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GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — Visitors to Grand Canyon National Park are being warned about extreme heat that will plague the popular destination early next week after a recent increase in heat-related incidents in the inner canyon, including the deaths of three hikers.

The U.S. National Weather Service issued an extreme heat watch at the Grand Canyon for midday Monday through Tuesday, forecasting temperatures that could reach or exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) at the low-elevation Phantom Ranch.

Hikers are “strongly advised” to avoid hiking in the middle of the day, the U.S. National Park Service said in a release this week following a “recent influx of heat-related incidents.”

An extreme heat watch was in effect on June 16 when two hikers, aged 67 and 68, were found dead on the North Kaibab Trail, which NPS describes as the most difficult of the major inner canyon trails. NPS said they appear to have succumbed to symptoms of heat-related illness.

A third person, 72, died June 12 along the South Kaibab Trail after becoming ill from the heat, NPS said.

About 90 miles (145 kilometers) south, Oak Creek Canyon visitors and residents were evacuated late Friday as a wildfire burned hundreds of acres just north of Sedona, Arizona.

Much of the western U.S. from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast were getting above-average temperatures Saturday and anticipating even hotter weather early next week. Officials also warned the prolonged dry, hot weather and relatively low humidity increased the risk of fire danger throughout the area.

Extreme heat increases risk of hiking at the Grand Canyon

Park and weather officials alike emphasize to Grand Canyon visitors that hiking conditions can be deceiving. Temperatures at the rim of the Grand Canyon are often 20 to 25 degrees F cooler than what hikers will experience at the bottom of the canyon.

“It’s just a hot place at the bottom of the Grand Canyon,” said Justin Johndrow, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Flagstaff, Arizona. Johndrow warned that the region is approaching the hottest period of the year before the rain during monsoon season later in the summer offers some relief from the heat.

Hikers may have cooler temperatures and an easier time going downhill to start the descending trails, but they face an intense climb of thousands of feet in elevation and much hotter bottom-of-the-canyon temperatures to get back up. Those conditions can cause heat illness symptoms to sneak up on visitors.

“That’s very strenuous even on a mild day,” Johndrow said of the hike back up to the rim. “Throw in temperatures of 105 to 110 degrees and that causes some pretty bad problems.”

Park officials advised visitors to avoid strenuous hiking in the middle of the day.

Wildfire near Oak Creek Canyon posed risk to public safety

A federal interagency team and at least a dozen local agencies were working to combat the fire burning roughly 500 acres (202 hectares) of very steep and rough terrain near Oak Creek Canyon, said Dick Fleishman, fire information officer with the southwest area complex incident management team.

The fire is concentrated in the Red Rock-Secret Mountain wilderness area about seven miles north of Sedona, Arizona, but it has started to creep into the Coconino National Forest. Firefighters are working to contain the burn, prevent it from moving toward Oak Creek Canyon, where residents and visitors have been evacuated, or Sedona, and prepare for the possibility that it does.

Fleishman said the steep slope where the fire is burning, the property at risk nearby, the heat firefighters are working in and the risk of post-fire flooding caused by rain rushing down the slope are among the reasons the Pocket Fire is particularly concerning.

“This fire ramped up in complexity quickly,” he said. “We want to try and keep it as small a footprint as possible.”

About 30 miles (48 kilometers) of the adjacent state highway was closed in both directions. Evacuations were issued for visitors and residents near Oak Creek Canyon, which attracts millions of visitors each year.

“For June 20,” Fleishman said of his drive through the area, “I’ve never seen it that quiet.”

PARIS (AP) — A founder of global gaming company Ubisoft, maker of Assassin’s Creed, was killed in a plane crash in western France, authorities said Saturday.

The twin-motor Cessna 421 carrying Claude Guillemot and a flight instructor crashed Friday evening near La Baule airport on the Atlantic coast, Mayor Franck Louvrier said in a statement. Both were licensed and experienced pilots. The instructor also was killed, the mayor said. An investigation is underway.

Ubisoft confirmed Guillemot’s death but did not comment further.

The plane crashed in a field just before landing at La Baule-Escoublac Airport, an airport official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named.

Guillemot and four brothers founded Ubisoft in 1986. In addition to the popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, Ubisoft’s games also include Just Dance, and the Rayman and Tom Clancy game franchises.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The paint is peeling from Washington’s Reflecting Pool after the renovation ordered by President Donald Trump, and he is now alleging that someone damaged it intentionally.

“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” he posted on his social media site Friday night. “Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the Pool, they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed.” He offered no details to substantiate his claim.

Agencies responsible for law enforcement and upkeep on the National Mall — the U.S. Park Police, National Park Service and Interior Department — did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Washington Post reported that Park Police officers arrested someone on Friday who they said was peeling paint from the pool, an act that does not explain the clouds of algae in green water and swaths of loose blue paint detached from the bottom.

Trump insisted something nefarious was going on. “No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” he posted on Truth Social.

That was a reference to the discovery of large numbers etched in discolored grass on the National Mall the week before: “86 47.” Authorities said the numbers could have been meant as a threat to Trump, the 47th president. The number 86 can be slang for “getting rid of.” They are investigating.

Trumps claims came after days of negative attention to the state of the pool, which he made a point of rehabbing to the tune of more than $14 million for the coming America 250 celebrations. The pool was swiftly beset by an algae bloom that returned its waters to the greenish color that Trump had tried to replace by having the bottom painted “American flag blue.”

