Morning Roundup: Hello, 2008 edition

Good morning, Houston. We're sure you're as excited as we are to get right into this year's news, so without further ado ...

>> GOP pick for Harris DA expected this evening: Harris County Republican leaders said they expect to have a candidate for district attorney by 6 p.m. today, the deadline for filing candidacy papers. The move comes in the wake of a scandal centering on DA Chuck Rosenthal, who was asked to remove his name from the ballot after the disclosure of intimate e-mails he sent on county computers to his executive secretary, Kerry Stevens; according to the Chronicle, at least five candidates were set to go before county GOP leaders. "My goal is to get behind one individual," county Republican chairman Jared Woodfill said. "All [the potential candidates] have indicated to me they won't run if they are not the person the party wants to support." It's not clear exactly what Rosenthal will do: Though the party has called on him to withdraw from the race, he has vowed to run and win.

>> Researchers working on cocaine vaccine: Two researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine are at work on a vaccine they hope will help treat people hooked on cocaine by stimulating their immune systems. Because cocaine and other drug molecules are so small, the immune system can't make antibodies to combat them, so the goal of the vaccine is to make a combination of inactivated cocaine and inactivated cholera proteins, which does trigger an immune reaction. "Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack the system," Baylor neuroscientist David Eagleman told KPRC. "It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that." Researchers are waiting on FDA approval for a multi-institutional trial of the vaccine.

>> Meet the first Houston baby of 2008: The first baby born in Houston in 2008 made her debut at 12:14 a.m. Tuesday, the Chronicle reports: Destiny Jimenez, the fourth child of Mayra Jimenez and Hector Romero, was nearly 18 inches long and weighed in at 6 pounds, 4 inches. Jimenez told the Chronicle that she never expected her baby would be the first born in the city in 2008, but she hopes it's a sign of good luck to come: "It's a big emotion," she said. "I can't explain it. It's a beautiful event." Ben Taub General Hospital spokesman Bryan McLeod was more succinct: "Everybody was in great shape" after the birth, he said.

>> Today's weather: We guess this morning was what you'd call "bracing" — if you could stop your teeth from chattering, that is. Fortunately, temperatures will climb from near-freezing to a the mid-50s this afternoon under brilliantly sunny skies. Tonight, though, we can expect temperatures around 30, so bundle up!

While you're thawing out, how about checking some of this morning's headlines?