Morning Roundup: All aboard for space edition

Good morning, Houston. Good news for anyone who loves to travel and have a spare $200,000 laying around: You can now buy tickets to space, with the journey set for 2009 on Richard Branson's space plane. More than 100 tickets have already been sold, and Houston travel agents Tara Hyland and Diane Vest are two of the only "Accredited Space Agents" offering them in the U.S. And yes, the tickets are $200K each. Anyone?

>> Help NASA, congressman urges: U.S. Rep. John Culberson (R-Houston) said Friday that he'll push for a $1.7 billion boost in funding for NASA, money he vowed to look "anywhere and everywhere" to find — including the Commerce Department. President Bush's FY 2008 budget proposal includes $6.6 billion for Commerce; Culberson called that a "terrific source of funding," but he wouldn't tell reporters what he thought should be cut from the department's budget to go to NASA. "We'll see," he said, demonstrating his usual congressional coyness. "I don't want to say that publicly."

>> If only bad taste were illegal: Ann Sandoval, the principal at Ridgegate Elementary School in the Fort Bend ISD, has been put on administrative leave after she admitted sending tacky pictures of children via e-mail. Sandoval used her home computer to send the pictures of kids who seem to be between 3 and 5 years old, some of whom are shown urinating into flower pots. Mary Ann Simpson, a district spokesman, said someone sent the photos to Sandoval and she forwarded them around because she thought they were funny. "The pictures are not pornographic," Simpson told the Chronicle.

>> On the prowl: Seems like it's coyote season again: On Friday, a woman was out walking her dogs when a coyote sneaked up and grabbed one of them. The coyote reportedly came from a wooded area where they've lived for several years and sneaked under a fence into a schoolyard grab the small dog: "There was nothing [the woman] could do. It happened real quick," Spring Branch ISD police chief Charles Brawner told KTRK. District officials said they'll fix the fencing this week so the school grounds don't get any more unwanted visitors — coyotes, we mean.

>> This week's weather: Three words for the beginning of the week: rain, rain, rain. Today, Tuesday and Wednesday, look for 60 or 70 percent chances of storms with highs in the low 70s and lows in the low 60s. Things should start clearing up Thursday, the warmest day of the week — look for a high near 80 — and the forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and highs around 70 over the weekend.

Follow the jump for some rays of newsy sunshine ...