For eight hours, rifle reports echoed across the Anderton Whitetail Ranch in Hunt County. In the larger paddocks, a wildlife biologist standing in the bed of a white Texas Parks and Wildlife truck picked them off with a scoped .22- or .17-caliber rifle mounted to a tripod. Another shot them…
There was a time before 8:38 a.m. on January 31 when the people of Kaufman County would commonly leave their doors unlocked or sleep with windows open on a temperate night. In Kaufman, the county seat, no one had been murdered in years. Folks came here to get away from…
Last night, a bill to fund water projects across the state died an ignominious death in the Texas House of Representatives. This was strange because it looked like the rails had been thoroughly greased. During his State of the State back in January, Gov. Rick Perry made the case for…
Earlier this year we introduced you to Mike Bishop, the irascible ex-Marine with 20 acres in the path of the Keystone pipeline, just east of Nacogdoches. When we met him, the retired chemist and bio-fuel tinkerer was livid, cataloging the insults to his land — the ‘dozed crops, the clear-cut…
Back in March, the Keystone XL pipeline’s approval looked practically assured. Construction of the 1,179-mile leviathan, connecting Alberta’s tar sand mines with Texas Gulf Coast refiners, was already well underway in Texas. The State Department said Canadian tar sands production would proceed apace, with or without the pipeline. By rail…
Last summer, Texas, Big Oil interests, the automotive industry and other assorted industrial polluters were dealt an unambiguous defeat in a legal challenge to dismantle greenhouse gas regulations. The Feds, a federal appeals court panel ruled, were “unambiguously correct” for setting limits on carbon dioxide and other pollutants — an…
No meeting was too small, too incremental for Trinity East CEO Tom Blanton, because too much was at stake. Whether it was a task force convening to shape rules that may or may not someday govern how gas wells are sunk in Dallas, or a Plan Commission meeting, he’d be…
Dallas-based utility Oncor has collected half a billion dollars from ratepayers to cover federal income taxes it has never paid. Last year alone, customers paid $230 million to reimburse the utility for a “phantom” tax bill, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power. The fact…
When Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse convinced a jury to convict a former Justice of the Peace on felony theft charges, Eric Lyle Williams said his life was effectively ruined over a “misunderstanding” and a “political grudge.” County information technology personnel came into the Kaufman sub-courthouse on a…
RT @psychscriv: Make sure none of these people have seats in 2014. twitter.com/PsychScriv/sta…We are in trouble when these Rs side w/ Sen Reid— Barry Smitherman (@SmithermanTX) April 11, 2013 The U.S. Senate voted only to consider gun safety legislation Thursday, which includes expanded background checks and increased penalties for illegal…
Before term limits and elections change the complexion of the Dallas City Council in unknowable ways, Scott Griggs and Angela Hunt want an up-or-down vote on proposed natural gas wells along the Trinity River. Last month, the Dallas Plan Commission voted down the permits for drilling outfit Trinity East, which…
In tiny Wortham, just a ways northwest of Mexia, the fire ladders on two engines from the Teague and Fairfield fire departments were crossed over 3rd and Main street. A flag hung from between them, to honor a hometown son on the way to his final rest. Slain Kaufman County…
Inside First Baptist of Sunnyvale, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland lay in a flag-draped coffin alongside the ashes of his wife, Cynthia. That was fitting in a sad way, their friends said, because they knew one wouldn’t want to go on without the other. Hundreds of friends, colleagues and…
Nick Morale, a 56-year-old man from Terrell, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of making “terroristic threats” against the life of an unnamed county official. Lieutenant Justin Lewis of the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office told reporters Wednesday that the threat was left on a Crime Stoppers tip line Monday afternoon, warning…
Police had only just opened Blarney Stone Way in Forney Monday afternoon when this picture was taken. Satellite trucks were already stacked fender to fender for 100 yards or more, and cameramen were trained on the house ringed with yellow police tape, shooting B roll for the evening newscasts. See…
As you may recall, Texas’ 2011 plan to redraw political boundaries was so brazenly partisan, so undeniably bent on reducing minority influence, and the evidence was so mountainous and convincing that a federal court didn’t even bother cataloging it all in its ruling against the state. “The parties have provided…
The ongoing legal war of many fronts among Dallas-based Luminant, the state of Texas, the EPA and environmentalists is mostly a war of incremental victories.This week, EPA arose victorious. Next month or year? Anybody’s guess. Just know that this time, nobody (except the EPA) is totally happy with the ruling…
The Texas House and Senate took up legislation Tuesday to address a drought-induced water crisis. A proposed bill out of the House would pull $2 billion from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to implement a 50-year water plan. Municipalities and water districts could apply for funds the state would prioritize…
On the main stage of Billy Bob’s Texas, past the mechanical bulls and the neon lights and the line-dance floors throbbing to the “Cha-Cha Slide,” Randy Travis, the reed-thin king of country, looked out onto the crowd of thousands he still drew in the twilight of his career. Through the…
City Council chambers erupted in applause Thursday afternoon as the Plan Commission voted to deny controversial drilling permits to natural gas producer Trinity East. It was a victory for drilling opponents, to be sure; it means the permits will take 12 votes to get past the City Council, instead of…
Aurelius Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund and perpetual pain-in-the-ass for distressed companies like Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, sued the massive utility in federal court Tuesday for $725 million. It claims Energy Future made some sweetheart intra-company loans even as it was technically insolvent. Aurelius, by the way, has a…
Ghassan Hitto, the man elected early Tuesday morning to become the opposition Syrian National Coalition’s first prime minister, also happens to be a North Texan. The Damascus-born activist was educated in the United States, worked as director of operations at a Collin County telecom and, according to the dean of…
