Baby That Had Spinal Surgery While in the Womb Can Now Walk and Run


Piper-Kohl playing outside – SWNS

A little girl whose parents were told she would never walk is now running around like other 5-year-olds after receiving emergency spinal surgery while still in the womb.

This miracle of modern medicine was available to first-time parents Georgia Axford and Tyler Kelly, then just 19 and 21, who were told their unborn baby had spina bifida after an ultrasound at 20 weeks.

The condition causes weakness or paralysis in the lower limbs, and the parents were told it was likely their child wouldn’t walk.

The couple decided to travel to Germany for treatment, which saw the unborn baby operated on in the womb at a cost of just £9,000, or around $11,500.

Piper-Kohl Kelly was then born healthy in July 2018 and named after surgeon Dr. Thomas Kohl. Now five, she can walk and run and recently took part in her school’s sports day.

“Seeing her run on the tracks was amazing. I never thought she’d be able to do something like that,” said Georgia. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel real. I think back to what we were told, and they were really negative about Piper’s diagnosis.”

Spina bifida can leave sufferers dependent on supports or crutches, and in severe cases, they can be wheelchair-bound. Doctors were confident that this would be the case for Piper-Kohl.

Georgia hails from South Yorkshire, in the Northeast of England. For all the stress and negativity of the diagnosis, and even though Piper was induced at 32 weeks and sat in the neonatal intensive care unit for 52 days, they ended up getting the chance to live a normal life from the same moment as other babies.

“When she was around two, her physio gave her a walking frame—she doesn’t use it anymore, but we have it in case she needs the support,” Georgia explains. “She used it for about a year while she was starting to walk, but now she walks completely independently.”


Typer, Piper-Kohl, and Georgia, together after she left the hospital – SWNS

“She does get really tired and can’t go for really long distances, but she does so well, especially considering what we were told,” she said.

An additional heartwarming part of the story is that Piper’s surgeon, Dr. Thomas Kohl, is a family friend who receives routine updates about Piper’s progress, with the two even sharing the same birthday.

While the family’s journey hasn’t been easy by any means, Georgia and Tyler are filled with pride over their daughter’s progress and are hoping to continue to witness the “kind and caring girl” do anything she puts her mind to.

“It’s a miracle that she’s been through it and is who she is today. She’s been through a lot in her life,” said Georgia. “She loves coloring and anything to do with arts and crafts. She loves school, and she has a really good group of friends. She beats the odds all the time and whatever she does, I’ll be so proud of her.”

[Misstee]

Pittsburgh couple's dog eats $4,000 cash
By Ben Hooper




Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A Pittsburgh couple whose dog ate an envelope filled with $4,000 cash said they were able to recover $3,550 -- but it was dirty work.

Clayton Law said he and his wife, Carrie, were having a fence installed at their home in the Point Breeze neighborhood, and the workers requested to be paid in cash, so he left an envelope filled with $4,000 in $100 and $50 bills on the kitchen counter.

Law said he returned to the kitchen about 30 minutes later to find Cecil, the couple's 7-year-old goldendoodle, making a meal out of the cash.

"I walked back into the room and then all this cash was on the ground. He's just like this, standing there, and I'm just like oh my gosh, he ate some of this money and was in shock. I yelled to Carrie, 'He ate the money, he ate $4,000,'" Law told KDKA-TV.

The couple set about trying to reassemble the shredded bills, and came up with $1,500 worth of bills with serial numbers that were intact enough to have them replaced by their bank.

A couple more $100 bills were retrieved later in the evening when Cecil vomited, but the rest of the money involved a lot of waiting -- and a whole lot of very dirty work.

The couple sifted through Cecil's droppings for the next two days and used a utility sink to wash the shreds of paper so they could be taped back together.

"I never thought I'd be able to say I've laundered money, but there is apparently a first time for everything," Carrie Law told The Washington Post.

In the end, the couple were able to salvage $3,550.

