Shut down for 6 2/3 innings, the Norfolk Tides erupted for five runs in the seventh and went on to defeat Nashville 8-4 on a 95-degree Friday night before 5,707 at Harbor Park.

Kyle Stowers broke a tie with a two-run homer, and Norfolk expanded the margin in the eighth on Lewin Diaz’s two-run homer to right-center field. Joey Ortiz had three hits and three RBIs, and Connor Norby was 3 for 5 with two runs.

The Tides (62-36 overall, 14-10 in the International League’s second half) won their second consecutive game to level the series at two victories apiece. Nashville fell to 53-45, 13-11.

Wandisson Charles (2-2) gained the victory with two hitless innings of relief after fellow reliever Eduard Bazardo shut out the Sounds on one hit for 2 2/3 innings. Morgan McSweeney and Joey Krehbiel each pitched one inning, completing the Tides’ 6 2/3 shutout frames of relief in a combined five-hitter.

Norfolk left-hander Cade Povich, just promoted from Double-A Bowie, was making his Triple-A debut. He shut out Nashville for two innings before disaster struck in the third. Three walks and a wild pitch preceded Keston Hiura’s grand slam to center field, putting the Sounds ahead 4-1. Tides manager Buck Britton removed Povich after the next batter, Alex Jackson, reached on an infield single.Povich surrendered four earned runs, four walks and two hits in the 2 1/3-inning start.

Nashville starter Janson Junk held that 4-1 lead but was taken out after 92 pitches, the last of which enabled Anthony Bemboom to walk with two out in the seventh.

When reliever Jake Cousins (1-2) replaced Junk, the onslaught began. Norby singled before Heston Kjerstad hit an RBI double to right. Ortiz then lunged at a breaking pitch to line a two-run single to left, tying the score at 4.

Sounds manager Rick Sweet then summoned reliever J.B. Bukauskas, and Stowers slugged his first pitch for a two-run, opposite-field homer into the picnic area beyond left field. That made him the sixth Tides player to reach 30 home runs since Norfolk became a Baltimore affiliate.

The six-game series’ fifth contest is at 6:35 p.m. Saturday. Left-hander Drew Rom (7-6, 5.49 ERA) is Norfolk’s probable starter, while Nashville is expected to open with right-hander Justin Jarvis (0-2, 10.80).

SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) — A man allegedly stabbed a woman to death in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday and then posted a video of the slaying to Facebook, authorities said.

The footage helped police track down the suspect, who was later identified as 39-year old Mark Mechikoff. He was arrested about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of where the victim was found dead in a San Mateo apartment complex.

“While the motive for stabbing the victim is still under investigation, we do know Mechikoff mercilessly filmed the last moments of the victim’s life and posted the video to Facebook, then fled the area,” San Mateo police said in a statement.

Prosecutors identified the victim as Claribel Estrella. The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office on Friday charged Mechikoff with a single count of murder with enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury and the use of a knife.

He appeared in court but did not enter a plea. His arraignment was postponed for a week while his court-appointed attorney is chosen, District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said in an email.

Mechikoff knew the victim but the extent of their relationship was unclear and the motive was under investigation, the district attorney said.

The stabbing was first reported to the Nye County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada when a caller said she saw video of it on Facebook. The sheriff’s office “pinged” the phone number associated with the Facebook page and traced it to a large San Mateo apartment complex.

It was Mechikoff’s cellphone and his Facebook page and the video apparently has been taken down, the district attorney said.

Officers went door-to-door at the San Mateo apartment complex and found Estrella nearly three hours later inside a unit, authorities said.

Mechikoff was arrested two hours later in San Jose.

By SUDHIN THANAWALA (Associated Press)

ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities in Alabama said Friday they filed criminal charges against a woman who confessed to fabricating a story that she was kidnapped after stopping to check on a toddler she saw walking on the side of an interstate highway.

Carlee Russell was charged with false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident, both misdemeanors that carry up to a year in jail, Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said. Russell turned herself in to jail Friday and was released on bond, he said.

