Hottest headlines of 2025

The 10 hottest CultureMap stories that had Dallas talking in 2025

Flower Mound is known for its outdoorsy offerings in places like Stone Creek
Park.

The Dallas suburb of Flower Mound made more than one "best of" lists this year.

Facebook/Flower Mound Parks and Recreation

Editor's note: What was Dallas reading this year? Let's take a look. We've already covered the hottest headlines in dining, arts & entertainment, real estate, society, and city life, as well as the year's best and worst movies. Now we turn our attention to the most-read stories of all.

This year, news about suburbs dominated our list; readers clamored to know which local cities were both the wealthiest and most affordable, the most "livable," and the best for working from home. They were also eager to keep up with local billionaires. And, of course, everyone wanted to know which restaurants had the most coveted reservations in town.

Here, we present the most-read stories of 2025 in Dallas:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth suburb blooms as No. 1 best place to live in U.S. One Dallas-area city took the top slot on a list of "the 100 Best Places to Live in 2025." The list — from relocation marketing platform Livability.com — put Flower Mound at No. 1 for its appealing size and affordability.

2. Blooming Dallas suburb ranks as America's 7th most livable small city. Similarly, Flower Mound also claimed the No. 7 spot in a ranking of America's most livable small cities for 2025.

3. North Dallas neighbor ranks as No. 1 most affordable city in U.S. A Dallas suburb landed on top of a list of the most affordable places to live: McKinney ranked No. 1 based on its relative cost of living and high median household income.

4. The 2 Dallas restaurants where reservations are now impossible to get. Cafe Dior by Dominque Crenn is the restaurant inside the new Dior boutique in Highland Park Village, which opened at the start of the year. Zodiac Room is the about-to-close restaurant inside the storied downtown location of Neiman Marcus, which has had several imminent closure scares but now states it will remain open past the 2025 holidays.

Dior Cafe interior Cafe Dior was a hard-to-get reservation when it opened in Dallas. SevenRooms

5. 27 Dallas billionaires land on new Forbes list of world's richest people. More billionaires have made it onto the 2025 World's Billionaires List than ever before, according to Forbes. This year, 27 Dallas billionaires are among the richest people in the world, including Elaine Marshall, Lyndal Stephens Greth, and Jerry Jones.

6. 5 Dallas high schools rank among America's best in 2025, per U.S. News. Five prestigious Dallas-area high schools are living up to their reputations for top-tier education after being ranked among the best high schools in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings.

Dallas ISD The School for the Talented and Gifted The School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas ISD is the 9th best high school in the country, and the top high school in Texas. tagmagnet.dallasisd.org/

7. Techy Dallas suburb is No. 1 hot spot for remote workers in U.S. A SmartAsset survey of cities with the biggest remote workforces has revealed Frisco is the No. 1 city with the highest share of remote workers in the nation. The study found over 40,000 Frisco residents work from home, which is more than a third of all of the city's workers aged 16 and older (117,193 total workers).

8. 3 affluent Dallas neighbors dominate new list of wealthiest U.S. suburbs. Three well-to-do Dallas-area communities — University Park, Southlake, and Colleyville — are among the wealthiest suburbs in America in 2025, a report confirmed. The three affluent Dallas neighbors were lauded in GoBankingRates ranking of the 50 wealthiest U.S. suburbs, based on 2022 and 2023 average household income data sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau.

9. Dallas Caramel Company founder Rain McDermott dies at 52. Dallas entrepreneur Rain McDermott, who founded artisan caramel maker Dallas Caramel Company when she was only 34 years old, died in June after a battle with breast cancer; she was 52.

Dallas Caramel Company founder Rain McDermott Courtesy

10. Award-winning Dallas burger joint opens location in Forney. Blues Burgers is from Howard and Catherine Baldwin, who opened the original Blues Burgers near Love Field in Dallas in 2014 (it closed in February 2025 so they could focus on this venture). They use Angus beef for their burgers, and make their own sauces and spreads in-house. They fry in beef tallow, and their sodas are made with cane sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup. They also do fried pies, made in house.

hot headlines most popular stories year in review flower mound frisco billionaires

Texas tragedy

Camp Mystic drops summer reopening plan over outrage by families, lawmakers

Memorial Service Held For Young Camper Killed In Hill Country Floods

Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

undefined

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Camp Mystic on Thursday, April 30 halted reopening plans on the Texas river where floodwaters killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors, backing down in the face of outraged families and investigations that accused the all-girls Christian camp of dangerous safety and operational deficiencies.

The decision, a striking reversal of the camp owners' determination to reopen, follows weeks of testimony in court hearings and legislative investigations. Those hearings laid bare the camp’s lack of detailed planning for a flood emergency, reliance on poorly trained staff, and missed chances for an evacuation that came too late as floodwaters ripped through the camp over the July 4 weekend last year.

“We never imagined a world without our daughters, and no decision made now can change that," Matthew Childress, father of 18-year-old counselor Chloe Childress who died, said in a statement.

The camp’s owner, Dick Eastland, also died in the flooding.

“No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” Camp Mystic said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed Thursday that the camp has withdrawn its application.

The decision was praised by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who opposed the camp's reopening while investigations were ongoing.

“I am thankful to hear that, today, the Eastland family withdrew their application,” Patrick said in a statement. “Given the tragic circumstances, this is the correct decision to protect Texas campers and to allow time for all investigations to be completed.”

The families of the victims packed the court and legislative hearings, often wearing “Heaven’s 27” pins with photographs of their daughters. They listened to the details of missed flood warning signs, the descriptions of the flood and the decision to leave the girls in their cabins until it was too late. The testimony included video of the raging floodwaters as a girl repeatedly screamed for “help!” somewhere in the distance.

Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors and a member of the Eastland family that owns and operates the 100-year-old camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, offered a tearful public apology to the victims’ families on Tuesday.

“We tried our hardest that night. It wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Eastland said, with the victims' families sitting behind him. “I’m so sorry.”

All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.

Texas health regulators have said they are investigating hundreds of complaints against the camp's owners. The Texas Rangers are also looking into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.

The camp, established in 1926, did not evacuate as the storm rolled in and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet (4.2 meters) to 29.5 feet (9 meters) within 60 minutes.

summer camp politics texas weather texas flood