The couple said they are going to mail the rest of the bill remnants to the U.S. Treasury Department in the hopes of recovering more of the money, but if not, they will at least have a fun story to tell their son one day.

"We've kept at least one of the torn-up bills so we can do a piece of artwork and frame it to commemorate the entire situation," Carrie Law said. "Not that we'd ever forget."

The Laws said Cecil, who is normally very well-behaved and has never so much as stolen food from the counter before, is out of the doghouse.

"We couldn't be mad at him -- he's a very lovable dog," Carrie Law said. "People often tell us there's a human trapped inside our dog."

[goldie0608]

'Bizarre-Looking' Babirusa, or 'Pig Deer,' Born in Miami Zoo

The newborn babirusa "remains isolated with its mother in a secluded holding area," shared Zoo Miami



A baby babirusa was recently born at Zoo Miami.

The rare endangered babirusa — which means “pig deer” in the Malay language — was born on Dec. 15, 2023, the zoo announced on Instagram Tuesday.

This was the first time a babirusa was born at the zoo. The swine's sex is still undetermined because it remains in isolation with its mother.

The baby “pig deer” is the first offspring for both its mother, Maggie, and father, Harry. Maggie is a 5-year-old babirusa from the St. Louis Zoo, and Harry is a nearly 5-year-old from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

Although the baby and mother remain in isolation, the father can be seen by zoo visitors. The isolated babirusas will remain out of public display for the next several weeks so the newborn can adapt to its habitat.

Babirusas are native to Indonesia and found in wet climates — such as swamps and rainforests. The zoo shared that the species can live around 10 years in the wild but can double its lifespan while under the care of humans.

Currently, the species' “greatest threats are habitat loss and hunting for food,” per the zoo’s announcement.

The babirusa is an omnivorous animal and will “eat almost anything” - even sometimes their young - shared Zoo Miami.

Per the zoo, the animal is “considered to be one of the most bizarre-looking” swine amongst the variety of different wild swine species.

The “pig deer” name comes from “the strange appearance of males whose tusks look like antlers growing on the top of their heads,” Zoo Miami shared in the Instagram caption. The babirusa has a set of upper tusks that grow up through the top of its face and has a second set of tusks on the lower jaw.

The upper tusks can curl back into the animal’s face, while the lower tusks curl in upward motion and away from the babirusa’s head. Males and females are primarily hairless, and females do not have tusks.

New Images Reveal The Surprising Truth About What Neptune Really Looks Like


Newly reprocessed images reveal the true hues of Uranus (left) and Neptune (right). (Irwin et al./University of Oxford)

A fresh analysis of some old images has revealed that we've been wrong about Neptune this whole time.

For decades, since Voyager 2 flew past Neptune and Uranus taking up-close portraits on the way, scientists have wondered why the two planets – extremely similar in most ways – were such noticeably different colors.

Uranus, the Voyager 2 pictures suggested, appeared the pretty aqua shade of a duck's egg. Neptune, on the other hand, seemed to be the darker hue of lapis lazuli.

Given that the atmospheric compositions of the two planets are almost identical, the difference was startling. And puzzling.

Now, however, scientists have reprocessed the data and revealed that we had it deeply incorrect, all along. Uranus and Neptune actually very close in color. There's a difference, but it's much smaller than previously thought.

The reason for the misconception is that Voyager 2 recorded its images of the planets in two separate color bands – and the images of Neptune were processed in such a way to emphasize contrast, and deepen its true color, making it appear more blue than it is in reality.


WE ARE ACTUALLY SHOOK. (Irwin et al./University of Oxford)

"Although the familiar Voyager 2 images of Uranus were published in a form closer to 'true' color, those of Neptune were, in fact, stretched and enhanced, and therefore made artificially too blue," explains planetary physicist Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford.

