TCU Touchdown

TCU Horned Frogs stadium gets props for being greenest in country

TCU is home to one of the "greenest" college football stadiums.

Looks like that $164 million renovation of TCU's football stadium paid off: Amon G. Carter Stadium has scored as one of the "greenest" college football stadiums in the country.

A new list from LawnStarter ranks the Horned Frogs' home as the fourth greenest in the country. The stadium earned Silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for its recent renovation, which included numerous energy-saving improvements related to lighting. It's the 10th building on the TCU campus to achieve such certification.

Top honors, however, go to another local stadium: University of North Texas' Apogee Stadium. The 4-year-old Apogee, No. 1 on the list, is the lone stadium with Platinum LEED certification, thanks to elements like wind turbines that provide energy and recycling of construction waste.

Two other college football stadiums get props for going green: California Memorial Stadium at the University of California-Berkeley and TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

sports sustainability

Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."