James Valentine was at a friend’s birthday party last December when the first signs that something was seriously wrong with the ABC radio star suddenly appeared.

“My friend Tom has been celebrating his 40th birthday every few years for a while now and it’s a good party,” Valentine remembers.

“But as usual the bar was free and there was no food.”

Help arrived with three takeaway containers of Thai food delivered to the pub’s party venue about 9.30pm and Valentine gobbled down the massaman beef ‘like a dog blowing up Pal’.

What happened next led the 62-year-old to a doctor’s surgery and a diagnosis of esophageal cancer.

A few minutes after eating the takeout, Valentine began choking and gagging. His wife Joanne said: ‘That’s not right.’

As Valentine clung to a pole in the street outside the hotel, Joanne insisted he visit her sister’s endoscopy clinic for a gastroscopy.

After the procedure, a gastroenterologist confirmed that Valentine was not suffering from some kind of “old man’s reflux disease.”

“It’s bad,” the doctor said.

‘You have a 4 cm tumor where your esophagus meets your stomach.’

The ABC Radio Sydney afternoon show host’s life changed in an instant.

Valentine revealed details about his cancer diagnosis on Thursday in a first-person piece written for the national broadcaster’s website.

At the beginning of that article, addressed directly to his listeners, the former saxophonist for Melbourne band Models said, “I’m doing absolutely fine right now.”

In January, Valentine began five weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. He will soon undergo surgery to remove his esophagus.

“I was immediately given chemo and radiation, but only a mild dose intended to shrink the tumor and clean out the body before surgery,” he wrote.

‘I got tired from the radiation, the chemo made me feel like my whole body was laced with liquid aluminum foil, but I was able to go to work, turn on the radio and even do a few gigs with the saxophone.’

The operation to remove Valentine’s cancerous esophagus will be carried out in a few weeks, during which his stomach will be stretched and attached to his throat to replace the digestive organ.

“I’ll probably feel like crap for a long time afterward,” he wrote. ‘It is likely that I will recover, although that may take several months.

“I will never eat massaman beef again and I think we’ll all be happy about that.”

An ABC spokesperson said there had been an outpouring of care and concern for Valentine since Thursday, with listeners offering messages of support.

Valentine presented the ABC’s Sydney afternoon program for 20 years before holding down breakfast for two years until late 2023, when it was announced he would return to his old shift.

There was an indication that Valentine was unwell on his Facebook page in February when a fan posted: ‘Please stop with mondayitis, we’d love to hear from you 5 days a week on (Radio Sydney).’

ABC management had known about Valentine’s diagnosis since December, but the announcer decided not to tell his listeners until this week.

“I thought about telling the ABC Radio Sydney audience earlier but decided I would just come back to the afternoons,” he wrote.

“It’s a cheerful show overall, so let’s enjoy ourselves there for a few months instead of being in the shadow of my illness all the time.”

Valentine said he expected to be off the air for two or three months, he wrote in his piece.

“I’m going to make sure I’m fully recovered and my stomach stays attached to my neck before I try to broadcast again.”

In the middle of a Canadian city lies an abandoned shopping center that serves as a time capsule for the ’90s, as a fascinating documentary reveals.

Filmmaker Jake Williams was granted access to the City Center Mall in Hamilton, Ontario, and he took a thorough walk around to examine its innards.

He was shocked to discover that the mall – which opened in 1990 after a CA$150 million investment and closed in 2022 – appeared frozen in time, with the interior “completely preserved and completely unchanged.”

In one scene, he enters a former office, where he finds clothes in a closet, photos lying around and a retro computer on the desk. As he turns the camera around, he says, “Oh my God, has anyone been here since 1990?”

“There are pictures of them building this room… and painting it. I think I accidentally entered the 1994 office. This is bizarre…the clothes are scattered everywhere,” he added.

In another scene, Jake ventures to the mall’s food court, where he finds the remains of several eateries, including a Persian restaurant and an Italian that sells a plate of pasta for CA$3.99.

Other items on the menu include 12 wings for CA$10.99 and a hot chicken sub for CA$5.49.

