Republicans took full control of Oklahoma's government in the Tea Party-fueled 2010 elections, and they quickly set about slashing taxes, joining neighboring Kansas in launching a grand experiment to showcase the GOP's supply-side theory of economics. Kansas lawmakers had enough last year, voting to raise taxes over Gov. Sam Brownback's (R) veto, and on Wednesday night, Oklahoma lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that will generate $450 million in new revenue from a $1-a-pack surcharge on cigarettes, increasing the gas tax by 3 cents and 6 cent for diesel, and raising taxes on oil and gas production to 5 percent, from 2 percent.

"We finally got the job done," Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said after the Senate approved the bill, 36-10 — barely meeting the state's constitutional requirement of three-fourths majorities for tax increases. Fallin said she "absolutely" plans to sign the bill, which the state House passed Monday. The extra revenue will go largely to fund an average $6,100 pay increase for teachers, who are planning to walk out of class on Monday. The oil and tobacco industries lobbied heavily against the bill, and anti-tax advocates are urging electoral retribution.

Like in Kansas, Oklahoma's tax cuts and deregulation spree didn't have the desired effect on the economy. Rural hospitals and nursing homes are closing, prison populations are at crisis levels, and state Highway Patrol officers got mileage limits last year because the state couldn't afford the gas bill. But the situation in schools prompted the tax hike. Oklahoma teachers have America's third-lowest average pay, and they haven't had a raise since 2007. There are 1,500 fewer teachers in the state than in 2010, and 10,000 more students than in 2015; 20 percent of Oklahoma school districts have switched to four-day weeks to save money.

Teachers are still planning to walk out on Monday, but the bills will likely avert a longer strike. You can read The Week's Ryan Cooper's on the rise in teacher labor action, and Jeff Spross on what went wrong in Kansas. Peter Weber

Dr. David Fajgenbaum couldn't wait for someone else to come up with a treatment for Castleman disease, the rare autoimmune disorder he was diagnosed with during his third year in medical school.

Fajgenbaum, 34, was hospitalized four times due to the disease, which caused his immune system to attack his organs. He had to go through chemotherapy in order to survive, and he came so close to death that a doctor once told him to write down his living will. "You learn a lot by almost dying," he told CNN.

Fajgenbaum's mother died of cancer while he was in college, and wanting to find a treatment in her honor, he studied at Oxford so he could learn how to conduct scientific research. Upon enrolling in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, he decided he would become an oncologist. That changed after Fajgenbaum's diagnosis and his most harrowing hospitalization, six years ago. At the time, he noticed there were red spots on his skin, and when he questioned his doctors, they said they were nothing.

Once he recovered and graduated from med school, he formed the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, inviting the best doctors and researchers to work with him. They needed to come up with some sort of a treatment, he decided, and fast. While looking at his medical charts, Fajgenbaum saw that a protein known as VEGF spiked every time he had a flareup of his disease. This protein controls the growth of blood vessels and gets the immune system going, and he wondered if this was linked to the red spots once on his skin. He asked his doctor to prescribe an immunosuppressant, and that did the trick — he's been in remission for five years. Now married, a new father, and a medical professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Fajgenbaum is thrilled to see the treatment working on other patients. Catherine Garcia

"The Fake News is saying that I am willing to meet with Iran, 'No Conditions,'" President Trump tweeted Sunday night. "That is an incorrect statement (as usual!)." Where would the news media get such an idea?

Here, for example, are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying Trump is willing to meet with Iran with no preconditions just last week.

Well, maybe Pompeo and Mnuchin just misunderstood Trump? Here's Trump in June.

And last year:

Assuming there isn't some esoteric difference between "no conditions" and "no preconditions," it appears that the "incorrect statement" came from the president himself. Add any parenthetical accentuation you see fit. Peter Weber

Talks between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government and the country's opposition party are officially done, six weeks after Maduro's representatives stopped attending the discussions.

