JAMES ALLISON LOOKS like a cross between Jerry Garcia and Ben Franklin, and he’s a bit of both, an iconoclastic scientist and musician known for good times and great achievements. He also doesn’t always answer his phone, especially when the call arrives at 5 am, from an unfamiliar number. So when the Nobel Prize committee tried to reach Allison a few weeks ago to inform him he’d been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in medicine, Allison ignored the call. Finally, at 5:30 am, Allison’s son dialed in on a familiar number to deliver the news. The calls have not stopped since.

Last week, the Texas Board of Education voted to make a change to the state’s social studies standards that no serious historian would quibble with, but is, nevertheless, controversial in the Lone Star State: to teach that slavery was the central issue of the American Civil War, and not, as previous standards had dictated, a cause eclipsed by states’ rights and sectionalism. Camille Phillips at NPR reports the change is one of several to the curriculum that will be implemented in the 2019-2020 school year.

The morning of September 22, 2017, Cristopher Precopia went to work at a lumber yard in Georgetown. By the end of the day, he was in jail facing 99 years in prison. But he didn't know why. Why had police come to his work and arrested him? Why was he being accused of these horrible crimes? Who was accusing him? She said he broke into her home in Temple. She said he sliced an "X" into her chest with a box cutter.

Months after a student was expelled for refusing to stand for her school's Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Attorney General is intervening on the school's behalf. The mother of Windfern High School senior India Landry launched a legal battle against the Houston-area school, saying her daughter wasn't able to practice free speech.

How a surgeon who has been dubbed “Dr. Death” got away with harming patients for a criminally long time. By Laura Beil.

An election supervisor and judge in Williamson County, Texas, has stepped down after she was captured on video screaming at a black voter who was reportedly confused about where to vote. In footage captured by a third party of the confrontation on Friday afternoon, Lila Guzman could be seen telling the voter repeatedly to leave, saying: "Get out. Get out. Get out. You are rude. You are not following the law. Go. Go."

The Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules has received support from the Republican attorneys general of Texas, Arkansas, and Nebraska. The three states filed a brief Friday in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, urging judges to reject a lawsuit filed against the FCC by 22 other states. The action highlights a partisan split among state attorneys general: states with Democratic attorneys general are fighting to save net neutrality while states with Republican attorneys general are either fighting against net neutrality or standing on the sidelines.

New reports show that several thousand newly-registered voters in the state of Texas have been illegally purged from the state’s voting rolls, a move that will certainly benefit struggling incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. The state has seen a surge in new voter registrations, and that is never a good sign for Republicans, which helps explain the illegal purges. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

A Houston police officer, in full uniform, was caught on video at a Drake concert apparently taking photos of a woman’s backside as she stood in front of him, unaware of what was going on behind her. Twitter user @HeyChalice caught the moment on video and uploaded it to Twitter Tuesday night during Drake & Migos’ Houston tour stop. The concert was held at the Toyota Center.

It was the first — and only — time Dr. Naveed Khan, a 35-year-old Southlake radiologist, ever rode in an all-terrain vehicle.

Months after a student was expelled for refusing to stand for her school's Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Attorney General is intervening on the school's behalf. The mother of Windfern High School senior India Landry launched a legal battle against the Houston-area school, saying her daughter wasn't able to practice free speech. India, now 18, was sent home last year after sitting during the pledge. Her mother, Kizzy Landry, said when she came to pick up India, the school provided little details as to why her daughter was kicked out.

In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in South Texas. Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in South Texas.

A monument to Confederate soldiers that stood in a San Antonio, Texas, park for more than 100 years is now history.

Political donations are behind an appellate court ruling that overturned a jury's verdict requiring an apartment company to pay $1 million to two women raped by a man who entered their Garland home through a window with a broken latch, the women's attorney claims in a motion filed this week...

A shipment of overripe fruit to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice contained 540 packages of cocaine with an estimated street value of $17,820,000, authorities said. On Friday, the Texas officials received a donation of 45 boxes filled with bunches of unclaimed bananas. Upon pickup at the Wayne Scott Unit in Brazoria County, however, correction officers discovered something peculiar.

For the better part of four years, David Ford has not had much in the way of teeth. When he first came to state prison, the Houston man had just enough molars to hold in place his partial dentures. But then he lost one tooth to a prison fight and the rest to a dentist. Now, five years into his stay, Ford has no teeth at all — and no dentures. And, despite his best efforts and insistent requests, he’s been repeatedly denied them and told that teeth are not a medical necessity.

The father and son who killed their neighbor in a fight over trash have been re-arrested after a judge increased their bond to $250,000. "Both John and Michael Miller’s bonds were originally set at $25,000 each by a Justice of the Peace," said Abilene Police Chief Stan Standridge. "They then bonded out immediately, which was a great concern to both myself and our community. Taylor County District Attorney, Jim Hicks, filed a Motion of Insufficiency of Bond this afternoon to address the Department and public’s concern."

"I was just sitting there talking to my Dad, and suddenly an explosion went off in my pocket," Mann said.

Juan David Ortiz is suspected of killing four prostitutes and was arrested after a fifth woman managed to escape.