Email Author Brantley Hargrove

2012 Stories by Brantley Hargrove

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  ERCOT Greenlights Temporary Shutdown Of Power Plant As TXU Weathers Financial Doldrums

  published Oct 31, 2012

  Electricity is so cheap right now that for some generators it doesn't even pay to make it. At the end of August, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, announced it would mothball two un... More >>

• 

  COVER STORY

  A White Buffalo's Death Breeds Suspicion and Lies

  published November 1, 2012

  Long ago, a holy woman came to the Lakota Oyate in the Black Hills. She gave them a sacred pipe, and she taught them how to live, how... More >>

• Former EPA Chief Al Armendariz Said Frackers Lit a Well on Fire, So the Frackers Lawyered Up

  published Oct 30, 2012

  Range Resources, a company that fracks shale formations across America, wants controversial former EPA regional chief Al Armendariz to shut up about what happened in Parker County. The company's lawye... More >>

• A Robbery Suspect Confronted Police in North Oak Cliff, and Was Promptly Shot in the Ass

  published Oct 29, 2012

  Two armed men held up the 7-Eleven on Zang and Colorado Sunday afternoon. As they made their getaway, Dallas Police were fanned out, searching for a vehicle matching the description given by witnesses... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Texas Electricity Generators Got Another Big Bailout from State Energy Regulators Yesterday

  published Oct 26, 2012

  Here we are, some 10 years into the deregulation of the Texas electricity grid, and a crisis approaches. Supply, it is predicted, will not keep pace with demand in the very near future. Generators say... More >>

• The Presidential Debate-Watching Party at Texas Theatre Was Nuts

  published Oct 23, 2012

  These days, it seems like debate watching isn't such a social thing. We sit in living rooms with our family and friends, perhaps, or watch it alone and cast our thoughts out onto Facebook threads and ... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Like A Vampire, Wall Street Will Drain TXU Until There's Nothing Left

  published Oct 22, 2012

  At least for now, Dallas-based electricity and transmission giant Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, is paying off its debts. Technically, it's completely insolvent, but that hasn't stopped the W... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Meet Dallas Billionaire Harold Simmons, Radioactive Waste Magnate and Mitt Romney's Second-Biggest Donor

  published Oct 22, 2012

  Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has raised nearly $300 million, and it's largely been with the help of a coterie of extremely wealthy, and extremely pr... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  "The Carpet Was Still Wet in the Courtroom When He Sat Down For His First Lovely Meal On Death Row."

  published Oct 19, 2012

  Tarrant County jailers are breathing a collective sigh of relief: Ladies and gentlemen, Steven Lawayne Nelson has left the building. Convicted and sentenced to death for suffocating a 28-year-old Arli... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Daughter Whose Dad Taught Her To Shoot Kills Intruder Charging Toward Her Bedroom

  published Oct 18, 2012

  It's the kind incident that makes you want to take everyone you love to the gun range for lessons: A woman -- we don't know her age -- is watching television upstairs a little before noon on Wednesday... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Someone Really Should Explain to Mitt Romney How Markets Affect Coal

  published Oct 17, 2012

  If your debate-watching drinking game included a shot for each use of the word "coal," you either peed on your roommate's couch or had your stomach pumped. Or both. The primitive fuel was invoked some... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Wal-Mart Wins Texas Lawsuit Over Gender Discrimination

  published Oct 17, 2012

  Nearly a year and a half since the U.S. Supreme Court tossed a class action lawsuit filed by some 1.5 million female Wal-Mart employees who say they hit a corporate glass ceiling, the plaintiffs hit a... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Steven Lawayne Nelson Sentenced to Death for the Murder of an Arlington Preacher

  published Oct 16, 2012

  Update: Steven Lawayne Nelson, who was just handed a death sentence in the suffocation of an Arlington preacher, has flooded his holding cell and the courtroom, according to Star-Telegram reporter D... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Mavericks Suspend Delonte West, Prompting Sportswriters to Dust Off Their PsyDs

  published Oct 16, 2012

  Delonte West, the Mavericks guard and most interesting man in basketball, has been suspended for "conduct detrimental to the team," ESPN reports. Coach Rick Carlisle isn't specifying why, nor has he l... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Dallas City Hall Wants $20,000 from Dog Owner Whose Pit Bull Attacked a Code Inspector

  published Oct 15, 2012

  A Dallas code inspector named Donna Garza was making her appointed rounds back in December 2010 when she came upon the home of Loyd Ferrell Ray, in a tree-lined neighborhood south of Preston Hollow. ... More >>

• Top Scientists Are Fleeing Rick Perry's "Politically Driven" Cancer-Fighting Program

  published Oct 15, 2012

  When it comes to funding cancer research, no entity other than the federal National Institutes of Health draws from a deeper well than the The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Since ... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  A Sister Goes to Meet Her Brother's Killer, and an Inmate Tells of Watching Him Die

  published Oct 12, 2012

  Jennifer Ciravolo woke early Wednesday morning, knowing that day she would look into the face of the man accused of killing her brother in a Tarrant County jail. She got her sons dressed and packed f... More >>

• Is Plano-based Telecom Giant Huawei China's Trojan Horse For Cyber Sleuthing and Warfarer

  published Oct 09, 2012

  If you haven't seen the most recent 60 Minutes piece on the potential threat to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure posed by Plano-based Chinese telecom titan Huawei, watch it. If you have, the U.S... More >>

• Jury Convicts Steven Lawayne Nelson of Arlington Pastor's Murder

  published Oct 08, 2012

  Steven Lawayne Nelson was found guilty Monday morning in the slaying of Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor who was discovered in Arlington's NorthPointe Baptist with a plastic bag clinging to his face... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  EPA Wants to Tangle With Texas Again Over Air Pollution Rules

  published Oct 05, 2012

  EPA isn't ready to give up the fight over a rule aimed at curbing air pollution wafting across state lines. The agency filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday morni... More >>

• Report Predicts More Shutdowns of Coal-fired Power Plants, But Not in Texas

  published Oct 05, 2012

  Rock-bottom natural gas prices have forced the wonks over at the Brattle Group to revise their national prediction for the number of coal-fired power plants likely to retire in the coming years steepl... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Hispanics Now Have A Shot At Getting Elected in Farmers Branch

  published Oct 03, 2012

  Farmers Branch Latinos have a better chance today at seeing a little color introduced into the all-white tableau of elected city government. Under orders from a federal judge, who determined that the ... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Reuters Drops Another Chesapeake Energy Bombshell: Sayonara, Property Rights

  published Oct 02, 2012

  Chesapeake Energy, one of the shale boom's biggest players, has amassed the rights to drill on acreage roughly equal to the size of West Virginia. It's a shrewd strategy -- tie up all the land you ca... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  In Capital Murder Trial For Suffocation of Arlington Preacher, An Accounting. For Jonathan Holden's Family, A Time to Speak.

  published Oct 01, 2012

  Two deaths will be answered for in a trial only intended to account for one. See also: - Imaginary Monsters Chased Jonny Holden All His Life, Then a Real One Caught Him First, starting Monday, Steve... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  FrackNation Creator Phelim McAleer Fibs About Parker County's Flaming Hose Case

  published Sep 28, 2012

  Fracking is finally getting the Hollywood treatment. Promised Land, an anti-fracking film conceptualized by The Office's John Krasinski, co-written by Dave Eggers, starring Matt Damon and Hal Holbrook... More >>