With less than a month left in the legislative session, the odds that teachers will get the kind of raise they say they badly need are rapidly diminishing.

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, announced Wednesday he is challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for reelection.

In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”

As someone who wants firearms better secured in a state that’s long balked at additional gun regulations, Leesa Ross expected opposition to some proposed laws as she headed into this legislative session. What she didn’t expect was more dialogue.