By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
Three days before her debate with Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison says her campaign has momentum and that she is "peaking at the right time."
Hutchison told dozens of supporters at her Dallas campaign headquarters Monday that she will spend "every waking moment" campaigning for governor in the March 2 Republican primary.
Hutchison said she probably will miss some votes in Washington as she turns her focus to the campaign. The senator jabbed at Perry, promising to issue a border security plan Tuesday and characterizing his efforts on the issue as costly posturing.
A Perry campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to messages.
Group seeks protection for rat, 4 other creatures
An environmental group is seeking federal protection for the Texas kangaroo rat and four other Great Plains species threatened by development and pollution. The group wants protection for the rat as well as the spot-tailed earless lizard, the prairie chub, Platte River caddisfly and the Scott's Riffle beetle.
Denver-based WildEarth Guardians is filing petitions and lawsuits this week to list them under the Endangered Species Act. The group on Monday planned to file a petition to protect the rat, which has lost habitat to agriculture and development.
Lauren McCain with WildEarth Guardians told The Associated Press that these species illustrate the dangers of shrinking open spaces and vanishing water supplies.
Texas mom takes follicle fight to school board
Floppy hair that sent a 4-year-old Dallas-area boy to in-school suspension has now placed the pre-kindergartner in a new spot: on the agenda for a school board meeting.
The Mesquite Independent School District will meet in closed executive session Monday night to hear an appeal from Taylor Pugh's mom.
Elizabeth Taylor says she wants her son back in regular class with his friends. Instead, Taylor has been alone in the library with a teacher's aide since late November because his long hair violates the district's grooming policy.
Taylor says her son likes his hair long.
School district spokesman Ian Halperin says the board can direct Taylor's parents to follow the policy, continue the suspension or grant an exemption.
Assignment leads FW teacher to daughter's diabetes
A Fort Worth teacher's biology assignment led her to a potential lifesaving discovery that her daughter has diabetes. Lori Roque says on Dec. 20 she was reading an outline of a student's assignment on diseases that affect multiple organ systems.
Roque says some of the symptoms sounded familiar, like what was happening with her 14-year-old daughter, Hope.
Roque took the girl to be tested. Doctors determined that the teen has diabetes and "it was approaching a life-threatening stage." Hope, who remained in the hospital until Christmas Day, now takes insulin.
Roque says she's grateful that the student turned the assignment in on time.