"Even though the artificially-saturated color was known at the time amongst planetary scientists – and the images were released with captions explaining it – that distinction had become lost over time. Applying our model to the original data, we have been able to reconstitute the most accurate representation yet of the color of both Neptune and Uranus."

Scientists have known for a long time that the Voyager 2 images didn't reflect the colors of Uranus and Neptune entirely accurately, but it was unclear what the colors actually were.

Irwin and his team harnessed two powerful instruments to find out, Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Very Large Telescope's Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer.


Reprocessed Hubble images of Uranus and Neptune. (Irwin et al./University of Oxford)

They used the data from each telescope to independently determine the true color of both Neptune and Uranus, and then used that information to reprocess, not just the Voyager 2 images but images obtained using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, which also have been previously processed to return a darker-hued Neptune.

The newly reprocessed images show that Neptune is much lighter than we thought; its color is closer to that of Uranus. The main difference is that Neptune is slightly bluer, which is probably the result of a thinner layer of atmospheric haze.

The new observations also solved another mystery – that of why Uranus changes color slightly over the course of its year, which lasts 84 Earth years. At solstice, when one of the poles faces the Sun, the planet appears slightly greener. At equinox, when the equator faces the Sun, Uranus is slightly bluer.


Series of images revealing the changing hue of Uranus. (Irwin et al./University of Oxford)

This has to do with Uranus' unusual orientation. It's tipped sideways so that its rotational axis is perpendicular to the orbital plane of the Solar System. The planet's poles are much less abundant in methane than the equator, which changes the way Uranus reflects sunlight there, since methane absorbs red wavelengths.

Additional modeling revealed a haze of methane ice that thickens as the planet moves from equinox to solstice, increasing the reflectivity. This is what gives the planet its fascinating changing hue, like a strange mood ring.

"The misperception of Neptune's color, as well as the unusual color changes of Uranus, have bedeviled us for decades," says astronomer Heidi Hammel, of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, who did not participate in the research.

"This comprehensive study should finally put both issues to rest."

The team's findings have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

[lush]

Angry Man Holds Plumber at Gunpoint Because His Quote Was Downright ‘Robbery’
110823*

A Spanish man from the city of Malaga was recently arrested after reportedly holding a plumber at gunpoint because he asked for too much money to fix a broken water pipe.

On November 4th, when the unnamed plumber received a call from a man asking for help with a broken water pipe in his home, he never imagined he would end up a hostage of the would-be client. Upon reaching the man’s home and seeing the problem that needed fixing, the plumber gave him an estimate of the cost, which caused the man to go into a rage. Apparently, he found the cost of the operation so obscenely high that he pulled out a gun and threatened to kill the man. The man’s neighbors called the police after hearing several boom-like noizes from his apartment windows, but when officers arrived, the assailant refused to release his prisoner, threatening to detonate a butane cylinder if anyone tried getting through his door.


Photo: Unsplash+/Getty Images

According to Malaga Hoy, at one point, the armed man appeared in the window of his apartment with his hostage, which gave police the chance to observe his firearm and determine that it was nothing more than a replica. Armed with this piece of knowledge, and having evacuated the entire building to avoid an even bigger tragedy in case the butane cylinder threat was real, police began negotiating with the armed man.

After back-and-forth negotiations, police managed to convince the armed man to open his front door slightly, so they could confirm that his hostage, the plumber, was ok. When the door opened, special forces stormed in, overwhelming the man and rescuing the victim. The plumber later confirmed that the man started being aggressive after hearing his quote for fixing the leaky water pipe. It’s unclear how much he had asked for…

The enraged man is currently in police custody and will probably spend time behind bars.

Snail That Gives Birth To Live Young Reveals Evolutionary Leaps Happen Gradually
The egg came first in the case of the snail, but its leap to live birth happened through a series of small changes.



Egg laying was the go-to for snails for millions of years – but at some point in the last 100,000, a group of marine snails ditched eggs in favor of live birth. The switch happened in the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, and scientists have now discovered that it was driven by around 50 genetic changes. The rare opportunity to study the genetic architecture of an evolutionary change has revealed that the secret isn’t making one huge leap, it's about the accumulation of many gradual changes.