“Her decisions that night created panic and alarm for citizens of our city and even across the nation as concern grew that a kidnapper was on the loose using a small child as bait,” he said. “Numerous law enforcement agencies, both local and federal, began working tirelessly not only to bring Carlee home to her family but locate a kidnapper that we know now never existed. Many private citizens volunteered their time and energy in looking for a potential kidnapping victim that we know now was never in any danger.”

Derzis said he was frustrated that Russell was only being charged with two misdemeanors despite the panic and disruption she caused, but he said the law did not allow for enhanced charges.

Russell, 25, disappeared after calling 911 on July 13 to report a toddler wandering beside a stretch of interstate. She returned home two days later and told police she had been abducted and forced into a vehicle.

Her disappearance became a national news story. Images of the missing woman were shared broadly on social media.

“We don’t see this as a victimless crime,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said at a Friday news conference. “There are significant hours spent, resources expended as a result of this investigation.”

Marshall’s office was asked to handle the prosecution because of the attention the case received, Derzis said. Marshall said he intends to “fully prosecute” Russell and said his office will take into account the police investigation to see whether additional charges are warranted.

Russell, through her attorney, Emory Anthony, acknowledged earlier that she made the story up.

In a statement read by police on Monday, Anthony said Russell was not kidnapped, did not see a baby on the side of the road, did not leave the city and acted alone. He said Russell apologized and he asked for prayers and forgiveness as she “addresses her issues and attempts to move forward, understanding that she made a mistake in this matter.”

A message left Friday at Anthony’s office was not immediately returned.

Russell told detectives she was taken by a man who came out of the trees when she stopped to check on the child, put in a car and an 18-wheel truck, was blindfolded and was held at a home where a woman fed her cheese crackers, authorities said at a news conference last week. At some point, Russell said she was put in a vehicle again but managed to escape and run through the woods to her neighborhood.

“This story opened wounds for families whose loved ones really were victims of kidnappings,” Derzis said.

He said police have not determined where Russell went during the 49 hours she was missing. They plan to talk to the attorney general’s office about recovering some of the money spent on the investigation.

By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Samuel Alito says Congress lacks the power to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court, making him the first member of the court to take a public stand against proposals in Congress to toughen ethics rules for justices in response to increased scrutiny of their activities beyond the bench.

“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period,” Alito said in an interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. An account of the interview, which the paper said took place in New York in early July, was published Friday.

Democrats last week pushed Supreme Court ethics legislation through a Senate committee, though the bill’s prospects in the full Senate are dim.

All federal judges other than the justices already adhere to an ethics code that was developed by the federal judiciary. But the Supreme Court’s unique status — it’s the only federal court created by the Constitution — puts it outside the reach of those standards that apply to other federal jurists.

Democrats first sought to address that after ProPublica reported earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in lavish vacations and a real estate deal with a top Republican donor — and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.

Since then, ProPublica also revealed that Alito had taken a luxury vacation in Alaska with a Republican donor who had business interests before the court. The Associated Press reported in early July that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.

The 73-year-old Alito, who joined the court in 2006, has rejected the idea that he should have disclosed the Alaska trip or stepped away from cases involving the donor, hedge fund owner Paul Singer. Alito penned his own Wall Street Journal op-ed, which was published hours before ProPublica posted its story.

Alito said that he is unwilling to leave allegations unanswered, though he acknowledged judges and justices typically don’t respond to their critics.

“And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself,” he said in the newest column.

While no other justice has spoken so definitively about ethics legislation, Roberts has raised questions about Congress’ authority to oversee the high court.

In his year-end report in 2011, Roberts wrote that the justices comply with legislation that requires annual financial disclosures and limits their outside earned income. “The Court has never addressed whether Congress may impose those requirements on the Supreme Court. The Justices nevertheless comply with those provisions,” Roberts wrote.

The justices have so far resisted adopting an ethics code on their own, although Roberts said in May that there is more the court can do to “adhere to the highest standards” of ethical conduct, without providing specifics.