Opposition leader Juan Guaidó made the announcement on Sunday. The talks, mediated by Norway and held in Barbados, were called as a way to try to end the escalating political crisis engulfing Venezuela. Millions of people have left the country, due to poverty, inflation, and food and medicine shortages. Guaidó, the leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, said Maduro was not fairly elected in 2018, and he is the legitimate president, an assertion backed by the United States and dozens of other countries.

The opposition tried to launch a military uprising in the spring, but it failed, and Maduro has retained power, refusing to step down. In August, his representatives left the talks, citing President Trump's new sanctions against the country. When talks were still taking place, the opposition called for a new, free election, but Maduro's representatives would not even broach the subject, Reuters reports. Catherine Garcia

Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker accused of playing a major role in the opioid epidemic, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Sunday. The move was expected after the company and its owners, the Sackler family, reached a tentative settlement with 24 states and thousands of local governments last week. Under the settlement, the Sacklers would wash their hands of Purdue, putting up $3 billion of the family's estimated $13 billion fortune and turning Purdue into a trust, with profits from OxyContin and other drugs going to the plaintiffs.

This isn't the end of the road for Purdue yet, though, as The Associated Press explains.

The thousands of plaintiffs who have not yet signed on to the settlement, including about half of U.S. states, will likely object to the settlement in bankruptcy court, and there are open questions about whether the proposed settlement is really worth $12 billion and how the money would be distributed. Purdue and the lawyers representing the parties that agreed to the settlement argue that nobody is served by long, costly litigation.

Recent court filings suggest much of the Sackler wealth has been stashed offshore since 2008, making it likely out of reach of U.S. plaintiffs, especially if the company dissolves without admitting wrongdoing or being found guilty in court. "The Sacklers are going to be left with plenty of money after this,'' Adam J. Levitin, a bankruptcy expert at Georgetown Law, tells The Washington Post. "There is a desire that the Sacklers pay some blood money, but it's never going to be enough to make everyone happy.''

OxyContin accounts for only a slice of the opioid drugs sold in the U.S., but Purdue's aggressive and misleading marketing is blamed for helping spark the opioid addiction crisis. Since 1999, more than 200,000 people have died from overdoses of prescription opioids. Peter Weber

No deal was reached on Sunday between the United Auto Workers and General Motors, resulting in about 49,000 union members going on strike at midnight Monday.

This is the first national UAW strike since 2007, and was authorized Sunday morning in Detroit during a UAW meeting of regional leaders. The UAW said it is asking for more affordable health care, fair wages, and profit sharing, and could not reach an agreement with GM. "We stood up for General Motors when they needed us most," UAW Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement. "Now we are standing together in unity and solidarity for our members, their families, and the communities where we work and live."

GM said it offered better health benefits and to create more than 5,400 new jobs, adding, "We have negotiated in good faith and with a sense of urgency. Our goal remains to build a strong future for our employees and our business." Contract talks will start back up again Monday morning, UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg said. Catherine Garcia

In his new memoir, former British Prime Minister David Cameron says he believes current Prime Minister Boris Johnson only backed Brexit because "it would help his political career."

Cameron is candid when it comes to sharing his feelings about Johnson and Michael Gove, a fellow Conservative Party member who served in Cameron's cabinet and is now chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster. U.K.'s Sunday Times published an excerpt of the memoir, in which Cameron calls the men "ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism" and accuses Gove of being disloyal to both him and Johnson.

Because the Conservative Party's manifesto committed to holding a referendum on the U.K.'s membership in the European Union, Cameron called for a vote in 2016. The Leave campaign won, with 52 percent of the vote compared to Remain's 48 percent. Cameron was in favor of remaining, and he says Johnson merely took the "lead on the Brexit side — so loaded with images of patriotism, independence, and romance — [so he] would become the darling of the party." Johnson, he continued, "risked an outcome he didn't believe in because it would help his political career."

Cameron, who resigned as prime minister shortly after the vote, told the Times on Saturday that he understands "some people will never forgive me" for calling the referendum. Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson is one of those people, saying Cameron "put the interests of the Conservative Party ahead of the national interest." Catherine Garcia