While the state has made improvements in the area of school safety, Texas could still do more to head off campus threats before they arise, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a report released Tuesday. In the report, Abbott pointed to new school safety legislation, teacher training and campus security upgrades…
Fort Worth-based American Airlines tiptoed right through the dystopic tulips Tuesday, issuing a cheery press release about its newest locally available technology. Travelers flying on certain flights taking off from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport’s Terminal D can now board by having their face scanned, rather than going through the normal…
A visit to the Texas Department of Public Safety, whatever it’s for, is going to suck, at least a little. Thanks to cutbacks and consolidation, there’s less likely to be a DPS location nearby when you have to make your once-every-dozen-years trek to renew your driver’s license or state ID…
Cue the weird science fiction music for “THE RETURN OF RENEE.” You want to see something really scary? Go to the Dallas Police Department Twitter page, Dallas Police Dept @DallasPD, scroll down a day or two and look at the item, “Today, Chief Hall returns to duty.” It’s a cellphone…
Come Sunday, September 1, it will no longer be legal to buy cigarettes, electronic cigarettes or tobacco products in Texas, if you are under the age of 21.
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…
Two years ago, when Texas lawmakers reworked the way the state’s colleges and universities handle remedial courses, they hoped to find a solution that would help students who weren’t college-ready get up to speed in a way that wouldn’t derail their academic careers. One year after the new model went…
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…
Look at it this way. An Italian court has ordered Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to pay the city of Venice &85,000 just because a bridge he designed there is too slippery. The two gigantic pedestrian bridges Calatrava built for us in Dallas, completed in 2017, have never even been…
Dallas school leaders are confident they know how to pull the district’s lowest-performing schools up in next year’s school assessments, they told members of the school board Thursday afternoon. The Dallas ISD board discussed the district’s performance on the Texas Education Agency’s A-F ratings at a board workshop Thursday. Dallas…
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…
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…
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…
Maybe this would be funny. If it were funny. I mean, the first time the city set up a “Public Improvement District” or PID to fight crime along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South Dallas, the PID collected property taxes in the six figures, turned all the money over…
Attorney General William Barr appeared with Senator John Cornyn to promote safe neighborhood program while side-stepping the issue of wide-spread gun control.
A flash drought is creating perfect wildfire conditions in Texas
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…
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…
In the new mayor’s laughably pusillanimous response to the city’s murder problem, we are seeing the first symptoms of the last election. Pulling a page, poorly, from the previous mayor, Eric Johnson this week tried to take on murder with some grandstand speechifying. It was not grand. At a scripted…
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…
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…
