kicks off in January. Those bills will include State Senator Jane Nelson of Flower Mound’s proposal to drug test potential welfare recipients and a measure from Longview’s David Simpson that would make it…
If you direct your browser to 16dollarhouse.com and plunk down $9.97 for an e-book, you can still learn from Ken Robinson ( “poised, measured, insightful and wise” and an AMERICAN, all caps, as the site informs you) how to use adverse possession, a once obscure Texas law, to get a…
When authorities found the body of Robert Dodson II inside a burning SUV at a gas well in rural Johnson County last month, how he wound up there was a mysterious. It was easy to wonder whether it had something to do with a June incident in which a 17-year-old…
Last week a representative of Poo Prints, a company that performs DNA tests on dog shit in order to track down the irresponsible owner who didn’t pick it up, tried to convince the City Council to adopt such a program citywide. It would be a way to reduce the ungodly…
It was while pounding the pavement of Old Preston Hollow in search of a certain lost chicken that I noticed some train tracks running through the back yard of a an aging but stately house on Park Lane. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Preston Hollow, that isn’t…
The morning that Michael Risch inserted himself into the battle between a Fortune 100 company and the man known as the “father of the iPod” began like any other, with a wake-up call from his 6-year-old son. Risch, a professor of intellectual property law at Villanova University, padded to the…
At this point, you’ve probably heard just about enough about petitions, particularly the one lobbying the White House to let Texas “peacefully secede” from the United States . It’s got over 100,000 signatures at this point, our managing editor Patrick Williams thinks the whole thing is deeply, pants-shittingly disturbing, and…
If you want a summary of neighbors’ reasons for not allowing Dallas United Crew you can visit visit this website, which is advertised on a fair number of yard signs surrounding White Rock Lake. The boat house will destroy a beautiful, relatively pristine view of the lake, critics say. The…
San Antonio’s Alamodome wasn’t built for baseball. It didn’t have a big league baseball team when it opened in 1993, and it still doesn’t. In March, the Texas Rangers will fill that void, if only for a weekend. The club has inked a deal to bring the Rangers and the…
Lower down on this blog, you’ll find Observer staffers having a little fun at the expense of all those people — 97,463* as Buzz writes this — who signed a petition on a White House website calling for the federal government to allow Texas to “peacefully” secede from the union…
This morning, Deion Sanders took to 105.3 The Fan for a rare discussion of allegations that he’s been improperly recruiting athletes (e.g. a good chunk of state champion Grace Prep’s basketball team) to play at Prime Prep Academy. See also: – Deion Sanders’ Charter School and the Making of a…
A while back, Patrick Kinkade, the chair of TCU’s criminal justice department, drove a filthy Ford Explorer to several full-service car washes in Fort Worth. Each time, he left behind a large amount of loose change in plain view. Often, about a third of the time, some of the money…
Yesterday was Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s 55th birthday, and it brought with it the question of what to give a man who has selflessly devoted his life to suing the federal government. A PACER gift card to cover all those pesky filing costs? A guaranteed slot in the Republic…
As Texas awaits official word from the White House on that whole secession thing, which has 94,000 supporters and counting, some in the state aren’t sure they want to live in the Republic of Texas, Part Deux. There’s a petition for the city of Austin to remain part of the…
In 2007, Dallas County began a prostitution diversion plan in which people caught selling sex are often funneled into treatment programs rather than simply locked up. The idea — a fairly progressive one — is that prostitutes are most often victims who become trapped in a vicious circle rather than…
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: There’s still some very stale, deeply discounted Halloween candy kicking around the aisles at CVS, Christmas music has suddenly overtaken your dentist’s office, and Texas legislators have begun pre-filing bills for the upcoming legislative session. The session doesn’t kick off until January,…
In spite of all the off-season turmoil, in spite of the fact that Deron Williams went to Brooklyn rather than coming home, in spite of the what-might-have-been speculation about Chris Paul and Dwight Howard in green and blue, the Dallas Mavericks still came out ahead. See also: Mark Cuban Says…
For at least part of the day yesterday, the house at 2818 Marjorie Ave. in East Oak Cliff was without running water, which the city had turned off for non-payment. At 3:30 p.m. Tavarius Spencer, a Dallas Water Utilities meter reader with several years’ experience, showed up to turn it…
The always-simmering debate over whether Jerry Jones has too much control over the Cowboys’ football operations was brought to a boil last week after former coach Jimmy Johnson traced the team’s “country club” atmosphere back to Jones. That sparked something of a back-and-forth about who was in charge in the…
That guy you see up there is J.C. Drake, the police chief at North Lake College in Irving. Chief Drake is real worried about all the school shootings, so he decided to do something about it. He decided to offer a course, apparently to students and also staff, in how…