While looking around the dining room, Jakes tells viewers that “the whole place stinks like hell.”

Of the food court design, he says the aqua green “chairs and tables bring back so much nostalgia” and “even the hip cans are straight out of the 90s.”

As Jake walks through the mall, viewers get a sense of its scale, with the main atrium having a grand vaulted ceiling and a glass elevator providing access to two balcony levels.

When it was open, the City Center Mall offered more than 50,000 square feet of commercial space, and hundreds of people worked in the sprawling building.

Jake reveals that the mall was originally called the Hamilton Eaton Center and has faced several hurdles over the years as footfall declined. After the name change and sale to a new owner, it finally closed its doors on December 26, 2022.

In Jake’s film, it appears that after closing most of the contents are left behind.

A Dollar Store in the mall still has “closing sale” stickers taped to the outside, along with other signs informing shoppers that a 70 percent discount applies to all merchandise.

At the discount store, Jake discovers that many unsold items have been thrown away, while he also notices a ‘wall of shame’ behind the cash registers with photos of unruly customers still taped up.

In another part of the building, Jake discovers an office space that was used as a call center, with cubicles still intact and decorated with headsets.

Meanwhile, another corner of the mall was converted into a gym to attract customers. However, no machine was left behind.

Regarding the condition of the building, Jake says that the “disrepair doesn’t look that bad, but when you look in certain corners it starts to show that this building has only just been here.”

He notes that there is water damage in some parts of the structure, with the “paint starting to peel.”

His images also show that some interiors, such as the elevator doors, have been vandalized with graffiti.

After the shopping center closed, there were ambitions to demolish it to make way for a $1 billion mixed-use residential and retail development, but plans are currently on hold.

The developer who bought the abandoned mall, IN8 Developments, said CBC in December 2023 that it had “halted the project and demolition until the real estate market improves.”

Company Chairman Darryl Firsten offered hope to the city’s residents, adding, “In the meantime, we will continue to refine and improve our design.” It will be a great project.’

Women worldwide are now having fewer children on average than previous generations.

The trend, which leads to greater access to education and contraception, more women taking up jobs and changing attitudes toward childbearing, is expected to shrink the populations of dozens of countries by 2100.

Dr. Jennifer Sciubba, author of 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World, told MailOnline that people are choosing to have smaller families and the change “is permanent.”

“So it’s wise to focus on working within this new reality, rather than trying to change it,” she said.

Sex education and contraception

An increase in education and access to contraception is one of the reasons behind the decline in the global fertility rate.

Education about pregnancy and contraception has increased, with sex education classes starting in the US in the 1970s and becoming compulsory in Britain in the 1990s.

“There’s an old saying that ‘education is the best contraception’ and I think that’s relevant” to explaining the fall in birth rates, said Professor Allan Pacey, an andrologist at the University of Sheffield and former chairman of the British Fertility Society.

Elina Pradhan, a senior health specialist at the World Bank, suggests that better-educated women may choose to have fewer children because they fear they will earn less if they take time off before and after giving birth.

In Britain, three in 10 mothers and one in 20 fathers report having to reduce their working hours because of childcare, ONS data shows.

They can also become more exposed to different ideas about family sizes through school and the connections they make during their education, which encourages them to think more critically about the number of children they want, she said.

And better-educated women may know more about prenatal care and child health and may have greater access to health care, Ms. Pradhan added.

Professor Jonathan Portes, an economist at King’s College London, said women’s greater control over their own fertility means that “households, and women in particular, both want and are able to have fewer children.”

More women are entering the workplace

There are more women in the workplace now than there were fifty years ago – 72 percent compared to 52 percent – ​​which has contributed to the halving of the global fertility rate over the same period.

Professor Portes also noted that the decline in birth rates may also be due to the structure of labor and housing markets, expensive childcare and gender roles, which make it difficult for many women to combine career ambitions with having a family.

The British government has implemented “the most anti-family policies of any government in living memory” by cutting back on services that support families, along with benefit cuts that “deliberately penalize low-income families and children,” he added.

As more women enter the workplace, the age at which they start a family has shifted. Data from the ONS shows that the most common age at which a woman born in 1949 gave birth was 22. But women born in 1975 were most likely to have children at age 31.

