Voters in Denton, Texas, voted strongly in favor of a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the city, the first such restriction in energy-friendly Texas. With the majority of precincts reporting Tuesday night, 59% of voters favored barring fracking, with 41% opposed. “Hydraulic fracturing, as determined by our citizens, will be prohibited in the Denton city limits,” Mayor Chris Watts said in a statement, vowing to defend the ban from expected legal challenges. Those pushing the ban described it as a last-ditch attempt to rein in fracking, which has been disrupting residential neighborhoods beset by noise, fumes and other side effects of the process used to release oil and gas from shale formations. A college town of about 123,000, Denton sits on the Barnett Shale in north Texas and has about 280 natural-gas wells within its boundaries.