Eleven countries in 11 months — this is the reality for one Baylor student this fall.

Chicago sophomore Marissa Hyland is taking a year off from Baylor to go on an 11 month mission trip. She will spend her would-be junior year participating in the World Race, a program under the organization Adventures in Missions.

A plan to train armed teachers for gunfights in classrooms or at campus sporting events or board meetings won approval Thursday from the Texas Senate Education Committee and now heads to the full chamber.

Texas already allows teachers and other school personnel who have previously been certified to carry concealed weapons to do so in classrooms with the permission of their local school districts. The bill’s sponsor, Houston Republican Sen. Dan Patrick, said only three school boards statewide currently allow that, but others have authorization pending.

The Starbucks in the Dutton parking garage will close at the end of the spring semester.

“Unfortunately, it was not economically sustainable,” said Lori Fogleman, director of media communications.

Opening a final chapter to one of the most important civil rights episodes in American history, Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to allow posthumous pardons for the “Scottsboro Boys”: nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women more than 80 years ago.