In another sign that late motherhood is on the rise, half of women born in 1990, the most recent cohort to reach age 30, remained childless at age 30 – the highest rate ever recorded.

Women repeatedly point to work-related reasons for delaying having children, with research showing that most women want to move up the career ladder before becoming pregnant.

However, this move could lead to women having fewer children than they had planned. In the 1990s, just 6,700 IVF cycles took place each year in Britain – a technique to help people with fertility problems have a child. But this shot up to more than 69,000 in 2019, suggesting more and more women are struggling to conceive naturally.

Decreasing sperm count

Reproduction experts have also raised alarms that biological factors, such as declining sperm counts and changes in sexual development, could threaten human survival.

Dr. Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, wrote a landmark study in 2017 that found that worldwide sperm counts have fallen by more than half over the past four decades.

She warned that ‘chemicals everywhere’, such as phthalates in toiletries, food packaging and children’s toys, are to blame. The chemicals cause hormonal imbalance, which can cause “reproductive devastation,” she said.

Factors such as tobacco and marijuana smoking and rising obesity rates may also play a role, Dr. Swan said.

Studies have also shown that air pollution lowers fertility rates, suggesting that air pollution causes inflammation that can damage egg and sperm production.

However, Professor Pacey, an expert on sperm quality and fertility, said: ‘I really don’t think changes in sperm quality are responsible for the decline in birth rates.

‘Actually, I don’t believe the current evidence that sperm quality has deteriorated.’

He said: ‘I think a much bigger problem for falling birth rates is the fact that: (a) people are choosing to have fewer children; and (b) they wait until they are older to get them.”

Fear of bringing children into the world

Choosing not to have children is cited by some scientists as the best thing a person can do for the planet, compared to reducing energy use, travel and making food choices based on their carbon footprint.

Scientists at Oregon State University calculated that each child adds approximately 9,441 tons of carbon dioxide to a woman’s “carbon legacy.” Each ton is equivalent to driving around the entire circumference of the world.

Experts say the data discourages climate-conscious people from having children, while others opt out of having children because of fears about the world they will grow up in.

Dr. Britt Wray, a human and planetary health fellow at Stanford University, said the decline in fertility rates was due to “fear of a deteriorating future due to climate change.”

She was one of the authors behind a Lancet survey of 10,000 volunteers, which found that four in 10 young people are afraid of giving birth because of climate concerns.

Professor David Coleman, emeritus professor of demography at the University of Oxford, told MailOnline that people’s decision not to have children is “understandable” due to adverse conditions such as climate change.

A fascinating map shows how bears, wolves and lynx are distributed across Europe and how close they are to holiday destinations.

For thousands of years, the land predators have lived across the continent, from eastern areas of Poland and Romania to Italy, France and Spain.

Today, some of their habitats are closer to tourist destinations than visitors may realize. And a recent bear attack, which hospitalized two people in the Slovak town of Liptovský Mikuláš on March 15, has drawn attention to their presence.

Find out how close your favorite European holiday spot is to bears, wolves and lynx using the interactive map below from MailOnline Travel, based on data from the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE).

Brown bears

According to research, up to 18,000 brown bears live in 22 countries in Europe the LCIEciting data from 2016.

France and Spain are among popular holiday destinations with a growing population of brown bears. This includes Spain’s Cantabrian Mountains, which number between 321 and 335, and the French Pyrenees, where there are 30.

The animals, which can weigh up to 50 pounds (320 kg), can also be found in a part of the Alps that includes Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland. The population here is between 45 and 69 years old.

The largest population (7,360) is found in the Carpathians of Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

While the most far-reaching group is the ‘Dinaric-Pindos’ (3,950), which spans Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.

Wolves

According to figures from Statistics Netherlands, there are approximately 17,000 wolves spread across Europe the LCIEwith nine population groups in 27 countries – more than half of the 44 in Europe.

A growing number of wolves prowl the central European lowlands of Germany and Poland, where between 780 and 1,030 wolves live, as well as in the Alps of Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland (420 to 550).