That Littorina saxatilis is a live-bearing snail is about the only obvious trait that separates it from its egg-laying neighbors because it exhibits a wide diversity of shell types and habitats. This may explain why it’s one of the most misidentified creatures on the planet, having been given new species and subspecies names over 100 times according to The Guardian.

To get a better idea of what sets these marine snails apart at a genetic level, a team of researchers led by Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) postdoc Sean Stankowski looked at the family tree of L. saxatilis and its relatives using whole-genome sequences. Doing so revealed that the ability to give birth to live young was linked to 50 genetic changes scattered across the snail’s genome and identifying them was made easier because of the degree of interbreeding among snails in L. saxatilis's range, which can lead to gene exchange across species.

“In this case, it’s what gives us the chance to find the genes involved in live-bearing evolution, because the genetic background has gotten mixed up by all this interbreeding," Professor Roger Butlin from the University of Sheffield’s School of Biosciences told IFLScience. "That’s why the genes responsible for the live-bearing stand out against the background.”



Tracing back through the wealth of genetic information revealed that live-bearing young in marine snails emerged gradually over the last 100,000 years as a series of mutations accumulated. However, we don't yet know which of those incremental changes were pivotal in the striking change in reproductive strategy.

"Exactly which one was needed specifically for the live-bearing trait, I think we can’t say at the moment,” continued Butlin. “All of the 50 occur together in all the live-bearing snails, so it looks like many of them are necessary – together – for live-bearing. But some of them, we think, are probably responsible for other things that go with live-bearing, like the change to breeding all-year-round instead of breeding only in one season.”

As for why they made the move, it's possible that transitioning from egg-laying to live-bearing could benefit these snails by making their young less susceptible to drying out, getting crushed, or being predated before they had a chance to hatch. But that doesn't mean it didn't incur some costs for the parent.

"The extra investment in offspring would have almost certainly placed new demands on the snails’ anatomy, physiology, and immune system," Stankowski said in a statement. "Many of the genomic regions we identified are likely involved in responding to these types of challenges."



Understanding how big changes like this come about in evolution is something we rarely get an opportunity to look into as it happens so slowly and across a broad range of species, many of which are extinct. The University of Sheffield team says that this rare example to study the genetic architecture of evolutionary change demonstrates that game-changing innovations occur through incremental steps – it doesn't take a giant genetic leap to establish striking new functions.

Not only does this teach us about some of the big evolutionary shifts of the past, like how feathers led to flight, but it can also give us an idea of how future changes may occur in response to things like climate change, and which species are unlikely to adapt the thermal regulation required to survive it.

“By discovering and studying the recent evolutionary shift in the way marine snails give birth, we’re now able to understand these major changes and apply our methods to many other evolutionary shifts,” said Butlin in another statement.

“Our results will change the way biologists view major evolutionary transitions, shifting the focus away from big leaps in evolution towards understanding the progressive benefits of small evolutionary steps. They will also help others dissect the genetic and historical basis of other adaptive traits, which is important when many organisms are being forced to adapt rapidly to a changing world.”

The study is published in the journal Science.

https://www.iflscience.com/snail-that-g ... ally-72291

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
FRIDAY JANUARY 5
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[ozswede]

'Miracle' escape for 'drunk' Irish woman, 19, after leaving French Alps nightclub in T-shirt and shorts and getting lost in a forest in sub-zero temperatures

A young Irish woman had a 'miracle escape' after leaving a nightclub in the French Alps in shorts and a T-shirt and getting lost in sub-zero temperatures.

The 19-year-old, who has not been named, had been drinking heavily during a ski holiday in the popular Les Deux Alps resort, police said.

'She was drunk when she left a club at around 4am on Wednesday morning,' said a local police spokesman.

