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Three people have been killed and three are missing after a deadly landslide barrelled down a rain-soaked mountainside and smashed into homes in Alaska.

The slide – estimated to be 450ft (137m) wide – happened at around 9pm on Monday during a storm near Wrangell, an island community of 2,000 people.

The landslide left a scar of barren earth from near the top of the mountain down to the ocean. A wide swath of evergreen trees was ripped out of the ground and a road was buried by debris, cutting off access and power to dozens of homes.

Rescue crews found the body of a girl in an initial search and the bodies of two adults were later found by a drone operator.

Two children and one adult remained unaccounted for after the disaster, with searchers on land using a sniffer dog while coastguard and other vessels looked along the shoreline.

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“Our community is resilient,” Wrangell interim borough manager Mason Villarma said.

“And it always comes together for tragedies like this. We’re broken, but resilient and determined to find everybody that’s missing.”

Alaska state governor Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration for Wrangell, saying he and his wife were heartbroken and praying for all those affected.

Another storm system is expected in the Wrangell area late on Wednesday into Thursday.

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First victim in Jaws has died aged 77

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First victim in Jaws has died aged 77

The swimmer who was the first victim in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws has died. 

Susan Backlinie died in her home in California at the age of 77, according to her agent. Her death was first reported by The Daily Jaws website.

The opening scene of Steven Spielberg‘s classic features Ms Backlinie running along the beach and before diving into the water and skinny dipping.

The poster for the film Jaws. Pic: HA/THA/Shutterstock
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The poster for the film Jaws. Pic: HA/THA/Shutterstock

Her character Chrissie Watkins is then suddenly pulled under the water and she screams as she is violently attacked by an unseen great white shark.

Ms Backlinie had been a champion swimmer when cast in the film. She told The Palm Beach Post in 2015 that Spielberg told her: “When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum.

“I think we did that,” she said.

In the documentary, Jaws: The Inside Story, Spielberg called Ms Backlinie’s sequence “one of the most dangerous” stunts he’s ever directed.

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“She was actually being tugged left and right by 10 men on one rope and 10 men on the other back to the shore, and that’s what caused her to move like that.”

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Ms Backlinie worked with Mr Spielberg again in the 1979 parody war film 1941, in which she spoofed her Jaws character.

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Patient who had first ever pig kidney transplant dies two months after procedure

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Patient who  had first ever pig kidney transplant dies two months after procedure

The first person to have a pig kidney transplant has died nearly two months after the procedure.

Richard “Rick” Slayman, 62, underwent the four-hour transplant at a hospital in Boston in March.

It marked the first time a genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into a living patient. Surgeons said they believed the organ would last for at least two years.

Slayman’s family announced his death yesterday, thanking the doctors who carried out the world-first surgery for their “enormous efforts”.

They said the animal-to-human transplant – known as a xenotransplant – gave them “seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts”.

Rick Slayman in his hospital room at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Pic:Michelle Rose/Massachusetts General Hospital
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Rick Slayman in his hospital room in March. Pic: Michelle Rose/Massachusetts General Hospital Hospital

The transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said they did not have any indication he died as a result of the transplant.

Slayman, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, previously had a kidney transplant at MGH in 2018, but had to go back on dialysis last year after it showed signs of failure.

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As he needed frequent procedures as a result of dialysis complications, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.

His family said Slayman wanted to undergo the procedure to give hope to those on waiting lists for transplants, adding: “Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever.”

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Massachusetts General Hospital; Mass General; MGH;  PHOTO ASSIGNMENT...Project description.Drs. Kawai and Elias will be transplanting a genetically modified pig kidney into a living recipient ... the first in the world. I will defer to them on the exact time and location of the procedure, but they would like it documented for historical purposes. The procedure will last approximately 3-4 hours. ..Photographer.Michelle Rose..
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Pic: Michelle Rose/Massachusetts General Hospital

Pig kidneys had previously been transplanted into brain-dead donors, but only temporarily. Two men have also received hearts from pigs, with both dying within months of their prodecures.

A month after Slayman’s transplant, New Jersey’s Lisa Pisano became the second person in the world to undergo a pig kidney transplant, and the first to have surgery while also having a mechanical heart pump surgically implanted.

The 54-year-old said she “took a chance” after suffering heart and kidney failure, which left her too ill to qualify for a traditional transplant.

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More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the US – most need a kidney, but thousands die waiting.

In the UK, the NHS said that in the year to March last year, there were 6,959 patients waiting for an organ transplant.

It said 439 patients died while on the active list waiting for it and a further 732 were removed from the transplant list, “mostly as a result of deteriorating health and ineligibility for transplant”.

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Oprah Winfrey speaks of ‘biggest regret’ as she opens up about weight loss struggles

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Oprah Winfrey speaks of 'biggest regret' as she opens up about weight loss struggles

Oprah Winfrey has admitted playing a role in perpetuating diet culture during her career and said a dieting item from a 1980s show was one of her “biggest regrets”.

The 70-year-old star – who has been ranked among the most influential women in the world – has been open about her struggles to maintain a healthy weight and attempts to lose weight.

In March she said “making fun of my weight was a national sport” for more than two decades.

In comments reported by NBC, Sky’s US partner, the talk show host told a livestream and live audience: “I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years.

“I’ve been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight loss shows and makeovers I have done and they have been a staple since I’ve been working in television.”

Pic: AP
FILE - In this Nov. 15, 1988 file photo,m talk-show host Oprah Winfrey shows off her new figure in Chicago after she lost 67 pounds following a liquid diet and exercise. On Friday, Nov. 20, 2009, Winfrey announced during a live breoadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show, in Chicago that her powerhouse daytime television show, the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire with legions of fans, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air. (AP Photo/Charles Bennett, File)
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Oprah Winfrey shows off her new figure on a 1988 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show. File pic: AP


But she admitted an item on a 1988 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show was one of her “biggest regrets” when she rolled a wagon of fat on to the stage to represent the weight she had recently lost thanks to a liquid diet and exercise.

She had starved herself for months, she said, admitting that it “sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet and set a standard for people watching that I, nor anybody else, could uphold. The very next day, I began to gain the weight back.

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“I own what I’ve done, and now I want to do better.”

Winfrey was speaking on Thursday at an event organised by WeightWatchers, whose board of directors she joined in 2015, before saying in February she was leaving.

In 2016, she used an interview in the magazine O to reveal she had lost 12kg, sharing the cover with nine other woman to celebrate their “best body”.

In the issue, Winfrey said, “It was my idea to share the cover with other women who are on the same journey that I am. My own struggles with the scale are well known. I’ve never believed in hiding them.”

FILE - In this March 6, 2018 file photo, Oprah Winfrey attends The Museum of Modern Art's David Rockefeller Award Luncheon honoring Oprah Winfrey at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York. Winfrey is leaving WeightWatchers board of directors and donating all of her interest in the company to a museum. Shares of WW International Inc. tumbled more than 23% in Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 trading. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
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Oprah Winfrey in 2018. File pic: AP

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In December, she told People she had started taking a weight loss drug, saying she used it “as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing.

“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.”

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