Just like the brown bears, the Carpathians have a healthy wolf population (3,460 to 3,849). But unlike the bears, this extends to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

The largest wolf population is the Dinaric-Balkan group (about 4,000), found in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.

Other groups include those in northwestern Spain and Portugal (estimated at 2,500 in 2007), Finland (about 200), and Norway and Sweden (about 430).

Lynx

Europe is home to 8,000 to 9,000 lynxes, spread across 11 groups in 21 countries. LCIE data shows.

The predators, which feed on animals such as deer, birds and sheep, are mainly found in Finland, which has a stable population of 2,500 people.

As with bears and wolves, a large population is found in the Carpathian Mountains (2,100 to 2,400) of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

Other groups include the Scandinavian lynx found in Norway and Sweden (1,300 to 1,800), the Jura lynx found in France and Switzerland (140), and the Baltic lynx in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine (1,200 to 1,500).

The only two growing populations are found in the Harz Mountains of Germany (46) and the Alpine region of Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland (163).

ARTHUR CAZAUX has been forced to withdraw from his match against Harold Mayot after collapsing on the pitch.

The 21-year-old Frenchman was locked in a third set against compatriot Harold Mayot when he fell to the ground while waiting for his return.

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As Cazaux lay on his back, a medic ran onto the court to help him.

The referee then also got out of his chair and walked over to inspect the scene.

According to Cracked Racquets reporter Damian CoastCazaux was taken off the track in a wheelchair after his retirement.

Mayot won the first set 6-4, before Cazaux fought back to take the second 7-5.

The 22-year-old was serving at 1-2, 30-30 in the deciding set when Cazaux fainted while waiting for his return.

The temperature in Miami today reached 31 degrees Celsius, with humidity around 70 percent.

Mayot will now meet former world number 7 David Goffin for a place in the main draw.

After receiving criticism on social media for his response to Cazaux’s collapse, Mayot wrote: ‘Stop starting a false controversy for nothing.

“It was a few games ago that he wasn’t feeling well and started having cramps.

“I didn’t see him fall and I thought he was down because he had cramps. When I understood that it was serious, I immediately went to him and was very worried.

‘I did my best to help. There is nothing but a great friendship and complicity between us, and there always has been.

“You need to stop sending your hate all the time. I wish him a good recovery and all the best.’

Cazaux currently sits at career-high 74 in the ATP rankings.

Last week he reached the round of 16 of a Challenger event in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lost a close match to former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini.

Earlier this year he made a huge breakthrough by reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open.

He defeated Laslo Djere in the first round before memorably pulling off a huge upset by knocking out eighth seed Holger Rune in the second.

Cazaux backed up the result by beating 28th seed Tallon Greekpoor in round three.

He then bowed out to ninth seed Hubert Hurkacz in the last 16.

After his enormous result Down Under, Cazaux was given a hero’s welcome in his hometown of Montpellier.

He performed a ceremonial kick-off during Montpellier’s Ligue 1 match against Lille in January, before competing in the Open Sud de France the following week.

GARS has been classified as one of the oldest living fossils in a recently published study.

The study, published in the journal Evolution and conducted by researchers at Yale, looked at gars for their incredibly slow evolution.

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“We show that the slow molecular evolution of Gars has hampered their rate of speciation,” said Thomas J. Near, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and senior author of the paper. Phys.Org.

“Fundamentally, this is the first example in which science shows that a lineage, through some intrinsic aspect of biology, meets the criteria of living fossils.”

THE GAR

Gars, one of the oldest groups of ray-finned fish, belongs to the family Lepisosteidae.

The fish have elongated bodies and elongated jaws with long, sharp teeth.

The largest type of gar – the alligator gar – often grows to a length of more than 8 feet and can weigh more than 100 pounds.

LIVING FOSSILS

All jawed vertebrates, which include about 60,000 species, have the slowest molecular evolution.

Basically, this means that their genome has changed very little since their ancestors emerged about 150 million years ago.

“Gars are notable for their low anatomical variation,” the study reads.

“The earliest Jurassic fossils are virtually identical to living species, and recognizable members of living genera appear in the fossil record as early as the middle Cretaceous.”

