Los Angeles:

At least two people were confirmed dead after two small planes collided midair at the Marana Regional Airport in the US state of Arizona, officials said.

A Cessna 172S and Lancair 360 MK II collided while upwind of runway 12 on Wednesday morning, according to preliminary information from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The planes that collided were identified as a Cessna 172S and a Lancair 360 MK II, both fixed-wing, single-engine aircraft, the NTSB said in a statement on X.

The NTSB, which is leading the investigation into the incident, said that based on preliminary information, the aircraft “collided while upwind of runway 12”, which is one of two runways at the airport.

Both planes were smaller fixed-wing single-engine planes, according to the Marana Police Department.

The Marana Police Department is currently on scene at the airport.

The NTSB added that the Cessna “landed uneventfully” while the Lancair “impacted terrain near runway 3 and a post-impact fire ensued”.

No information about the victims was provided.

The deadly collision comes just weeks after a helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger plane in Washington DC, killing all 64 passengers and three crew members.

The same week, a small medical transport plane crashed into several buildings in the US city of Philadelphia, killing all six people on board and at least one other person on the ground.

On Monday, a Delta Air Lines flight in Toronto skidded along the runway in flames before flipping over and coming to a dramatic halt upside down. All 80 people on board survived.

on February 6, a small plane carrying 10 people crashed in Alaska after losing speed and altitude and vanishing from the radar. The Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, heading from the village of Unalakleet to the town of Nome, was recovered. No one survived, the Alaska Department of Public Safety confirmed.

On February 10, two private jets collided at Scottsdale Airport in Arizona, killing one person and injuring four.

The flurry of crashes in the US was then followed by one in Canada on Monday. A Delta Air Lines regional jet carrying 80 people crashed and flipped at Toronto Pearson International Airport, leaving nearly two dozen injured but no deaths.

The latest crash comes as the US aviation sector on Wednesday called on Congress for emergency funding for air traffic control technology and staffing.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An asteroid lights up the night sky as it burns up in the atmosphere, as seen from Ballesteros, Philippines, September 5, 2024, in this still image obtained from social media video
| Photo Credit: Via Reuters

A small asteroid discovered on Wednesday (September 4, 2024) harmlessly burned up in Earth’s atmosphere the same day, NASA said.

The asteroid — about 3 feet (1 meter) across — was spotted by astronomers in Arizona and broke apart over the coast of the Philippines hours after the discovery.

This space rock, dubbed 2024 RW1, is only the ninth to have been spotted before its impact. Asteroids around this size hurtle toward Earth about every two weeks without posing any danger.

The asteroid was discovered through the Catalina Sky Survey, which is run by the University of Arizona and funded by NASA.

Washington:

An Arizona man is wanted after threatening over social media to kill former President Donald Trump, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said on Thursday.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is in Cochise County as he visits the U.S. border with Mexico as part of his campaign.

The man, Ronald Lee Syvrud, 66, has multiple outstanding warrants from Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said.

“No, I have not heard that but I am not that surprised and the reason is because I want to do things that are very bad for the bad guys,” Trump said when asked about that threat against him in Arizona.

This is the latest in a series of threats against candidates ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

In early August, a Virginia man was charged with threatening Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival, and a New Hampshire man was arrested in December for threatening to kill Republican presidential candidates.

In July, Trump was shot in his ear in an attempted assassination that left two others injured and one man dead.

The U.S. Secret Service came under widespread scrutiny following the shooting. It resulted in the resignation of the agency’s director.

Despite this and new threats, Trump said he has “great respect” for the Secret Service and “the job they do,” while adding they made mistakes from which they will learn.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A health alert has been issued in the state of Arizona, in the United States, after a rodent-borne hantavirus killed four people. The virus spreads to humans through droplets from the urine, saliva, or faeces of the rats.

From January to July, the Arizona Department of Health Services documented seven instances of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, a serious and occasionally lethal respiratory disease.

Two cases related to this deadly virus have also been found in California. The virus, primarily carried by deer mice in the Grand Canyon State, causes symptoms such as fever, headache, and muscle pain, which can rapidly progress to difficulty breathing. While hantavirus is not spread from person to person, it can occur in various regions and is not limited to a specific area.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents and can cause varied disease syndromes in people worldwide. This can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), the CDC website says.

Symptoms:

Hantavirus symptoms start with fatigue, fever, muscle aches, headaches, chills, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Late symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath, with a 38% mortality rate for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) symptoms appear 1-8 weeks post-exposure, causing headaches, pain, fever, chills, nausea, and blurred vision. Severe cases may lead to low blood pressure, shock, vascular leakage, and kidney failure. Recovery can take weeks or months.

Treatment:

The CDC says there is no specific treatment, cure, or vaccine for hantavirus infection. However, if the infected are recognised early on and are provided medical care in an intensive care unit, they may do better. In intensive care, patients are intubated and given oxygen therapy to help them through the period of severe respiratory distress.

Prevention:

According to the Centres for Disease Control, rodent control is the primary necessity to prevent hantavirus infections. Contact with rodent urine, droppings, saliva, and nesting materials should be avoided when cleaning rodent-infested areas.

A 59-year-old man died in southeastern Kentucky, United States, this week after he was attacked by a swarm of bees, according to a county coroner. The man was stung while moving an old bag of potting soil from his porch in Harlan County, which is near the Virginia state line and about 160 miles southeast of Lexington.

In a statement, the Harlan County Coroner’s Office said that on the evening of September 19, 2023, the Coroner’s Office was notified of the tragic death of a 59-year-old male who was stung by a swarm of bees after moving an old bag of potting soil from his porch. Deputy Coroner John W. Jones responded to the scene and pronounced the gentleman dead at 5:50 p.m. in the Harlan ARH Emergency Room. CPR was started by family and continued by Lifeguard Ambulance and the Emergency Department, but attempts to revive the man were unsuccessful.

“The immediate family has been notified, but the coroner’s office will withhold the name of the dead person until all family members can be reached. The investigation still continues by Deputy Coroner Jones, and our heartfelt prayers go out to the entire family and friends,” the department said.

According to Fox News, earlier this year, an 83-year-old Arizona man died after authorities say bees swarmed and stung him at his home in Peoria. During that incident in June, first responders received a medical call and found the man in full cardiac arrest after suffering numerous bee stings.