'She was only wearing shorts and a T-shirt and had no idea where she was going.'

Experiencing temperatures of -1C, the woman wandered through the Combe de Venosc mountain forest before managing to dial 112 – the number for the emergency services in France.


The 19-year-old had been drinking heavily during a ski holiday in the popular Les Deux Alps resort

But she could not remember personal details, including her own phone number, which was blocked from showing.

An operator finally managed to establish her father's number back in Ireland, however, and he was alerted.

This finally led to the police sending the woman a message containing the Genloc geolocation app, which allows the authorities to locate lost people the moment they make a call.

After GPS beacons picked the woman's position up, patrols were despatched and she was found 'suffering from hypothermia' in the woods, at around 7am – three hours after leaving the nightclub.



Commander Ludovic Saint Bonnet, of the CRS (Republican Security Companies) police unit in the Alps, said: 'When we recovered her, she was suffering from some bruises, because she must have fallen while trying to find her way back and she was suffering from slight hypothermia.

'We can say that she is a miracle, because alone, so little dressed, she would not have been able to resist the cold for long.

'It was a real relief when the teams found her,' said Commander Saint Bonnet, saying drunk people had died in the past after 'while wandering in this part of the mountains.'

Commander Saint Bonnet called for better regulation, saying: 'Just because we go out to nightclubs shouldn't mean that we should forget to dress in accordance with the environment what surrounds us.'

The young woman was transported by helicopter to the Emergency Department of Grenoble University Hospital, where she continued to recover on Thursday.

She was expected to make a full recovery, before returning home to Ireland.

[Alessa9]

Largest male specimen of world's most venomous spider found in Australia

The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider, dubbed "Hercules", was found on the Central Coast and was initially given to a local hospital but has now found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park, where it will help save lives.



The largest male specimen of the world's most venomous spider has been found in Australia.

The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider was found on the Central Coast, about 50 miles north of Sydney, and was initially given to a local hospital but has now found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park, where it will help save lives.

Spider experts from the park retrieved the arachnid and soon realised it was the largest male specimen ever discovered by a member of the public in Australia.

Dubbed "Hercules", the spider measured 7.9cm (3.1in) from foot to foot, surpassing the park's previous record-holder from 2018, a male funnel-web named "Colossus".

Sydney funnel-web spiders have powerful fangs that can pierce a human fingernail and typically range in length from 1-5cm, with females being generally larger than males, though not as deadly.

They are predominantly found in forested areas and suburban gardens from Sydney to the coastal city of Newcastle in the north and the Blue Mountains to the west.



Hercules will contribute to the reptile park's antivenom programme.

Brooch purchased for under $25 expected to sell for up to $19,000



A brooch purchased for under $25 from a British antique store in the 1980s is now headed to auction and is expected to fetch up to $19,000 after an appearance on Antiques Roadshow.

Gildings Auctioneers said Flora Steel was watching a "Most Wanted Finds" clip from a 2011 episode of Antiques Roadshow when she recognized some sketches showed on screen from the Victoria and Albert Museum's archive.

The designs were for brooches designed by Victorian Gothic Revival designer and architect William Burges, and they reminded Steel of a piece she had purchased from an antique store for less than $25 in 1988.

"I decided to have a better look at the V&A drawing and lo and behold there was my brooch! I practically fell off my chair," Steel told the auction house.

Steel brought her brooch to the Christmas Eve special of the BBC One series, and appraiser Geoffrey Munn described it as a "breathtaking discovery."

The silver, coral, lapis lazuli and malachite brooch is now scheduled to be auctioned in the spring, and is expected to sell for up to $19,000.

"The brooch originally caught my eye for its strong design, strange lettering and unusual stones," Steel said. "I always loved it and thought that it was so particular in its design that sooner or later I would discover who had designed it."

Gildings director Will Gilding said Steel's piece is the third of Burges' brooches to be brought to the auction house as a result of the 2011 Antiques Roadshow episode.