The column is co-written by James Taranto, the paper’s editorial features editor, and David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer. Rivkin represents Leonard Leo, the onetime leader of the conservative legal group The Federalist Society, in his dealings with Senate Democrats who want details of Leo’s dealings with the justices. Leo helped arrange Alito’s trip to Alaska.

Rivkin, in a letter Tuesday to leading Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the request was politically motivated and violates Leo’s constitutional rights. Rivkin also wrote that a congressionally imposed ethics code for the Supreme Court would falter on constitutional grounds. Separately, Rivkin represents a couple whose tax case will be argued before the court in the fall.

Alito talked with the Taranto and Rivkin for four hours in interviews in April and July, they wrote. They published an account of the earlier interview in April.

By TOM KRISHER (AP Auto Writer)

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government wants to raise the fuel economy of new vehicles 18% by the 2032 model year so the fleet would average about 43.5 miles per gallon in real world driving.

The proposed numbers were released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which eventually will adopt final mileage requirements.

Currently the fleet of new vehicles must average 36.75 mpg by 2026 under corporate average fuel economy standards adopted by the administration of President Joe Biden, who reversed a rollback made by former President Donald Trump.

The highway safety agency says it will try to line up its regulations so they match the Environmental Protection Agency’s reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But if there are discrepancies, automakers likely will have to follow the most stringent regulation.

In the byzantine world of government regulation, both agencies essentially are responsible for setting fuel economy requirements since the fastest way to reduce greenhouse emissions is to burn less gasoline.

“I want to make clear that EPA and NHTSA will coordinate to optimize the effectiveness of both agency standards while minimizing compliance costs,” NHTSA Acting Administrator Ann Carlson said.

A large auto industry trade group which includes General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Stellantis and others said requirements from the agencies should be lined up. “If an automaker complies with EPA’s yet-to-be-finalized greenhouse gas emissions rules, they shouldn’t be at risk of violating CAFE rules (from NHTSA) and subject to civil penalties,” John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement.

However the alliance has said the EPA’s proposed cut in carbon emissions will require a huge increase in electric vehicle sales that’s not attainable by 2032. The EPA says the industry can reach the greenhouse gas emissions goals if 67% of new vehicles sold in 2032 are electric. Currently, EVs make up about 7% of new vehicle sales.

NHTSA said its proposal includes a 2% annual improvement in fuel mileage for passenger cars, and a 4% increase for light trucks. It’s proposing a 10% improvement per year for commercial pickup trucks and work vans. Automakers can meet the requirements with a mix of electric vehicles, gas-electric hybrids and efficiency improvements in gas and diesel vehicles.

The agency says the new regulations will save more than $50 billion on fuel over the vehicles’ lifetimes and save more than 88 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050 if NHTSA’s preferred alternative is adopted. The standards would cut new-vehicle fuel consumption nearly in half by the 2035 model year, and benefits will exceed costs by $18 billion, the agency said.

NHTSA will take comments from the public for 60 days before drafting a final regulation.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER (AP Economics Writer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs that inflation pressures in the United States are steadily easing emerged Friday in reports that consumer prices rose in June at their slowest pace in more than two years and that wage growth cooled last quarter.

Together, the figures provided the latest signs that the Federal Reserve’s drive to tame inflation may succeed without triggering a recession, an outcome known as a “soft landing.”

A price gauge closely monitored by the Fed rose just 3% in June from a year earlier. That was down from a 3.8% annual increase in May, though still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.2% from May to June, up slightly from 0.1% the previous month.

Last month’s sharp slowdown in year-over-year inflation largely reflected falling gas prices, as well as milder increases in grocery costs. With supply chains having largely healed from post-pandemic disruptions, the costs of new and used cars, furniture and appliances also fell in June.

The cost of some services, though, continued to surge. Average prices of movie tickets rose 0.5% from May to June, and are up 6.2% from a year earlier. Veterinary services, up 0.5% last month, are 10.5% higher than a year ago. And restaurant meal prices increased 0.4% in June; they’re up 7.1% from 12 months earlier.