This very small change in their physical form, and compared to extinct ancestors, are two of the three characteristics that make gars a “living fossil,” lead author Chase Brownstein said. Living Science.

The third is that the species has diversified into a small number of related species.

For the study, researchers used computer analysis to study gene sequences that came from common ancestors.

These are known as orthologs and have helped determine the rate of mutation or gene substitution over time.

“Once a mutation fixes and changes a particular DNA sequence, it becomes a replacement,” Brownstein said.

The researcher added that it is of great importance to identify exactly how gar genomes have remained so stable.

“There is also a mechanism behind the low replacement rate,” he said.

“There is some type of device that we think is probably related to DNA repair.”

The team hopes to analyze their findings further, as this research could provide insight into people’s genetic health – and cancer-related issues in particular.

The ex-girlfriend of an American football star is fighting for her life after a horror collision after being involved in a shootout on the streets of St. Louis.

Ellie Bentley, 22, finally regained consciousness on Saturday after spending two weeks in intensive care following the 3am incident on February 25.

The British woman, who moved to the US last year with her then boyfriend Indiana Vassilev, got out of her car when a gunfight broke out.

Bentley took cover and hid under a nearby vehicle as bullets began flying in St. Louis’ Grove neighborhood.

But unbeknownst to her, the car she took refuge in was occupied with a male driver who fled in an attempt to escape the pandemonium.

Police responded to the scene at 2:52 a.m. on February 25 after reports of shots fired after a group reportedly tried to get into the wrong car.

The confusion prompted 35-year-old Andre T. Wilson to open fire on the group, hitting a 25-year-old man five times in the chest, according to Wilson’s arrest affidavit reported by First warning 4.

Wilson is then said to have fled on foot, while the victim was rushed to hospital in a critical but stable condition.

At the same time, witnesses reportedly apprehended officers after Bentley was struck in the collision before being dragged several blocks down the street.

The alleged driver of the vehicle was quickly identified as Dionte Taylor, 25, who was charged with leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily harm.

Prosecutors then charged Wilson a week after the shooting with first-degree assault, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm. He is being held without bond.

Bentley was rushed to hospital after suffering several broken limbs and was placed in intensive care for two weeks before finally being released on Saturday.

She has since undergone five major reconstructive surgeries and will undergo more surgeries in the near future.

Her family has since traveled from Britain to be by her side as she continues to recover GoFundMe page set up to help pay for rising medical costs.

However, her attorney, Ben Tobin, said her road to recovery will be long.

“She had just gotten out of a car when the shooting started,” he explained The sun.

“She ducked behind another vehicle until the shooting stopped, but then the person whose car she was hiding behind floored her, hit her, ran her over and dragged her for a few blocks.”

Tobin said Bentley had no connection to any of the parties involved in the shooting and was simply an unfortunate bystander.

“She was pretty sure she was going to die when she was dragged under the vehicle,” he said.

“The whole time she was laying there trying to hold on and do what she could so she didn’t get thrown under the wheel.”

Tobin noted how video footage appeared to show that the driver who struck Bentley was well aware of her presence as he fled the scene, running her over in the process.

“Based on the video, there is no way the person who hit, ran over and dragged her could claim that he did not know she was under the vehicle when he left,” he said.

A witness to the horror crash, Mollie Schwein, said she was woken in the early hours of the morning by screams coming from outside her nearby apartment.

“I heard him scream, ‘I’ve been shot,’ and it became very real,” she said First warning 4.

Schwein added that she heard several women screaming in the street when police arrived at the shooting, and another witness said they saw employees at a nearby bar run over to help Bentley on the street.

Bentley, originally from Bingham, east of Nottingham, moved to Missouri last year when Vassilev, 23, joined MLS side St. Louis FC.

When she moved, she shared on a Facebook group for Brits moving to the US that she was “actively looking for a job in St. Louis,” and that she was being helped with her visa paperwork by her friend’s soccer club.

She said at the time that she was looking for positions in the “university, non-profit or government research field.” Her GoFundMe said she had a work visa, but it is unclear where she started working.