Federal workers treated the pool with chemicals to kill the algae. Now chunks of the blue paint are gone, exposing its rocky bottom.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — President Rodrigo Paz on Saturday declared a state of emergency that gives the military broad power to remove road blockades that have put a stranglehold on fuel and food supplies in Bolivia’s seat of government and other major cities.

A wave of protests over the last five weeks has called for Paz to step down over austerity measures imposed by the government, including the cancellation of fuel subsidies, and other issues. The demonstrations have unleashed violent confrontations between dynamite-wielding demonstrators and riot police, leading to at least 365 arrests and 37 injuries, according to authorities.

At least 17 people have died, most of them linked to a lack of medical care caused by transportation disruptions, according to Bolivia’s ombudsman’s office and human rights organizations.

Barricades erected on key roads have effectively isolated the city of La Paz, triggering fuel and food shortages, paralyzing transportation and preventing patients from reaching hospitals — causing at least seven deaths for lack of medical attention, the government says.

“This is not a state of emergency to restrict people’s lives. It is a state of emergency to give people back their freedom,” the president said in a televised address to the nation.

As businesses closed over the course of the protests, supermarket shelves emptied and hospitals ran out of oxygen, calls from some sectors of society escalated for Paz to restore order through force.

On Friday night, Paz signed an agreement with one of the labor unions, whose leaders called for the blockades to be lifted. But other protesters have demanded that Paz resign and refused to negotiate.

Paz said that the state of emergency is intended to guarantee fuel supplies, which have become increasingly scarce as roadblocks have left tanker trucks stranded.

The decree prohibits “blocking streets, avenues, roads and highways in ways that affect transportation and supplies,” and orders the armed forces to temporarily support the police “in restoring order, reopening roads and protecting the population.” The state of emergency doesn’t limit due process rights or constitutional guarantees and allows people to continue their daily activities, according to the decree.

The state of emergency will last 90 days, but could be lifted earlier if “violence and threats against the population come to an end,” the government said in a statement.

Paz came to power in November, ending almost 20 years of uninterrupted rule by Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, which delivered the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation. A centrist who triumphed over more conservative candidates, Paz promised to resolve chronic fuel shortages and replenish the central bank’s almost-empty coffers, while protecting the social welfare that represented a pillar of MAS’ popularity.

But his austerity measures, most significantly the elimination of long-standing fuel subsidies, have exacerbated biting inflation. His government fixed fuel shortages, but with poor-quality gasoline that damaged thousands of vehicles. Reforms to encourage foreign investment and stimulate economic growth have stalled in Congress.

The highland Indigenous and rural workers’ groups — who long supported MAS but helped vault Paz to power last year — have led the protests, accusing his government of neglecting their needs since entering office.

He faces rising pressure from both Bolivia’s hard-right, which dominates Congress, and long-ruling left. Former President Evo Morales has supported the protests and demanded a new election from his hideout in the coca-growing tropics, where he is evading an arrest warrant on charges related to statutory rape.

The Trump administration has backed Paz, who repaired relations with the U.S. after years of anti-Western hostility in Bolivia under Morales.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Paz to inform him last week that Washington was “ramping up emergency assistance and logistics operations support” to help alleviate shortages caused by the blockades.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth denounced the protests as “attempts to overthrow the legitimate government,” and issued a stark warning to those who he said were “profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.”

“The United States is watching,” he wrote on X.

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Isabel Debre reported from Buenos Aires.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A judge on Saturday ordered the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to face trial on charges of influence peddling and corruption, and to surrender her passport.

Investigative judge Juan Carlos Peinado issued the ruling, arguing that Begoña Gómez represented a flight risk. In addition to surrendering her passport, she must also appear before a court every two weeks. A trial date hasn’t been set.

The decision touched off a heated political confrontation, with calls from the opposition for Sanchez’s Socialist government to resign.

Gómez is accused of using her position to influence government contracts given to a group of technology companies. The judge also accused her of the misuse of public funds in the hiring of a consultant, and the inappropriate use of software while she was a professor at a public university.

Gómez has denied any wrongdoing. Sánchez has called the case against her part of a smear campaign by conservative political opponents to topple his left-wing government, which has been in power since 2018.

Peinado said that a businessman who allegedly benefited from the government contracts and the consultant that worked for Gómez will also stand trial.

Sánchez, a critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, is facing legal trouble on multiple fronts before a general election due by next year.

Earlier this week, a former Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, appeared before a different judge in connection with his alleged role in a government airline bailout and to explain the discovery of high-end jewelry during a police raid on his office. He denies wrongdoing.

Government officials sharply criticized Saturday’s decision as politically motivated, while the Socialist Party called it “an absolute scandal for democracy.”

“Begoña Gómez is innocent,” the party said. “For two years now, she has been the target of a political and judicial witch hunt. Today’s development is just the latest escalation.”

But Spain’s conservative opposition went on the attack, urging the government to call an early election.

“Lawmakers and the architects of our constitution could never have imagined that the threats to our democracy could originate from the Spanish government itself,” said Miguel Tellado, secretary-general of the main opposition People’s Party.

“Now we see how the government attacks judges, prosecutors and the media while attempting to silence opposition parties,” he said. “This is unthinkable in any modern democracy.”

The two-year investigation into Gómez was launched following accusations by the pressure group Manos Limpias, or Clean Hands, which has pursued multiple legal cases, many linked to conservative causes.

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Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this report from Athens, Greece.