A measure of “core” prices, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, did remain elevated even though it also eased last month. Economists track core prices because they are considered a better signal of where inflation is headed. Those still-high underlying inflation pressures are a key reason why the Fed raised its short-term interest rate Wednesday to a 22-year high.

Core prices were still 4.1% higher than they were a year ago, well above the Fed’s target, though down from 4.6% in May. From May to June, core inflation was just 0.2%, down from 0.3% the previous month, an encouraging sign.

A separate report Friday from the Labor Department showed that a gauge of wages and salaries grew more slowly in the April-June quarter, suggesting that employers were feeling less pressure to boost pay as the job market cools.

Employee pay, excluding government workers, rose 1%, down from 1.2% in the first three months of 2023. Compared with a year earlier, wages and salaries grew 4.6%, down from 5.1% in the first quarter.

The Fed is closely watching the pay gauge, known as the employment cost index. Smaller wage increases should slow inflation over time, because companies are less likely to need to raise prices to cover their higher labor costs.

Taken together, Friday’s data “will provide further support to the view that the economy is in the midst of a soft landing,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide. The softer wage data, she suggested, “will be welcomed by Fed officials.”

Americans’ average paychecks are still growing briskly, boosting their ability to spend and underscoring the economy’s resiliency. The inflation report that the Commerce Department issued Friday showed that consumer spending jumped in June, despite two years of high inflation and 11 Fed rate hikes over 17 months. From May to June, consumer spending rose 0.5%, up from 0.2% the previous month.

“Better push out those recession forecasts by another quarter,” Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at investment bank Santander, wrote in a research note.

The inflation gauge that was issued Friday, called the personal consumption expenditures price index, is separate from the better-known consumer price index. Earlier this month, the government reported that the CPI rose 3% in June from 12 months earlier.

The Fed prefers the PCE index because it accounts for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps — when, for example, consumers shift away from pricey national brands in favor of cheaper store brands. And housing costs, which are among the biggest inflation drivers but many economists think aren’t well-measured, carry about half the weight in the PCE than the CPI.

With inflation now steadily cooling, consumers are becoming more optimistic about the economy, a trend that could lead them to keep spending and driving growth.

On Friday, the University of Michigan reported that its consumer sentiment index rose in June to its highest level since October 2021, though it has still recovered only about half of the drop caused by the pandemic. And earlier this week, the Conference Board, a business research group, said its consumer confidence index rose this month to its highest point in two years.

The U.S. economy is in a hopeful but precarious place: A solid job market is bolstering hiring, lifting wages and keeping unemployment near a half-century low. Yet inflation is weakening rather than rising, as it typically does when unemployment is low. That suggests that the Fed may be able to achieve a soft landing.

The Fed’s policymakers, though, are concerned that the steadily growing economy could help perpetuate inflation. This can occur as persistent consumer demand enables more companies to raise prices, thereby keeping inflation above the Fed’s target and potentially causing the central bank to raise rates even higher.

The latest evidence of the economy’s resilience came Thursday, when the government reported that it grew at a 2.4% annual rate in the April-June quarter — faster than analysts had forecast and an acceleration from a 2% growth rate in the first three months of the year.

At a news conference Wednesday, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate, now at about 5.3%, was high enough to restrain the overall economy and likely tame inflation over time. But Powell added that the Fed would need to see more evidence that inflation has been sustainably subdued before it would consider ending its rate hikes.

Powell declined to offer any signal of the central bank’s likely next moves. In June, Fed officials had forecast two more rate hikes this year, including Wednesday’s.

“I would say it is certainly possible that we would raise (rates) again at the September meeting, if the data warranted,” Powell said Wednesday, “and I would also say it’s possible that we would choose to hold steady at that meeting.”

ASHBURN — Kevin Durant was among those in attendance for the second open practice of Washington Commanders training camp Friday.

The NBA star, now playing for the Phoenix Suns, grew up in the area in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, not far from the team’s home stadium. Durant took in practice on the hottest day of the year so far from the suites atop the newly constructed bleachers on the sideline and was followed out by a group of fans, many taking photos or video and yelling, “KD!”