Originally from Savannah, Georgia, Vassilev signed for Villa from 2020 but made just four appearances with the team after being loaned out to play for Burton Albion and then Cheltenham Town.

He eventually returned to the United States in 2021 and played two seasons with Inter Miami before signing with St. Louis City last year.

Bentley graduated from York University last summer with a degree in mathematics and physics.

‘Like most 22-year-olds, I loved dancing, going to the gym and yoga, and spent two to three hours a day on physical fitness. Now I cannot move my legs or my right arm,” Bentley said in a statement through her attorney.

The lead rescuer deployed to find five Swiss skiers who died in a brutal Alpine storm has described how the doomed crew desperately tried to make an igloo for shelter but panicked and became delirious before ultimately freezing to death.

Air Zermatt chief Anjan Truffer explained how his team discovered several bodies scattered on the mountain after the six-person strong group, five from the same family, pushed on with a tour despite hurricane-force winds of up to 70mph being forecast.

‘First we found two people lying on the snow, severely hypothermic. Thanks to sounding poles and avalanche locators, we later found two more people lying under the snow cover. We had to shovel these out. 

‘Another person was lying about 30 meters away. When we found the people, they were very lightly dressed… they ended up disorientated at high altitude,’ he told Swiss outlet NZZ.

He added that the ski tourers had tried to build a cave and protect themselves from the gales – in temperatures of -30 degrees C with windchill – to no avail. 

‘That’s actually a good idea. But the group didn’t have the necessary equipment with them. They had shovels, but they were too light to do anything with this massive blanket of snow. Panic might’ve broken out and the group scattered,’ Truffer concluded. 

Mountain guide Klaus Aufdenblatten told Blick that the ski tourers were grossly underprepared for the ill-advised trip.

‘The alpinists completely underestimated the weather conditions. The wind in particular can develop enormous power,’ he warned.

Authorities have not yet confirmed the identities of all the deceased, but two victims were named as Jean-Vincent Moix and his brother David by friends and colleagues on social media. 

Another brother, a cousin and an uncle were also killed in the tragedy and a sixth person is still missing.

The group of six skiers, who ranged in age from 21 to 58, had left Zermatt Saturday morning with the goal of reaching the town of Arolla, near the Matterhorn mountain, later that day.

But as the group passed close to the Tete Blanche, a mountain peak between Zermatt and Arolla, the region was engulfed in a brutal storm that left the skiers stranded at an altitude of around 11,400ft (3,500 metres).

A member of the group sent a distress call to emergency services around 5pm on Saturday afternoon, authorities said, but helicopters and rescue teams were unable to deploy, such was the ferocity of the storm.

By the time a rescue team finally reached the mountain on Sunday evening, five of the six alpine enthusiasts had perished close to the Dent Blanche alpine cabin. 

Colleagues of Jean-Vincent paid tribute to him yesterday, including the mayor of Vex – a small village in the Swiss canton of Valais where the deceased had only recently been elected as a councillor.

The former private banker, who was also educated at the University of Westminster, was a keen mountaineer and had decided to switch careers.

Mayor Sebastien Menoud said: ‘It is such a huge tragedy to lose a colleague on the local council.

‘Our thoughts are with him, his family and those around him and we express our deepest condolences to them.

‘One knows that it is an immeasurable pain that his family is now confronted with.’

David also lived in Vex, and was a lawyer.

A friend of the brothers, Lucas Nanchen, posted on Facebook: ‘Why is it always the best ones leave first?

‘David (like his brothers) was the epitome of selflessness, always listening. David was very generous. Lowkey he never came forward and yet he could have.

‘The mountains of his region, which he knew by heart and cherished so much, took him away.

Last night, a group of around 300 people in Vex gathered for a memorial procession, laying candles before listening to a performance by a local brass band, of which Jean-Vincent was a member.  

Christian Varone, head of Valais cantonal police, told reporters yesterday that rescue workers had pulled out all the stops to try to reach the stranded skiers on Saturday evening but faced horrendous conditions.

