Four hundred elementary school children gathered Thursday in Fountain Mall on the Baylor campus. Delta Epsilon Psi welcomed kids from Brook Avenue Elementary and J.H. Hines Elementary as part of Project Come Together, a field day they organize for children in these two low-performance and underprivileged elementary schools of Waco ISD.

Top aides to Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that it would be unwise for the next Texas governor to uproot lucrative taxpayer-footed business funds that are legacies of Perry’s 14 years in office but have become less popular among Republicans.

Top Texas leaders are accusing the federal government of trying to seize property they say belongs to local cattle ranchers, a dispute that involves the same agency currently embroiled in an armed standoff over land in Nevada.

Officials from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said Texas can learn a thing or two in light of the tragedy in West.

Two Texas residents backed by a conservative legal group have filed a federal lawsuit in Austin challenging how state Senate voting districts were drawn, according to a published report Tuesday.

At the state level, Baylor students still have a number of positions in which to choose who will run in November’s state elections, though voter turnout among students is expected to be small.

The sun set behind West, Texas Thursday evening while citizens gathered at a memorial service At the fairgrounds off Main Street to remember a terrible surprise in their backyard—the fertilizer plant explosion that claimed the lives of 15 people last year.

The small town of West, Texas pays tribute to those who lost their lives in the fertilizer plant explosion and looks ahead to the continued rebuilding of the city.

A handful of concrete slabs occupy the spaces where various homes once stood in the town of West. The newly erected beams of these houses rise like wooden skeletons, waiting for flesh in the form of floors, walls and ceilings.

“Blessed are those who give their lives for others.” Those words, inscribed on a memorial plaque, is one of the ways a small Texas town is commemorating those who lost their lives.

The mayor for the city of West, Tommy Muska, has served as the face of his hometown in ways he never planned this past year. When a fertilizer plant exploded on April 17, 2013, and took the lives of 15 West residents, this small Texas town suddenly had the attention of the nation. Muska, mayor for less than two years, struggled with the devastation of losing his home while trying to rebuild a city covered in ashes.

On April 17, 2013, the fertilizer plant explosion in West killed 15 people — 12 of whom were first-response firefighters. Amber Adamson, part-time lecturer in the department of journalism, public relations and new media, wrote a book entitled “The Last Alarm,” which compiled accounts from just under 50 responders from the plant explosion.

Prominent Texas figures in the debate over the country’s immigration policies took their dispute from Twitter to the airwaves on Tuesday, facing off in person for audiences on the Internet and Spanish-language television.

The death penalty is like gun rights in Texas politics: Candidates don’t dare get in the way of either. But Republican Greg Abbott, the favorite to succeed Gov. Rick Perry, must soon make a decision as attorney general that could disrupt the nation’s busiest death chamber.

A Texas judge selected a second grand jury Monday in an investigation into whether Gov. Rick Perry abused his power by vetoing funding for public corruption prosecutors, and this time the Republican has retained a high-profile defense attorney to represent him.

According to a study on teen pregnancy released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eight out of 10 teens fail to receive sex education before their first sexual encounter. Though the study shows the rate of teen pregnancy has decreased over the past decade, it also suggests that sex education could further decrease the overall prevalence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

A man who escaped prison in his native Mexico while serving a murder sentence was executed in Texas on Wednesday for fatally beating a former Baylor University history professor and attacking his wife more than 16 years ago.

When the West fertilizer plant suddenly exploded last April, the media and emergency response teams scrambled to respond. Now, nearly one year after the explosion that left 15 dead and over 160 wounded, a panel discussion and luncheon Thursday will spotlight the lessons, triumphs and mistakes made with the communication following the disaster.

The Texas Board of Education considered a long-shot proposal Tuesday that would add a Mexican-American studies course as a statewide high school elective, listening to dozens of supporters who said such a class is the only way to understand a state where Hispanics make up 51 percent of public school students and which was once part of Mexico.

Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, commander at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, on Friday released the names of the three soldiers killed by Spc. Ivan Lopez, who then used the same .45-caliber pistol to kill himself. Milley said the shooting rampage on Wednesday at Fort Hood followed a verbal altercation.

Spc. Ivan A. Lopez, 34, has been identified as the Fort Hood shooter who killed three soldiers and wounded 16 others before killing himself Wednesday, said Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley.

A lone gunman opened fire at the Fort Hood military post Wednesday, killing three soldiers, injuring 16 others and later taking his own life, said Lt. General Mark A. Milley at a press conference outside the Bernie Beck Gate at Fort Hood.

A small dog that escaped its fenced-in yard in Texas was found outside a southwest Ohio animal shelter, and its owners have no idea how he traveled more than 1,000 miles in a few days.

Four victims of today’s Fort Hood shooting were taken to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple for treatment of various injuries, said hospital representatives in a press conference this evening.

Tyra Dehart, wife of an U.S. Army sergeant stationed on Fort Hood.

Two days before Texas is set to execute its first inmate with a new batch of drugs, the state prison agency remained determined Tuesday to keep its supplier a secret, citing threats of violence to pharmacies that sell drugs used in lethal injections.

Despite competing without an anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, senior track and field athlete Henry Vildosola finished the Texas Relays in Austin last weekend with five new personal records, and a score of 7,112 in the decathlon event.

A half-century ago, Monarch butterflies — tired, hungry and bursting to lay eggs — found plenty of nourishment as they migrated from Mexico through Texas. Native white-flowering balls of antelope milkweed covered grassland areas, growing alongside other nectar-filled flowers.

If you attended public school, then you probably took standardized tests at the end of each school year. This past week, two Baylor faculty members — Kyle and Jennifer Massey — protested the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test. They wrote a letter to the principal of their son’s Waco Independent School District school arguing that they have the legal right to keep their son from participating in the test.

Two Baylor faculty members have been battling authorities in order to opt their fourth grade child out of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or ‘STAAR,’ standardized test. As of Friday, Kyle and Jennifer Massey have claimed victory.