“It’s great to have KD here,” coach Ron Rivera said after practice. “I know he’s a local guy. I know how much of a Washington Redskins/Commanders fan he is. Great to have his support.”

Durant’s presence is the latest positive sign of the Commanders in the spotlight since the new ownership group led by Josh Harris and including basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson took over last week, when the NFL approved the $6.05 billion sale from Dan Snyder.

“It’s great to have the fanbase back,” Rivera said. “This has been really cool the last couple days. It has. This is exciting. To have guys like KD come back and show their support means an awful lot to us.”

Friday was the second consecutive day more than 3,000 fans braved the heat for practice at the team’s practice facility not far from Dulles International Airport.

“It feels good,” safety Kam Curl said. “Everybody’s coming out to practice, all the stuff on social media. You feel the excitement, and that just gives us motivation to come out and play harder.”

Running back Jaret Patterson, like Durant a Maryland native, said Thursday that seeing so many fans at practice reminded him of his days attending camp as a kid when the likes of Clinton Portis and Santana Moss were playing for Washington.

“It’s a fresh start, new era,” Patterson said. “It kind of gave me flashbacks. … Seeing the food trucks, seeing kind of a packed house and stuff like that, it’s kind of dope. It’s like reliving my childhood.”

By JACQUES BILLEAUD AND ANITA SNOW (Associated Press)

PHOENIX (AP) — The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first fatal collision involving a fully autonomous car.

Rafaela Vasquez told police that 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see Herzberg before the March 18, 2018, collision on a darkened Tempe street.

She had been charged with negligent homicide, but reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. The judge who accepted the plea sentenced Vasquez, 49, to three years of supervised probation.

Authorities say Vasquez was streaming the television show “The Voice” on a phone and looking down in the moments before Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV struck Herzberg, who was crossing with her bicycle.

Vasquez’s attorneys said she was was looking at a messaging program used by Uber employees on a work cellphone that was on her right knee. They said the TV show was playing on her personal cellphone, which was on the passenger seat.

Prosecutors previously declined to file criminal charges against Uber, as a corporation, in Herzberg’s death.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Vasquez’s failure to monitor the road was the main cause of the crash.

It was not the first crash involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe when it collided with another vehicle. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.

Herzberg’s death was the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with some self-driving features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its Autopilot system, crashed into a semitrailer in Florida.

Nine months after Herzberg’s death, in December 2019, two people were killed in California when a Tesla on Autopilot ran a red light, slammed into another car. That driver was charged in 2022 with vehicular manslaughter in what was believed to be the first felony case against a motorist who was using a partially automated driving system.

In Herzberg’s death, the contributing factors cited by the NTSB board included Uber’s inadequate safety procedures and ineffective oversight of its drivers, Herzberg’s decision to cross the street outside of a crosswalk and the Arizona Department of Transportation’s insufficient oversight of autonomous vehicle testing.

The board also concluded Uber’s deactivation of its automatic emergency braking system increased the risks associated with testing automated vehicles on public roads. Instead of the system, Uber relied on the human backup driver to intervene.

The Uber system detected Herzberg 5.6 seconds before the crash. But it failed to determine whether she was a bicyclist, pedestrian or unknown object, or that she was headed into the vehicle’s path, the board said.

The backup driver was there to take over the vehicle if systems failed.

The death reverberated throughout the auto industry and Silicon Valley and forced other companies to slow what had been a fast march toward autonomous ride-hailing services. Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona, and then-Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited the company from continuing its tests of self-driving cars.

Vasquez had previously spent more than four years in prison for two felony convictions — making false statements when obtaining unemployment benefits and attempted armed robbery — before starting work as an Uber driver, according to court records.

By NICOLE WINFIELD and DEREK GATOPOULOS (Associated Press)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Pope Francis urged governments to do more to fight climate change and protect “our common home” as improving weather conditions Friday helped firefighters contain wildfires in Greece, Italy and other countries in southern Europe.

Francis, who has been outspoken on environmental issues, sent a telegram of condolences to Greece, where wildfires killed five people over the past week, including the pilots of a water-dropping aircraft.