"For it to happen once, amazing. Twice, remarkable! A third time? Pinch me," he said.

[Fatima99]

Incredible Pictures Show Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io in Stunning Detail



Incredible pictures show Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io in stunning detail in the closest flyby in twenty years.

NASA’s Juno space probe came within roughly 930 miles (1,500 km) from the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system on December 30th.

The space agency explained this pass, and others at the start of February are expected to allow Juno instruments to generate “a firehose of data.”

The orbiter has performed 56 flybys of Jupiter and documented close encounters with three of the gas giant’s four largest moons, Io, Ganymede, and Europa.

“By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes vary,” said Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

“We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”

The probe’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), which takes images in infrared, collected the heat signatures emitted by the 400 active volcanoes and additional extinct calderas covering the moon’s surface.

Io’s volcanism is responsible for many of its unique features. Its volcanic plumes and lava flows produce large surface changes and paint the surface in various subtle shades of yellow, red, white, black, and green, largely due to allotropes and compounds of sulfur.



“With our pair of close flybys in December and February, Juno will investigate the source of Io’s massive volcanic activity, whether a magma ocean exists underneath its crust, and the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter, which are relentlessly squeezing this tortured moon,” said Bolton.

Per other studies published on Io, the relentless squeezing comes from a mixture of forces, some known, others unknown. It’s known that the interior is subject to massive friction from the gravitational pull of mighty Jupiter and the other Galilean moons of Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede.

[rflash8]

This actually is big news – Microsoft is changing keyboards for the first time in decades



Microsoft is changing its PC keyboards for the first time in three decades – with a new key dedicated to its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

Almost anyone who uses a computer will be familiar with the ubiquitous Windows-style keyboard – unless you’ve been raised exclusively on Macs – including the Windows button, which made its debut almost 30 years ago.

It appears the new addition will sit on the opposite side of the keyboard, possibly replacing the right-hand ctrl button, and when pressed will fire up Microsoft’s new AI Copilot.

Writing in a blog post, Microsoft consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi said: ‘In this new year, we will be ushering in a significant shift toward a more personal and intelligent computing future where AI will be seamlessly woven into Windows from the system, to the silicon, to the hardware.

‘This will not only simplify people’s computing experience but also amplify it, making 2024 the year of the AI PC.’

The Copilot key will be introduced on Windows 11 PCs from this year, enabling users to quickly access the AI assistant, which can be used to help with productivity tasks such as organising files and windows on a user’s screen and carrying out more useful internet searches.



Microsoft is positioning itself as a leading player in the increasingly competitive field of AI. It is an investor in OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, which powers Copilot. Products in the Microsoft stable offering AI capabilities include Bing search and Microsoft 365.

Mr Mehdi added that the Copilot key would ‘empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily’.



‘Over the last year, we have been at the forefront of this shift, innovating and improving our product experiences with Copilot, your everyday AI companion, at the centre,’ he said.

‘The Copilot key joins the Windows key as a core part of the PC keyboard and when pressed, the new key will invoke the Copilot in Windows experience to make it seamless to engage Copilot in your day to day.’

For computers that do not have Copilot capabilities, or users not logged into a Microsoft account, the key will launch Windows Search.

Mr Mehdi confirmed that the first devices housing the new key would begin to appear ahead of and during CES, the technology trade show taking place in Las Vegas next week, and would go on sale from late February.

Elton John saved my life after I nearly lost it to alcohol



Tom Cridland nearly lost his life to alcohol — until Sir Elton John’s commitment to sobriety inspired him to do the same.

“At my lowest point, I could have lost my life. I fell down the stairs at Slough station and cut my head open,” the London resident told The Mirror.

“I once drank 20 cans of Stella in one sitting and couldn’t move for about a week after. Sometimes, my stomach was in so much pain that I couldn’t eat for days.”