‘We were trying the impossible,’ he said, adding that the mission had pushed its efforts ‘to the extreme, extreme limit’, but were forced to turn around to avoid ‘seriously endangering the lives of the rescue workers’.

‘Sometimes you have to bow before nature.’

Truffer confirmed that emergency services received a distress signal from one of the skiers at around 5:19pm local time on Saturday.

This, he said, gave rescuers a rough location in the Col de Tete Blanche, whose peak stands at 12,160ft above sea level.

Truffer told Blick that the weather was so bad that flying in to rescue the skiers simply wasn’t an option.

He said there were ‘very strong winds, heavy snow, high avalanche danger, and zero visibility’ which would leave rescuers ‘dead in two minutes’.

He added that when the group left Zermatt, the bad weather conditions were already known and he believes that the skiers were caught in the storm rather than struck by an avalanche.

With helicopters unable to brave the storm, five rescuers had tried to reach the rough location on foot from Zermatt, but they too were forced to turn back at an altitude of 9,840ft due to the bad weather, according to local media reports.

On Sunday, a team consisting of two rescue workers, a doctor and a mountain police officer, was finally able to be dropped off by helicopter nearby, police said.

‘At around 9:20 pm, it reached the Tete Blanche sector, where it discovered the bodies of five of the six people who were missing,’ it said in a statement.

The search is continuing for the last member of the group.

‘As long as there is hope we will keep going… while remaining realistic in view of the conditions this person has been in for the past 48 hours,’ Varone said.

Fredy-Michel Roten from the Valais Rescue Organisation told local press that six private rescue helicopters and two Swiss army Super Puma choppers are participating in the rescue mission along with dozens of specialist mountaineers.

Valais lead prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud told reporters that an investigation had been launched to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Zermatt is a popular mountain resort renowned for skiing and attracts tourists from around the world. 

Tete Blanche in particular is very popular with ski tourers who are attracted by the region’s renowned landscape and the challenging terrain it offers. 

The region hosts the esteemed Patrouille des Glaciers race, which sees ski tourers traverse a route from Zermatt through Arolla and on to Verbier. 

But the area is notoriously difficult to navigate during periods of poor visibility, and has proven fatal for even highly experienced skiers and mountaineers.

Nearly five years ago, tragedy struck when 14 members from two ski touring parties became disoriented amidst a fierce storm on treacherous slopes. 

The ensuing rescue operation endured for almost 21 gruelling hours before reaching the stranded groups. 

Seven people died, while the rest were evacuated with varying degrees of injury. 

Passengers and crew on a Boeing 787-9 flight from Sydney to Auckland were thrown into the roof of the plane after a sudden loss of altitude on Monday afternoon.

Up to 50 people were injured due to a ‘technical problem’ on the Chilean Latam Airlines flight, with multiple emergency workers and vehicles involved in the response.

Passenger Brian Jokat said that two hours into the three-hour flight, “the plane suddenly fell out of the sky.”

“The plane then started to dive and I just thought, ‘Okay, this is it, we’re done,'” he told the Stuff news website.

Mr Jokat said there was no turbulence after the incident and after the flight landed in Auckland the pilot ended up in the back of the plane ‘shocked’.

‘I asked, “What happened?” and he said, ‘My gauges just went out, I lost all my ability to fly the plane.’

Another passenger on the flight, Priscilla Waller-Subritzky, said she was watching a movie when the plane suddenly fell and “a number of passengers and crew were thrown into the roof of the plane.”

“I went into fight mode and just started jumping and helping where I could because the crew was injured so they couldn’t help,” she told the New Zealand herald.

Thirteen patients, one of whom was in a serious condition, were taken to Middlemore Hospital, a St John ambulance spokesman said.

“Our ambulance crews assessed and treated approximately 50 patients, with one patient in a serious condition and the remainder in a moderate to mild condition.

“To date, 13 patients have been transported to Middlemore Hospital by ambulance,” they said in an update issued shortly after 7pm local time.

Previously, the spokesperson said: ‘We were notified at 3.58pm and are currently on scene with four ambulances, two operations managers, a major incident support team vehicle, a command unit and two rapid response vehicles.’

