Good morning and welcome to Kid News! I'm Kim, today is Wednesday, January 12, 2022, and

we begin with a giant sea dragon that swam the seas 180 million years ago, turning up

in the UK. The fossilized spine of an ichthyosaur was found on the beach of an English reservoir,

and at 33 feet long, with the skull alone weighing one ton, it's a discovery experts are calling

mind-blowing. The ichthyosaur was a massive marine reptile that looked like a dolphin could grow

to 82 feet long and lived right alongside dinosaurs. Paleontologists say it is the best archeological

find of its kind in 100 years. It's not the Omicron News anyone wants to hear. According to the

World Health Organization, more than half of Europe will likely catch it in the next six to eight

weeks. In China, a third city has now been locked down due to the spread, meaning 20 million people

can't leave their homes. And here in the states, COVID hospitalizations have reached a new record

high, passing the previous peak in January 2021. Still, some experts believe the troubling numbers

shouldn't keep kids out of the classroom. A WHO doctor said yesterday that through this wave

and future ones, schools should be the last to close in the first to reopen. Those are words to

live by in Chicago, where today kids are back in class after a four-day stalemate between teachers

and the city over COVID safety measures. Medical history was made in Maryland, and it could be a

game-changer for the tens of thousands of Americans waiting for a life-saving organ. Last week, doctors

transplanted the heart of a pig into a human. 57-year-old Dave Bennett was basically out of other

options. He was too sick to be considered for a human heart, and the clock was ticking.

Four days post-op, he's doing well, but doctors know the next few weeks are critical to making sure

his body doesn't reject it. The pig that provided the heart had been specifically bred to be a donor,

and its heart had been genetically modified to better match with a human. Dave's son calls his

dad's surgery and recovery so far, nothing short of a miracle.

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