By SAMUEL PETREQUIN and JOSEPH WILSON

PARIS (AP) — Barcelona recorded its hottest June in over a century, the summit of Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors and hundreds of French schools shut on Tuesday as Europe sizzled in its first major heat wave of the summer.

Health warnings remained in effect in several European countries. The worst was felt in southern Europe while punishing temperatures were forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in Paris and to stay unusually high in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Men jump into the water on a hot day in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

The abnormally hot weather “is exposing millions of Europeans to high heat stress” with temperatures in June more typical of July and August, said Samantha Burgess of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This June is likely to be among the five hottest on record, it said.

Barcelona’s Fabra Observatory reported an average temperature for last month of 26 C (78 F), breaking records since books were started in 1914. The previous hottest average for June was 25.6 C in 2003. The same weather station said that a single-day high of 37.9 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) for June was recorded Monday.

Hot Mediterranean soup

Barcelona is usually spared the worst heat in Spain, thanks to its location between hills and the Mediterranean in Spain’s northeastern corner. But most of the country has been gripped by the extreme heat.

“We are seeing these temperatures because we are experiencing a very intense heat wave that has come early in the summer and that is clearly linked to global warming,” Ramón Pascual, a delegate for Spain’s weather service in Barcelona, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

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Pascual added that the inhabitants of the Mediterranean region are not being helped by the rising sea temperatures, which greatly reduces any cooling effects of a nearby body of water. Spain’s weather service said that recent surface temperatures for the Mediterranean near the Balearic Islands are between 5-6 degrees Celsius higher than average.

“With water surface temperatures from 26-30 Celsius (78-86 F), it is difficult for our nights to be refreshing,” he said.

Spain’s national average for June of 23.6 degrees Celsius (74 degrees Fahrenheit) was 0.8 C hotter than the previous hottest June in 2017. It was also the first time that June was hotter than the average temperatures for both July and August.

Spain also saw a new high mark for June established on Saturday when 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in the southern province of Huelva.

The streets were scorching as well in Spain’s capital, with Madrid forecast to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), as people tried to keep cool by drinking refrigerated drinks and sticking to the shade. But the hot nights offered little relief.

“Today is very bad, but yesterday wasn’t any better. So we’re just surviving,” said Miguel Sopera, 63. “At night it’s impossible due to the terrible heat.”

France suffocates

In France, the national weather agency Météo-France placed several departments under the highest red alert, with the Paris region particularly hard hit. More than 1,300 schools in the country were partially or fully closed.

Visitors to the Eiffel Tower without tickets were told to postpone their visits as the summit of the city’s landmark was closed until Thursday. The operators said the closure was “to ensure everyone’s comfort and safety.”

Climate experts warn that future summers are likely to be hotter than any recorded to date. By 2100, France could be up to 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius expected every year and extreme heat spikes potentially reaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

Man dies in Italy

Farther south, 17 of Italy’s 27 major cities were experiencing a heat wave, according to the health ministry.

There were torrential rains in Italy’s north on Monday and parts of Bardonecchia near Turin were covered in sludge after the Frejus river burst its banks.

People use umbrellas in hot weather to shelter from the sun while walking past the Colosseum, in Rome, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Near Bologna, one of the cities under a heat alert Tuesday, the 46-year-old owner of a construction company collapsed and died while repaving a school parking lot, state-run RAI reported. An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause, but heat was suspected.

The Netherlands is sweating

In the Dutch town of Soest, first responders said they were bringing a firehose to an early evening water gun fight.

“Bring your water pistol and swimming clothes with you, because you’re guaranteed to get soaked!” the firefighters said in an Instagram post.

Portugal’s record

The Portuguese weather service issued a statement Monday night confirming the highest single temperature ever recorded in mainland Portugal for the month of June at 46.6 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) on June 29 in the town of Mora, west of Lisbon. The prior record was 44.9 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit) in 2017.

Wildfires in Turkey

Firefighters across Turkey tried to contain wildfires that have forced the evacuation of some 50,000 residents for the third consecutive day.

Relieving animals in Prague

Temperatures were expected to reach 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by Wednesday in large parts of the Czech Republic, including the capital.

The Prague zoo distributed up to 10 metric tons of ice daily across the park, with especial attention given to polar bears native to the Arctic.

Zoo director Miroslav Bobek said twin brother bears Aleut and Gregor looked pleased when they found parts of their open-air enclosure covered with a thick layer of ice Tuesday morning. They rolled on their backs and discovered frozen pieces of squid.

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Iain Sullivan in Madrid, Mike Corder in The Netherlands, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Karel Janicek in Prague and David Biller in Rome contributed to this report.

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Trump administration rules that give millions of people a shorter timeframe to sign up for the Affordable Care Act’s health care coverage are facing a legal challenge from Democratic mayors around the country.

The rules, rolled out last month, reverse a Biden-era effort to expand access to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance, commonly called “Obamacare” or the ACA. The previous Democratic administration expanded the enrollment window for the coverage, which led to record enrollment.

