Monday evening, the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America announced that it would begin admitting scouts based on their gender identity, rather than the sex listed on their birth certificate. The BSA’s decision comes a month after the family of Joe Maldonaldo, an 8-year-old transgender boy from New Jersey, filed a legal…
The hits, apparently, are going to keep on coming for Dallas’ woebegone police and fire pension system. On Monday afternoon, a group of six former Dallas cops sued the system’s board in U.S. District Court in Sherman, alleging that the trustees’ decision to temporarily stop withdrawals from members’ Deferred Retirement Option Program…
Of course Dallas cops and firefighters are furious over the public tone of the pension fund fight, because so much of it accuses the ordinary members of the fund of somehow being at the bottom of the debacle. All of the talk about pension fund millionaires, for example, makes it…
Late Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a preliminary injunction banning the state of Texas from implementing a rule, drafted last summer, that would require the burial or cremation of any tissue resulting from an abortion performed in the state. In granting the injunction sought by Whole Woman’s…
Ahmed Motaz AlOlabi and Basimal Labbad became two of 50 travelers detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at DFW, along with scores more at airports across the country, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to keep foreigners from seven majority-Muslim countries out of the United States.
This week there was some hope that the city of Dallas and the troubled Dallas Police and Fire Pension System were on their way to reaching a deal to save the pension from potential insolvency. Early Wednesday morning, however, that mediation broke down, leading to some of the strongest signals yet…
Thursday’s meeting of the Dallas Park and Recreation Board was an abominable disgrace. Most members of the board turned their backs on taxpayers and fought instead to shield their cronies at the State Fair of Texas from public scrutiny. But, remember: There’s one good thing about abominable disgraces. These are…
We knew Dallas municipal election turnout was bad. Now we know it’s among the worst in the country. A comprehensive new study from Portland State University reveals that Dallas’ 6 percent turnout for the 2015 mayoral election between incumbent Mike Rawlings and Dallas attorney Marcos Ronquillo was the worst among the…
Former three-term Dallas Mayor Robert “Bob” Folsom, the man who brought Reunion Arena and the Dallas Chaparrals to the city after serving on the Dallas ISD school board and lettering in four sports at Southern Methodist University, died Tuesday at his Dallas home. He was 89. Folsom, born on Feb. 15, 1927,…
Last fall, after the Texas Supreme Court refused to hear a case with the potential to limit the impact of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Unites States Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in June 2015. In October, Texas’ Republican leadership, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney…
The federal corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, still scheduled to begin next month, will offer a two-month cavalcade of the city’s power elite, according to documents released Thursday by both the prosecution and the defense, but the documents disagree about which side the power elite will…
At the urging of the mayor, the Dallas City Council has abandoned efforts to save 162 lane miles of city streets now in danger of collapsing into an irredeemable condition, even though national bond rating agencies have already successively downgraded the city’s credit rating based in part on deteriorating streets…
Two weeks ago, a 9-5 straw vote by the Dallas City Council pushed back the city’s long-awaited May bond election. Thanks to a variety of factors — Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings cited the unwillingness of those who “write the big checks” to do so for a May bond election while…
In Austin, a season of gun bills has begun in the 2017 legislative session. There are 28 gun bills introduced in the House and the 12 gun bills introduced in the Senate. They appear on the heels of 2015 victories for gun rights activists, with the passage both of open carry…
Fine. Any day now Dallas is going to go hat-in-hand down to the Texas Legislature, that famous factory of therapeutic thinking, and ask it to cure the city’s police and fire pension problems. Me, I’d just as soon walk into the bus station and ask if anybody could help me…
On Friday afternoon, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings withdrew his request for a temporary restraining order barring the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System from making certain payments. Rawlings made it quite clear, however, that he has no plans to end his lawsuit against the system’s Deferred Retirement Option Program. When it was open…
Before the 85th Texas Legislative Session formally opened on Tuesday, state lawmakers had already filed a handful of bills that would curb or strike down the law enforcement practice known as civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement officials to seize assets from those suspected, not charged or convicted, of involvement…
Texas’ tourism industry is placing itself on the front lines of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s effort to regulate where people use the restroom. Fearing a similar backlash to those which have happened in Indiana and North Carolina, convention and tourism wranglers from across the state Wednesday joined together at…
Candace Evans, the Candy behind the popular Dallas real estate blog CandysDirt.com, is running against Lee Kleinman for the District 11 City Council seat Kleinman’s held for the last four years. Evans says that while Kleinman is a good neighbor and a good guy, she feels like their North Dallas…
Yesterday, Dallas Animal Services officials told the City Council there was progress in the effort to deal with the estimated 8,000 loose dogs roaming South Dallas. Still, Dallas Police Department Major Barbara Hobbs said Monday, the department needs more time to transition from enforcement to education with Dallas residents. Since Hobbs…
Texans love their sports. Football is the second most cherished religion in Texas, according to Texas Monthly, with baseball and basketball following close behind. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports every year, building stadiums, buying team memorabilia and watching playoff games. But imagine if the National Football…
T.C. Broadnax is starting to get a handle on what he calls the challenge ahead. On Thursday, a little less than a month before he takes over the Dallas city manager’s office from A.C. Gonzalez, the Tacoma city manager sat down with the Dallas Observer for a discussion about his approach…
