PLUM, Pa. >> Four people were dead and a fifth was unaccounted for following a house explosion in western Pennsylvania that destroyed three structures and damaged at least a dozen others Saturday morning, authorities said.

Allegheny County officials said three people were taken to hospitals after the blast shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the borough of Plum, about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Three people were transported to area hospitals, including one who was listed in critical condition and two who were treated and released. More than 20 firefighters were evaluated, many for heat exhaustion, authorities said.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office was expected to provide additional information about the deceased victims.

Emergency officials suspended operations Saturday night due to weather and concern for the safety of investigators. Crews resumed working at the site on Sunday morning.

Emergency responders reported people trapped under debris after one house apparently exploded and two others were engulfed in flames, county spokesperson Amie Downs said.

Crews from at least 18 fire departments worked to douse the flames with the help of water tankers from Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, Downs said.

Officials told reporters at the scene they did not know exactly who was at home and who may have had visitors at the time of the explosion, so they could not provide an exact number of people considered missing.

Anesthesiologists warn about weight loss drugs

Patients who take blockbuster drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss may face life-threatening complications if they need surgery or other procedures that require empty stomachs for anesthesia. This summer’s guidance to halt the medication for up to a week may not go far enough, either.

Some anesthesiologists in the U.S. and Canada say they’ve seen growing numbers of patients on the weight-loss drugs who inhaled food and liquid into their lungs while sedated because their stomachs were still full — even after following standard instructions to stop eating for six to eight hours in advance.

The drugs can slow digestion so much that it puts patients at increased risk for the problem, called pulmonary aspiration, which can cause dangerous lung damage, infections and even death, said Dr. Ion Hobai, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“This is such a serious sort of potential complication that everybody who takes this drug should know about it,” said Hobai, who was among the first to flag the issue.

Nearly 6 million prescriptions for the class of drugs that include Wegovy and Ozempic were written between January and May in the U.S. for people who don’t have diabetes, according to Komodo Health, a health care technology company. The drugs induce weight loss by mimicking the actions of hormones, found primarily in the gut, that kick in after people eat. They also target signals between the gut and the brain that control appetite and feelings of fullness, and by slowing how fast the stomach empties.

Lew may be choice for Israel ambassador

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is frontrunner for the post of U.S. ambassador to Israel, Axios reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Lew, 67, who also served as Barack Obama’s budget director and as White House chief of staff, could be nominated by President Joe Biden in the coming weeks, Axios reported. Lew has reportedly told former White House colleagues he’s interested in the job.

Other candidates include Stuart Eizenstat, a former U.S. ambassador to the European Union; and three former Democratic members of Congress, Robert Wexler, Steve Israel and Ted Deutch, now CEO of the American Jewish Committee, according to sources Axios didn’t identify.

Biden hasn’t made a final decision, the news outlet cited a U.S. official as saying. The White House and a representative for Lew declined to comment to Axios.

Shippers urged to avoid Iranian waters

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Western-backed maritime forces in the Middle East on Saturday warned shippers traveling through the strategic Strait of Hormuz to stay as far away from Iranian territorial waters as possible to avoid being seized, a stark advisory amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.

A similar warning went out to shippers earlier this year ahead of Iran seizing two tankers traveling near the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil passes.

While Iran and the U.S. now near an apparent deal that would see billions of Iranian assets held in South Korea unfrozen in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans detained in Tehran, the warning shows that the tensions remain high at sea. Already, the U.S. is exploring plans to put armed troops on commercial ships in the strait to deter Iran amid a buildup of troops, ships and aircraft in the region.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Mideast-based 5th Fleet, acknowledged the warning had been given, but declined to discuss specifics about it.

Junta in Niger gains upper hand

NIAMEY, Niger >> One week after a deadline passed for mutinous soldiers in Niger to reinstate the country’s ousted president or face military intervention, the junta has not acquiesced. No military action has been taken and the coup leaders appear to have gained the upper hand over the regional group that issued the threat, analysts say.

The West African bloc ECOWAS had given the soldiers that overthrew Niger’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum until last Sunday to release and reinstate him or they threatened military action. On Thursday, the bloc ordered the deployment of a “standby” force to restore constitutional rule in Niger, with Nigeria, Benin, Senegal and Ivory Coast saying they would contribute troops.

But it’s unclear when, how or if the troops will deploy. The move could take weeks or months to set into motion, and while the bloc decides what to do the junta is gaining power, some observers say.

Poland plans referendum on immigrant crisis

WARSAW, Poland >> Poland’s ruling party wants to ask voters in a referendum whether they support accepting “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa” as part of a European Union relocation plan, the prime minister said Sunday, as his conservative party seeks to hold onto power in an October parliamentary election.

Mateusz Morawiecki announced the referendum question in a new video published on social media. It indicated that his party, Law and Justice, is seeking to use migration in its election campaign, a tactic that helped it take power in 2015.

Poland currently hosts more than a million Ukrainian refugees, who are primarily white and Christian, but officials have long made clear that they consider Muslims and others from different cultures to be a threat to the nation’s cultural identity and security.

EU interior ministers in June endorsed a plan to share out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization, the root of one of the bloc’s longest-running political crises.

FAA investigating near collision in San Diego

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a close call between a business jet and a Southwest Airlines plane on Friday at San Diego International Airport.

In a statement, the agency said it was investigating a “go-around” incident that happened around noon. A “go-around” refers to when an aircraft aborts a landing.

The Cessna Citation business jet had to abort its landing because a Southwest Boeing 737 was still on the runway waiting to depart, officials said.

An air traffic controller had initially cleared the business jet to land on Runway 27 and then instructed Southwest Flight 2493 to taxi onto that same runway before departing, the FAA said in a statement.

The facility’s automated surface surveillance system notified the controller of the situation, and the controller then instructed the pilot of the Cessna to abort its landing.

‘Fantasticks’ co-creator Jones dies at 95

Tom Jones, who wrote the book and lyrics for a modest musical called “The Fantasticks” that opened in 1960 in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood and ran for an astonishing 42 years, propelled in part by its wistful opening song, “Try to Remember,” died Friday at his home in Sharon, Connecticut.

He was 95.

His son Michael said the cause was cancer.

— From news services