The Department of Health and Human Services rolled out a series of new restrictions for Obamacare late last month, just as Congress was weighing a major bill that will decrease enrollment in the health care program that Republican President Donald Trump has scorned for years. As many as 2 million people — nearly 10% — are expected to lose coverage from the health department’s new rules.

The mayors of Baltimore, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio sued the federal health department on Tuesday over the rules, saying they will result in more uninsured residents and overburden city services.

“Cloaked in the pretense of government efficiency and fraud prevention, the 2025 Rule creates numerous barriers to affordable insurance coverage, negating the purpose of the ACA to extend affordable health coverage to all Americans, and instead increasing the population of underinsured and uninsured Americans,” the filing alleges.

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Two liberal advocacy groups — Doctors for America and Main Street Alliance — joined in on the complaint.

The federal health department announced a series of changes late last month to the ACA. It will shorten the enrollment period for the federal marketplace by a month, limiting it to Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 in 2026. Income verification checks will become more stringent and a $5 fee will be tacked on for some people who automatically re-enroll in a free plan.

Insurers will also be able to deny coverage to people who have not paid their premiums on past plans. The rules also bar roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children from signing up for the coverage.

HHS said in a statement that the polices “are temporary measures to immediately tamp down on improper enrollments and the improper flow of federal funds.”

The mayors — all Democrats — argue that the polices were introduced without an adequate public comment period on the policies.

“This unlawful rule will force families off their health insurance and raise costs on millions of Americans. This does nothing to help people and instead harms Americans’ health and safety across our country,” said Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, which is representing the coalition of plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit does not challenge the Trump administration’s restriction on immigrants signing up for the coverage.

The Biden administration saw gains in Obamacare enrollment as a major success of the Democratic president’s term, noting that a record 24 million people signed up for the coverage, thanks to generous tax breaks offered through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

But the program has been a target of Trump, who has said it is riddled with problems that make the coverage unaffordable for many without large subsidies. Enrollment in the program dipped during his first term in office.

When Royce Lewis pulled up at first base in pain a couple weeks ago in Houston, it evoked fears of a more serious injury, much like the one he suffered a few months back. On the same type of play, Lewis strained his left hamstring while running during a spring training game and it cost him the first 35 games of the season.

But pretty quickly after the second injury occurred on June 14, the Twins said they believed the hamstring injury to be mild, and on Tuesday Lewis was activated from the injured list. His return comes as the Twins are in Miami for a three-game series against the Marlins set to begin Tuesday night.

The move has been all-but-official for days because the Twins made the corresponding move to clear a space on the roster on Sunday night, when the Twins outrighted infielder Jonah Bride for release or assignment. Acquired for cash from the Marlins in April, Bride was hitting .208 with a .511 OPS while playing sparingly. Notably, he pitched in four games for the Twins, handling six innings of mop-up duty.

Lewis returns after spending the weekend playing for Triple-A St. Paul, where he went 0 for 8. After going through an 0-for-36 stretch earlier in his season, Lewis had been hitting .393 with three extra-base hits in the nine games before his injury.

Because of the two hamstring injuries, Lewis has played in just 30 games for the Twins this season, entering Tuesday hitting .202 with a .585 OPS. During his latest absence, Brooks Lee saw a majority of the playing time at third base. On Tuesday, Lee was in the lineup at second base with Lewis back at third, hitting eighth.

Culpepper named to Futures Game

Kaelen Culpepper’s solid start to his minor league career has earned him a trip to the Futures Game later this month in Atlanta.

Culpepper, drafter by the Twins 21st overall in the 2024 draft, began his season at Class-A Advanced Cedar Rapids, where he hit .293 with nine home runs, 34 RBIs, 15 stolen bases and 63 hits in 54 games before earning a promotion. Entering Tuesday, in eight games at Double-A, the shortstop was hitting .273 with a pair of home runs.

Culpepper, the Twins’ No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline, is their only representative at the game, which will take place at 3 p.m. CT on July 12 at Truist Park in Atlanta, days before the All-Star Game is held there.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Flossie strengthened to a Category 2 cyclone Tuesday off the Pacific coast of Mexico and could become a major hurricane before weakening later this week, forecasters said.

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The National Hurricane Center said Flossie had maximum sustained winds at 110 mph and that rain was falling over parts of coastal Mexico. The hurricane was centered 180 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. On Tuesday afternoon, it was on the brink of becoming a Category 3 hurricane.

The hurricane was forecast to continue strengthening and could be a major hurricane as soon as Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. A major hurricane is classified as Category 3 or higher, with maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

Flossie was moving to the northwest at 10 mph and was expected to generally continue that motion over the next few days. The system should move away from southwestern Mexico by Tuesday night, forecasters said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Punta San Telmo to Playa Perula. Rainfall totals up to 6 inches were possible in some areas, the hurricane center said.

Forecasters expect Flossie to rapidly weaken starting late Wednesday.