A task force at the University of Texas at Austin has recommended guns be prohibited in residence halls, at sporting events and in certain laboratories. But the suggestions do not call for banning handguns in classrooms.

Paul Chu, founding director and chief scientist at the University of Houston’s Texas Center for Superconductivity, said finding new ways to store excess energy could revolutionize the grid, and how Texas plays a role in advancing the technology.

Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats on Thursday endorsed Ted Cruz for president, giving the Texas senator's campaign one of its biggest boosts yet in the first-in-the-country caucus state.

Experts at the Public Utility Commission of Texas are urging its three commissioners to reject plans by a Dallas oilman and real estate tycoon to take over the state’s largest electric transmission company, a recommendation that could loom large for Texas' ratepayers and electric grid.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s second attempt to immediately block the arrival of additional Syrian refugees was even shorter-lived than the first. A federal judge on Wednesday quickly rejected his request.

A gun rights group plans to hold a fake mass shooting Saturday near UT-Austin to protest gun-free zones. The group decided to move it just off campus after the university said demonstrators could face criminal trespassing charges. The group, Come And Take It Texas, will have a presentation featuring cardboard guns, fake blood and fake gun shot noises.

As state officials consider licensing two private detention facilities as approved residential centers for undocumented children, they heard several hours of testimony in opposition to the move Wednesday.

Wendy Davis, the former Texas gubernatorial candidate and state senator, will campaign for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Iowa, the Clinton campaign announced Wednesday.

U.S. Supreme Court justices dissected UT-Austin's unusual admissions procedures on Wednesday, questioning whether Texas' flagship campus should keep using race as a factor when evaluating some of its applicants. The court's decision in Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin, expected sometime next year, could have a transformative effect on how students get into college, in Texas and across the country.

One year after a federal judge heard evidence alleging that Texas Child Protective Services had violated foster children’s civil rights, lawyers for the state and the advocates who filed suit are awaiting a potentially sweeping legal decision. The class-action lawsuit, brought by the New York-based advocacy group Children’s Rights, Inc. on behalf of children currently in long-term foster care, argues that Texas caseworkers are assigned too many children for them to effectively monitor and that kids are placed too far away from home into settings where they do not get appropriate care.

The makeup of the Texas public school system has become less white and poorer in recent decades, according to the most recent data from the Texas Education Agency reflected in The Texas Tribune’s Texas Public Schools Explorer. It’s a change that’s largely attributable to massive growth in the state’s Hispanic and Asian populations.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday over a Texas case that sought to clarify what “one person, one vote” means in American politics, some justices questioned the argument that the state's current system diminishes the power of some voters. And others considered arguments that would upend how voters are sorted into legislative districts. The question before the high court was "who counts as a person?" when it comes to dividing up Americans in state legislative districts.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller faced pointed questions from lawmakers Tuesday over his plan to dramatically hike fees on a host of licenses, registrations and services that his agency provides.

The end of the widely reviled No Child Left Behind Act — and Texas’ standoff with the federal government over that 2002 law — is in sight, to the elation of the state education commissioner, superintendents and teachers. A rewrite of President George W. Bush’s signature education policy is poised to win final passage in Congress this week after winning preliminary approval in the Senate on Tuesday.

Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas teamed up Tuesday to push new curbs on Syrian refugees entering the United States, unveiling a new bill that would let states "opt out" of accepting refugees from certain countries.

A new breed of app-based moving companies has drawn the interest of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, which wants to ensure that companies with names like Buddytruk and PICKUP are following state laws.

Disclosure: The University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin are corporate sponsors of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.