Axios Dallas

June 03, 2024
Happy Monday! Fearing only failure means forgoing some success.
☁️ Today's weather: High of 87 and cloudy. Chance of more rain.
🎵 Sounds like: "Born To Run"
🦒 Situational awareness: The Dallas Zoo is accepting recently trimmed tree branches with green leaves to feed its animals.
Today's newsletter is 721 decided words — a 3-minute read.
1 big thing: Challenge to abortion ban rejected
Pregnant Texans with severe complications will likely continue seeking abortions outside the state after the Texas Supreme Court declined to clarify when a medical emergency justifies an abortion.
Why it matters: While the Texas abortion ban includes a few exceptions, the Friday ruling against 22 women who suffered complications during pregnancy did not provide the clarity patients and doctors sought.
- The ruling places the onus largely on doctors to make decisions and fails to protect women's health as the exceptions intended, Emily Berman, a professor at the University of Houston's Law Center, tells Axios.
The big picture: Under Texas' abortion ban, which took effect in 2022, a licensed physician can perform an abortion only if the pregnant person's life is at risk or if the pregnancy "poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function."
- The provider must also attempt to save the fetus.
Catch up quick: The lawsuit filed in March 2023 didn't seek to overturn Texas' ban but to clarify when medical exceptions are allowed under the law.
- Critics of Texas' ban have said the ambiguity over when exceptions are allowed has contributed to confusion among doctors — who can be charged with a first-degree felony if they violate the law.
State of play: A Democratic state district judge in Austin ruled last summer that the state could not prosecute doctors who terminated a complicated pregnancy in their "good faith judgment." The order was almost immediately blocked through an appeal by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
- The state could still amend the law to better indicate to doctors when an abortion is going to be permissible, as it did with ectopic pregnancies, Berman says.
2. 🥅 The Stars aren't going to the Stanley Cup
The Dallas Stars failed to reach the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row.
Why it matters: It felt like this was the Stars' year after they toppled the two most recent Stanley Cup champs to get to the Western Conference Finals.
The latest: The Stars went into the weekend tied in the series 2-2 against the Edmonton Oilers.
- But Dallas looked lifeless in Game 5 on Friday, losing 3-1. And they lost Game 6 last night 2-1.
State of sadness: The Stars also made it to the Western Conference Finals last year but lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.
- Dallas last went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2020. They lost in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Context: The Stars were the best NHL team on the road this season but couldn't pull through last night in Edmonton — again.
- They trailed most of the game 2-0 before scoring one goal in the third period. They looked like they could tie in the final minutes but time ran out.
The bottom line: Losing isn't fun.
- But we're still proud of our Stars.
3. 📷 Pic du jour: Dallas Pride weekend
Thousands gathered during the weekend at Fair Park to celebrate the start of Pride month.
The latest: Actor and singer Billy Porter served as the first honorary grand marshal of the Dallas Pride Parade.

Flashback: Dallas' first Pride parade took place downtown in 1972 but didn't happen again until June 1980.
- In 1983, the event was renamed the Texas Freedom Parade and moved to September.
- The event stayed in September until it moved from Oak Lawn to Fair Park in June 2019.
Check out more photos from Pride weekend on the Axios Texas Instagram.
4. 🗞 Burnt ends: Bite-sized news bits
💡 Thousands of North Texans were still without power yesterday, as Oncor workers tried to repair power lines damaged in last week's storms. (WFAA)
🥊 The Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight scheduled for July 20 at AT&T Stadium was postponed after Tyson had a health scare over the weekend. (FOX4)
🏆 Dallas Baptist University has become "the most unlikely perennial contender" in the NCAA baseball tournament. (New York Times)
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5. 🏒🏀 Where in North Texas: Ode to our rookies
Two teams from the same city
Were on a quest for a trophy
Giving fans hope
That maybe this will be the year.
The reader who knows
where this mural arose
Will win cool swag
To raise their Axios Dallas flag.
📬 Know where in North Texas these rookies stand? Reply with the answer — the first reader to guess correctly will win inconceivably cool Axios gear.
This newsletter was edited by Bob Gee and copy edited by Carolyn DiPaolo.
Our picks:
🤸 Tasha is reading about the Dallas gymnast who will represent Colombia in the Paris Olympics.
🍽️ Naheed is finally watching "The Bear" on Hulu.
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