The pope noted that successive heat waves have exacerbated the dangers of the summer fire season. He offered his prayers for firefighters and emergency personnel in particular.

“(I hope) that the risks to our common home, exacerbated by the present climate crisis, will spur all people to renew their efforts to care for the gift of creation, for the sake of future generations,” Francis said.

Fueled by the heat waves and strong gusts of wind, wildfires in Europe’s Mediterranean region have kept travelers and residents on alert. In Greece, fires scorched hundreds of square kilometers of land outside Athens, on the island of Rhodes and elsewhere this month.

As the situation improved considerably on Friday, Greece’s minister for the police unexpectedly stepped down, citing “personal grounds.” Greek media said Notis Mitarachi’s resignation was requested after it emerged he had been on a family holiday during the wildfire crisis.

The main opposition Syriza party issued a statement accusing the center-right government of using “personal grounds” as a euphemism for “(Mitarachi’s) holidays while the country was burning from end to end.”

In central Greece, authorities maintained an exclusion zone around one of the country’s largest air force bases after a wildfire triggered powerful explosions at a nearby ammunition depot Thursday. Fighter jets stationed at the 111th Combat Wing base were moved to other facilities.

The depot blasts near the central city of Volos shattered windows in nearby towns and prompted the evacuation of more than 2,000 people. Local news broadcasts showed a ground-shaking fireball erupting.

Residents were rushed onto private boats mobilized by the coast guard and taken to a conference center in Volos, some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the weapons storage site. A civilian traffic ban and evacuation order remained in effect Friday within a 3-kilometer (2-mile) radius of the depot.

The explosions did not affect flights at Volos international airport, officials told The Associated Press.

A drop in temperatures and calmer winds helped firefighters get a handle on the blazes in Greece and all major fires were contained by midday Friday, Greek Fire Service officials said.

Conditions also improved elsewhere in Europe’s Mediterranean regions thanks to cooler temperatures, allowing firefighters to contain wildfires along the Croatian coast and in Sicily.

Firefighting teams in Turkey also brought a wildfire burning close to the southern Mediterranean resort of Kemer under control, four days after it erupted, Ibrahim Yumakli, the country’s forestry minister, said.

The governments of the countries hit by heat waves and fires have steered public debate away from the potential impact on tourism. Rhodes, where a fire last weekend required about 19,000 people to be evacuated from several locations on the island, was promised state support Friday for its international advertising campaign.

In Germany, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sought Friday to address Italian irritation over a mid-July social media post in which he described the heat wave he encountered on a visit to Italy as “spectacular” and added that “if it goes on like this, these vacation destinations will have no future in the long term.”

Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin that he wasn’t warning against vacations in southern Europe and plans to visit Italy again himself.

“Of course, it is more difficult now for the southern countries to organize heat protection in such a way that it is also accessible for every tourist, but I think those countries will know exactly what they have to do,” he said.

Vassilis Kikilias, the Greek minister for climate change and civil protection, said fires had burned 400 square kilometers (155 square miles) of land in the country in July alone, while the recent average is 500 square kilometers (nearly 200 square miles) in a year.

“Is the situation any better in other countries bordering the Mediterranean? It’s a fair question … but the answer is no,” Kikilias said.

“The climate crisis that brought us this unprecedented heat wave is here. It’s not a theory. It is our actual experience,” he said. “This is not something that will just occur this year. It will last and we have to face the consequences of what that means.”

___

Winfield reported from Rome. Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Virginia State Police are investigating a Friday morning shooting at a major highway interchange in Chesapeake.

Chesapeake police responded to the junction where Dominion Boulevard, the Chesapeake Expressway, Interstate 64 and I-464 converge at about 9:50 a.m., state police said in a news release. The call was in reference to a “shooting … involving a single vehicle that had struck several other vehicles.”

It’s unclear whether anyone was injured in the wrecks or the shooting. A state police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A state police spokesperson said in the news release that the situation is “fluid,” and updates will be forthcoming.

No further information has been made available. The state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation has also responded to the scene.

This is a developing story. Check PilotOnline.com for updates.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, [email protected]