At least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of the United States on Sunday as high temperatures and severe humidity gripped large swaths of the country for a second straight day.
Heat indexes exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 Celsius) stretched from Minnesota down to Mississippi, extending west into southern California and Nevada. Parts of the southwest could see highs of 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 C) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Meteorologists said the sweltering weather was the result of another heat dome — a phenomenon in which atmospheric conditions trap heat, accentuating and prolonging already high temperatures
On Saturday, Rapid City, South Dakota, reported an all-time high of 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 C). A horse race planned in Canterbury Park, in Shakopee, Minnesota, was canceled Sunday because of the heat.
“Right now, it’s affecting a lot of people right in the middle of the country,” said Bob Oravec, an NWS meteorologist. “The core of the heat sinks southward by early next week.”
The moist air was also producing other volatility around the top of the heat dome, including the risk of severe thunderstorms, flash flooding and hail around the Great Lakes on Sunday. The potential for heavy storms was expected to move east in the coming days.
“If you have a heat dome in one part of the country, you’ll have a different corresponding weather in another part,” Oravec said. “It’s all related.”
Temporary relief will come to the central U.S. toward the middle of the week, but high temperatures could return by the weekend, he noted.
Authorities warned that children and older adults, along with people with certain medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious reactions including heat stroke. Experts recommend seeking out air conditioning or a cooling center, make sure to drink enough water and limit time under the direct sun.
The continental U.S. endured the second-hottest first half of the year on record in 2026, according tracking of average temperatures by the National Centers for Environmental Information.
The sun beams down on a lifeguard while she watches over a beach at Lake Harriet during an extreme heat warning, Monday, July 13, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
BERLIN (AP) — German investigators were searching Sunday for a man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival, killing one person and injuring several people before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.
Authorities issued a wanted notice and warned people against approaching Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, saying that he may be armed and dangerous. Berlin prosecutors later Sunday said the suspect had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.
“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
Dobrindt put the total number of wounded at 29. The attack occurred a few hundred meters (yards) from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city's Pride festival.
Ballout was born in Germany, and that his mother was naturalized in 2002, three years before he was born, the minister said.
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. They returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join IS, Berlin prosecutors said Sunday.
There, he made contact with several people who were presumed members of the militant group — or at least he believed them to be, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.
He returned to Germany after completing his sentence, where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said.
The court handed down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors have appealed.
The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from ISIS and no actual threat had ever materialized.
He was released from detention pending the appeal.
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. and hit several people before colliding with a tree. The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day, was ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate, a short distance away. The party followed a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.
The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred meters (yards) away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.
Police said a woman was killed. Berlin’s fire service said that three people sustained life-threatening injuries and another eight were seriously injured.
The Pride event next to the Brandenburg Gate was called off around 10:15 p.m. and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the park.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the iconic gate. They hugged each other and laid down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs, including a cardboard one that said: “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Hundreds of thousands had come to Berlin to celebrate on Saturday, though it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
The van, with its battered front resting against a tree, could still be seen at the scene Sunday morning.
“We are simply stunned by what happened,” said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed that law enforcement would find the suspect.
“I would like to say this to Christopher Street Day participants here in Berlin but also across Germany: Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated," he said. "These acts have only one purpose: They aim to divide our society. They want to take away from us the most important thing we have: Namely our openness and our freedom.”
Dobrindt said he expected security measures at other major events in Germany, including Pride events elsewhere, to be reviewed and if necessary significantly strengthened.
He pointed to concern about possible copycat crimes, adding that “this is not typical of such situations, but it also can’t be ruled out.”
Berlin has seen Islamic extremist attacks before. In December, 2016, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia plowed a hijacked truck into a Christmas market, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. He was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
In February last year, a Spanish tourist was stabbed and seriously wounded at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. A Syrian man was convicted in March and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Saturday's violence “is suspected to be an Islamist terror attack on our way of living together, on our liberal democracy, on our openness and our freedom,” Wegner said.
In the neighboring Netherlands, Amsterdam is hosting World Pride this week and next alongside its own annual Pride celebrations. Mayor Femke Halsema said authorities and organizers “are closely monitoring the security situation” after the Berlin attack but aim to prevent any extra measures getting in the way of celebrating freedom and love.
Associated Press reporters Fanny Brodersen and Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
People gather outside the Brandenburg Gate for a demonstration in support of LGBTQ+ after a car rammed into a crowd at the Pride March in Berlin, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A man writes a message on a board at the memorial site commemorating the victims near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd near the Pride March in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two men hold hands at the memorial site commemorating the victims near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd near the Pride March in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two people embrace near others wearing thermal blankets as they stand near emergency personnel in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two people walk together past emergency vehicles in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Two people embrace near others wearing thermal blankets as they stand near emergency personnel in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
