An eighth-grade teacher at a San Antonio charter school was placed on leave Thursday after assigning homework that suggested there's a positive side to slavery.

The students at Great Hearts Monte Vista North were told to give a "balanced view" of the lives of slaves by listing the pros and cons.

A U.S. district judge handed a sentence of life in prison today to a driver who was transporting undocumented immigrants in a tractor-trailer so hot that ten people died.

"I am so sorry it happened," said James Matthew Bradley Jr. in a video statement played in court which The San Antonio Express-News reported. "There's not a day or night that goes by that I don't relive this scene."

Updated at 6:46 p.m. EDT

The Democratic National Committee filed an attention-grabbing lawsuit against the Russian government, WikiLeaks and Donald Trump's presidential campaign that says they conspired to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The suit — which faces legal obstacles because of the Justice Department's investigation into Russia's attack and the difficulties involved with suing a foreign government — develops a theory about alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians.

At schools across the country today, students are getting up from their desks and walking out when the clock strikes 10 a.m. They're participating in the National School Walkout, part of the movement that has taken hold among students to call for action to end gun violence.

Today marks 19 years since the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in which two high school students shot and killed thirteen people.

KUT Weekend brings you some of our favorite stories from the KUT newsroom. Updated Fridays.

• Subscribe in iTunes
• Subscribe via RSS
• Subscribe via Soundcloud
• Subscribe in Stitcher   

The staff at our sister station KUTX scour the earth to bring listeners the best music. Each Friday, they share three of their favorite songs on Morning Edition.  

Updated at 7 p.m. ET

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is joining President Trump's legal team to help deal with the ongoing special counsel investigation into whether Trump's campaign conspired with the Russian attack on the 2016 election.

"Rudy is great," Trump said in a statement released by his attorney Jay Sekulow. "He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country."

Incomplete questionnaires for the 2020 census, including those that leave the controversial citizenship question unanswered, will still be included in the upcoming U.S. headcount, the Census Bureau's top official confirmed Wednesday to lawmakers.