Cridland, now 33, was known to turn a casual drink with friends into a booze-fueled bender and “wasn’t satisfied until I passed out,” spending hundreds attending parties and making “terrible business decisions, he recalled.

“I could not drink anything for 10 days but then spend an entire week boozing and blacking out,” he admitted.

It wasn’t until he was drunk in front of his in-laws and “made a complete fool” of himself while dining at a “nice restaurant” that he decided to turn his life around.

“I was mortified,” he said. “That got me to take it one day at a time.”

"I once drank 20 cans of Stella in one sitting and couldn't move for about a week after. Sometimes, my stomach was in so much pain that I couldn't eat for days," he said of hitting rock bottom.

He once feared that being sober would make him “boring,” but looking at the “Rocketman” singer’s “colorful and larger-than-life existence,” Cridland realized that wasn’t true.

The 76-year-old Grammy winner, who struggled with addiction and has been sober for more than three decades, helped him through his “darkest times,” and on Oct. 13, 2017, Cridland quit booze for good.

While he came close to relapsing during the COVID-19 pandemic, he listened to Elton John every day. He also taught himself how to play the piano to get him through — and even toured with an Elton John tribute band.

“If I hadn’t gone sober, I would be chain smoking and heavily drinking now,” he said. “I’d probably have physical and mental health problems, or I could have even died if I’d continued the way I was.”

Cridland joined an Elton John tribute band and toured.

Now, he no longer feels like his life “is spiraling out of control.”

“There are things I miss — like staying up late and wondering where the night will take you — but I’m at the stage where I can happily hang out with my friends while they’re boozing heavily and stay sober,” Cridland said.

He admitted: “It’s nice to not wake up several times a week and wonder how I got home.”

In March 2023, with help from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Cridland got to meet his idol at the star’s buzzy Oscar party. Prodded by his wife, Debra, to approach the superstar, he finally got to shake hands with the person who helped him through sobriety.

“I went over and thanked him for influencing me to quit drinking six years ago,” he said. “It was a bucket list moment and he was really kind.”

Cridland said the “Rocketman” crooner’s own battle with addiction inspired him to be sober. Tom Cridland

To anyone else struggling with addiction, Cridland offers three simple words: “Ask for help.”

“It’s very easy to cave in without support. You may need to go to rehab or see a counselor, there’s places you can go for free to get yourself help,” he said. “Accept that you’ve got to put your health first — you don’t need to do it alone.”

https://nypost.com/2024/01/04/lifestyle ... o-alcohol/

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Wild's Fleury becomes 4th goalie in NHL history to play 1,000 regular-season games


39-year-old joins Brodeur, Luongo, Roy after earning the start in loss to Jets

Marc-Andre Fleury became the fourth goalie in NHL history to play in 1,000 games on Sunday in the Minnesota Wild's game against the Winnipeg Jets.

Martin Brodeur (1,266 games), Roberto Luongo (1,044) and Patrick Roy (1,029) are the only goalies to have played in more games than the 39-year-old Fleury, who is in his third season with the Wild. He spent the bulk of his career in Pittsburgh, making 691 appearances in 13 seasons with the Penguins.

"Obviously very flattered by the reception from the crowd, from my teammates. It means a lot," Fleury said. "I feel very fortunate that I've played for so long and I got to do what I live for many years. I'm lucky for that."

A Flower in full bloom

Marc-Andre Fleury joins Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, and Patrick Roy as the only goalies in NHL history to reach the 1,000 games played mark.

Congratulations on this incredible achievement, Flower!


Fleury began the game third on the all-time victories list with 550, trailing Brodeur (691) and Roy (551). The Jets prevented him from tying Roy with a 3-2 victory.

"He's got 999 other ones he can probably celebrate," said Jets captain Adam Lowry, who beat Fleury for his 100th career goal on Sunday. "That's a tremendous accomplishment, an amazing career, and it was pretty cool to be able to share the ice with a guy like that."