Is Fracking Polluting the Groundwater?
The EPA issued a draft report last week linking fracking to groundwater contamination, but this did not cool the industry’s support of the practice.
A native of Houston and a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Sonia Smith is a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. She cut her teeth reporting on crime on the bayou for the Baton Rouge Advocate. She has also written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Kyiv Post, and was a finalist for the 2008 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for her reporting on sexual abuse at the Louisiana School for the Deaf. Her Texas Monthly profile of leading climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe was included in the anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017.
The EPA issued a draft report last week linking fracking to groundwater contamination, but this did not cool the industry’s support of the practice.
By Sonia Smith
The disgraced lobbyist apologizes for his treatment of the El Paso tribe, but is it too little too late?
By Sonia Smith
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram lands an interview with John O’Brien, the main suspect in the “rooftop burglaries.”
By Sonia Smith
A Texas man serving time in a federal prison in Juárez was beaten and abused by soldiers.
By Sonia Smith
The Houston Chronicle offers a glimpse into the how the Houston Zoo’s industrial kitchen operates.
By Sonia Smith
As a compensation scandal unfolds, the University of Texas Law Dean, Larry Seger, resigned at the request of university President Bill Powers.
By Sonia Smith
Shaima Jastaniah, who lived in Houston for ten years, could be flogged for driving the black BMW SUV she had shipped to Saudia Arabia from Texas.
By Sonia Smith
Kepler-22b is situated in the “Goldilocks” zone, which could make it just right for maintaining life.
By Sonia Smith
An Austin woman worried about the health of her father, an inmate at the Eastham Unit, is petitioning the prisons to feed inmates three meals every day.
By Sonia Smith
The drought leaves nothing untouched. This week the ongoing drought impacts the state’s groundwater, state parks, and horses.
By Sonia Smith
Good Morning America interviewed Lauren Scruggs’s parents about the condition of their daughter, who lost a hand after walking into a plane propeller.
By Sonia Smith
Twenty years ago today, four teenage girls were murdered at an “I Can't Believe It’s Yogurt” in Austin, and the killers have yet to be caught.
By Sonia Smith
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Gary Tinterow is packing his bags for the Bayou City to head the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
By Sonia Smith
The feds have postponed their decision on whether to add the dunes sagebrush lizard to the endangered species list until mid-2012.
By Sonia Smith
From squatters in Tarrant County to the far-reaching influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council, we’ve rounded up (and broken down) some of the best enterprise stories from around the state.
By Sonia Smith
It’s been exactly one decade since the energy company filed for bankruptcy, forever changing Houston and the U.S. economy.
By Sonia Smith
A man murders a beloved turkey that lived in a New Braunfels park.
By Sonia Smith
The El Paso Times reported that as Juárez’s murder rate drops, funeral homes suffer, a story that elicited horrified reactions from the community.
By Sonia Smith
Nothing to see here. The presidential candidate just dropped by George H.W. Bush’s Houston home today for a friendly visit.
By Sonia Smith
The checklist that astronaut James Lovell scratched out to calculate his crippled spacecraft’s reentry into earth’s orbit fetched $388,375 at auction in Dallas on Wednesday.
By Sonia Smith
Megachurch pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen, who is no stranger to the camera, will step his exposure up a notch by starring in a new reality show, tentatively titled Pack Your Bags.
By Sonia Smith
The state forked over $600,000 to lure the Bravo show to Texas, but placed some restrictions on the show for accepting the cash.
By Sonia Smith
Organizations representing some 10,000 Harris County law enforcement officers banded together on Tuesday to denounce District Attorney Pat Lykos as being soft on crime.
By Sonia Smith
Fresh into his retirement from the Houston Rockets, Yao Ming has taken up viticulture and is hoping his cachet in China will help him sell wine in his home country.
By Sonia Smith
The unhappy plight of the roving burros in Big Bend has attracted the notice of the San Antonio Express-News’ editorial board.
By Sonia Smith
A 5,000-word piece in Religious Dispatches details the “spiritual” war on abortion in Texas under Rick Perry’s watch.
By Sonia Smith
An eighteen-year-old aspiring engineer in Mission killed himself last week, because he feared his immigrant status would prevent him from attending college.
By Sonia Smith
Are you a political junkie who has always wanted a 13,000-square foot home on the River Oaks Country Club Golf Course? Well, you might want to take a peek at Bob and Elyse Lanier’s mansion.
By Sonia Smith
The drought leaves nothing untouched. This week the ongoing drought impacts the state’s Christmas tree production, grapes, quail, and peanut butter sandwiches.
By Sonia Smith
Since leaving the Bush White House, Karl Rove has become “the dominant private citizen in the Republican Party,“ according to a new profile in the New Republic.
By Sonia Smith
Gun Barrel City’s squabble over local liquor laws graces the pages of the New York Times.
By Sonia Smith
The San Antonio Express-News calls fifteen-year-old YouTube sensation Austin Mahone the “Second Coming of Justin Bieber.”
By Sonia Smith
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has sent out his third mass mailing of “revelations” from God this year.
By Sonia Smith
San Antonio's Sandy Wood has been the voice of StarDate for twenty years.
By Sonia Smith