The NFL Players Association preemptively sued the NFL in federal court late Thursday, seeking to vacate the NFL’s suspension of Ezekiel Elliott if it’s upheld by Harold Henderson, the former league executive appointed to hear Elliott’s suspension appeal. Elliott’s suspension is based on a series of domestic violence allegations made…
As of today, Sept. 1, Texas police officers can pull people over and give them tickets for texting and driving. Those busted will face fines of up to $99 for a first offense and $200 for a second offense. Advocates against handheld phone use say the new law will save…
Joshua Baish looks uncomfortable in his orange jumpsuit as he tells his story in a video conference call at the Denton County Jail in early August. Fifteen video monitors line the walls inside the small visitation room, and nearly all of them are in use this Sunday afternoon. Several children patiently…
While the length of Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension might have come as a surprise, the fact that it came wasn’t a shock. Since being picked fourth overall by the Dallas Cowboys in the 2016 NFL draft, Elliott has made a series of poor decisions, seemingly daring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to…
Liberals, friends of affirmative action, champions of diversity, all of you, my people — please, let’s catch our breath. Can we all quit the knee-jerk belly-aching over the Trump Justice Department’s interest in revisiting higher education admissions schemes for five minutes? Take it from Texas. This is not going to…
Ed Butowsky is having a rough Tuesday. “The story is ridiculous, it’s all made up crap,” the Dallas financier told the Observer on Tuesday morning before begging off the phone. He’d love to tell us the full story, he said, but he just didn’t have the time to talk. He might,…
In a sense, John Wiley Price is getting back all that cash the feds seized from his safe in 2011. It isn’t being turned over to the government as part of civil forfeiture proceeding, so Price is entitled to it. He’s not really getting it back, though. Not after U.S. Magistrate…
During President Obama’s term in office, it was an almost weekly activity for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to announce his newest lawsuit against the federal government. Whether it was environmental regulations, LGBTQ rights or immigration policy, the formula was the same: Paxton picks an issue important to his conservative…
A Dallas County grand jury indicted former Balch Springs police officer Roy Oliver on Thursday on two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant. The new charges for Oliver, the fired officer who shot and killed Jordan Edwards earlier this year, are not related to the events that led to…
Anthony Robinson, a longtime employee of the Dallas County district attorney’s office, avoided federal prison Wednesday despite admitting taking a $200,000 bribe from a man attempting to keep his name off the sex offender registry. Robinson rose through the ranks to become District Attorney Craig Watkins’ chief investigator from 2007…
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price’s legal troubles are over. Late Friday afternoon, John Parker, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, announced that the federal government will not retry Dallas County’s longest serving elected official after a Dallas federal jury acquitted him on bribery and mail…
A former Baylor University volleyball player sued the school this week, claiming that the university failed to act on her report of a vicious sexual assault at the hands of Baylor football players. The Baptist university’s inaction to curb similar behavior, the woman claims, left her at risk for the assault…
Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater canceled one of North Texas’ most anticipated trials of the summer when he pulled the plug on Exxxotica’s lawsuit with the city of Dallas, dismissing the suit just before the trial’s slated June kickoff date. Fitzwater didn’t rule on the case’s central issue,…
Last Sunday I went down to Dealey Plaza, not so much to have Kennedy assassination author Robert Groden solve the mystery of the assassination for me as to have him solve the mystery of life. That’s the one that gets me. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was soft…
Heading into Wednesday morning, the fourth after Dallas’ Saturday city council election, there are a couple of sure things about the incomplete District 6 council race. There is going to be a runoff election on June 10 to decide the West Dallas seat at the horseshoe and Monica Alonzo, the…
On Thursday morning, as part of National Day of Prayer festivities at the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order he said delivered on a campaign promise to evangelical leaders. The order instructs the Internal Revenue Service not to enforce the Johnson Amendment, a 50-year-old law banning pastors…
Dallas County Commissioner Price strode solemnly out the backdoor of the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in downtown Dallas after his verdict was delivered, tersely telling a large scrum of reporters engulfing him, “The jury has spoken.” No one disputed that, but some people are still wondering if the jury that…
Halfway into their eighth day of deliberations, jurors in the eight-week federal corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price emerged at last to deliver a stinging rebuke to prosecutors – not guilty verdicts on the most serious charges of bribery and mail fraud. The jury told the judge…
After nearly five days of deliberations, a Dallas federal jury told U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn Tuesday afternoon that they are deadlocked on several of the 11 counts facing long-serving Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. After a brief conference with lawyers for Price and his co-defendant, the commissioner’s executive…
For the second month in a row, a U.S. district court panel on Thursday afternoon found that a Texas district map illegally discriminates against minority voters. In March, a three-judge panel ruled that the state’s congressional map unconstitutionally limits the effects of votes cast by Texas’ ethnic minorities. Thursday, a…
Late Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court denied Ethan Couch’s request to be released from Tarrant County jail. Couch and his attorneys argued that District Judge Wayne Salvant didn’t have the authority to sentence the 20-year-old. The judge gave Couch two years in jail last spring after receiving the case from…
Firebrand conservative TV personality Tomi Lahren is suing her former employer, Glenn Beck. Her lawsuit, filed Friday in Dallas County District Court, accuses Beck and his online and TV network, The Blaze, of wrongfully terminating Lahren after she made a controversial appearance on ABC’s The View. During her March 17 guest…