A woman who was on the LA800 Dreamliner service flight said she experienced a “quick little drop” during the flight.

“I was a flight attendant and this is the first time I’ve ever… the whole plane froze,” she said.

An Auckland Airport spokesperson said the emergency services team assisted St John following a request for medical support.

In a statement, Latam Airlines said the flight “had a technical problem during the flight that caused a strong movement,” but the plane landed as planned.

“As a result of the incident, some passengers and cabin crew were affected. They received immediate assistance and, if necessary, were evaluated or treated by medical staff at the airport.

“Latam regrets any inconvenience and harm this situation may have caused to its passengers, and reiterates its commitment to safety as a priority within the framework of its operational standards.”

It was the second incident involving a plane that took off from Sydney International Airport on Monday.

Previously, United Airlines Flight 830 to San Francisco was forced to turn around after a mid-air emergency.

A leak was reportedly discovered on board the Boeing 777-300 aircraft and it landed back in Sydney at 2.34pm, just over two and a half hours en route.

Firefighters met the aircraft on the tarmac.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, United Airlines said the plane had been diverted to Sydney ‘due to a maintenance issue’.

“The aircraft landed safely and the passengers disembarked normally at the gate,” the report said.

‘We are offering passengers an overnight stay and rebooking them for San Francisco tomorrow.’

More to come…

Jorgie Porter’s dog came to her rescue during a terrifying armed robbery.

The Hollyoaks actress, 36, was sleeping at her country home in Cheshire with her businessman fiance Ollie Piotrowski and their son Forest, 11, when their Doberman Stella made a noise to raise the alarm.

Jorgie and her fiancé jumped out of bed to check their security cameras and were shocked to discover a pair of intruders, who fled as soon as they heard the dog’s barking.

Speaking on the Invitation Only podcast, she explained: ‘Our dog Stella saved us. She chased them away so they wouldn’t come in.

“But it was the scariest thing because we were all involved [the house]. And you can see from the CCTV footage that they were carrying things… we don’t know what they were holding.

‘I was sleeping, but Ollie heard Stella barking in a different way. So he went to check on her, and when he looked outside…the lights [on the system] were disabled.

Jorgie – known to soap fans as Theresa McQueen in the Channel 4 series – added that her fiancé called the police and soon there was a ‘gang’ of family and friends surrounding her home.

She said: ‘He called the police and then they came. Yes, it was terrible. [Afterwards] we had all these friends and relatives around.

‘We had a gang in the house who camped together.

“You just don’t know what they’re going to do, if they’re going to come back, or whatever.”

The actress even felt like she had to beg the police to stay with them for a while and they agreed.

She added: ‘I even said to the police, ‘Can you please take care of us?’ And they said, ‘Yes, we certainly can.'”

After the events of the scary night, Jorgie even considers asking a second canine companion to watch her, just like Stella did.

She added: ‘We were even looking for another dog because we thought, you know, that was so brilliant what Stella did.

“We joke that we gave her a paycheck and a security badge!”

A few days ago, Jorgie and Ollie, who have been dating since 2020, shared photos of their luxurious getaway to St. Lucia with their son.

She also explained that the heartbreak of past miscarriages made them “stronger” as a couple, and Oliver emphasized the importance of being open about their raw emotions.

The couple welcomed Forrest in December 2022 after tragically miscarrying quadruplets at 14 weeks in August 2021.

The Hollyoaks actress then suffered a second miscarriage in February 2022, six weeks into a new pregnancy – on the day of the couple’s engagement party.

In a joint interview, the couple spoke to Cheshire Life about how they have coped with the loss of their baby.

Jorgie explained that their heartbreak made them “stronger” as a couple, and Oliver emphasized the importance of being open about their raw emotions.

She said: ‘We felt it was important to talk to each other and try to be open and honest about how we were feeling. We have been through the toughest times and it has made us stronger. Having Ollie by my side gave me the most support.

Oliver added: “I think it’s really important to take each day as it comes, to take each emotion as it hits, whether it’s anger or sadness.

‘I think as a man you can feel helpless. I wanted to protect Jorgie and take her pain away, but in reality you can only be there for each other.’