Good morning, Nashville. Welcome to our first (real) post of ’09! Speaking of firsts in ’09, we welcomed the year’s first newborn Nashvillian at 12:05am yesterday at Baptist Hospital. Welcome to town, Marquaz Deon Thomas, Jr. 

• A year of firsts. A bill banning texting while driving has been reintroduced this year, after a similar draft of the bill dying last year.  
• Count ’em. Metro Law Department has backed the initiative to introduce mandatory calorie counts on restaurant menus, giving the green light to the Board of Health to go ahead with their vote in February. 
• Bits & pieces. A 17 year old girl kidnapped from her Alabama home earlier this week has been found safe in Murfreesboro … An unfortunate fire on New Years Day left a Westmoreland family with nothing to start the new year … A horse-mounted Metro police officer was hit with a car shortly after midnight on New Years (well, sort of).