The first city in Texas to ban hydraulic fracturing tells a court it has every right to do so, calling the oil and gas extraction technique a “public nuisance” with "offensive results."

About 23,000 pounds of a flammable, foul-smelling toxic gas leaked from the DuPont chemical plant in La Porte where four workers died earlier this month, the company said Saturday.

A Republican judge on Texas’ highest criminal court says he now opposes the death penalty.

UPDATED: Texas’ highest criminal court has again refused to halt schizophrenic death row inmate Scott Panetti’s looming execution.

Over the objections of Texas officials, the Obama administration on Wednesday proposed a long-delayed rule to slash levels of ozone – a smog-forming pollutant known to worsen asthma, lung disease and heart conditions.

College students foiled the will of permanent residents in Denton's vote to ban hydraulic fracking, the losing side maintains. The Tribune crunched the numbers.

Gov. Rick Perry and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka helped break ground Thursday for a new gymnasium in West during a celebration of the town's rich traditions and efforts to recover from the April 2013 fertilizer explosion. 

Since 2009, Texas manufacturers have reported at least 19 other unauthorized releases of methyl mercaptan, the lethal chemical that killed four at a Port Arthur DuPont plant, according to a Tribune analysis of state data. 

As state regulators fret about how President Obama’s effort to combat climate change would affect the Texas power grid, a new study says the rules would save the state billions of gallons of water annually.

As Texas regulators weigh a response to President Obama’s proposal to combat climate change, the operator of the state’s main electric grid says the plan would raise energy costs and threaten reliability – particularly in the next few years.

Legal wrangling over Denton's fracking ban will give Texans a free course on the widely mischaracterized oilfield technique that put Texas at the forefront a national energy boom.

Advances in oilfield technology have reawakened Big Lake, a town that long ago helped cement Texas’ reputation as an oil-rich state. Soar a few hundred feet above the town to see how it has evolved. This slideshow is part of our Shale Life project.

The Southwest Area Regional Transit District helps shuttle people who cannot otherwise get to their medical appointments. But a rush to the Eagle Ford Shale is clogging that lifeline. This story is part of our Shale Life project.

Some Texas towns are welcoming the bars, strip clubs and “man camps” that come along with an oil boom. Not Karnes City, which wants businesses that will stick around when the oil is gone. This story is part of our Shale Life project. 

That was fast. Just hours after Denton residents voted to ban hydraulic fracturing, the state’s General Land Office and biggest petroleum group filed legal challenges to the new rule.