Important Takeaways:

• Heat wave scorching eastern states with little relief from sweltering temps
• Record-setting temperatures have already baked much of New England and parts of the Midwest, with little hope of relief into the weekend. Heat indexes — which factor in temperature and humidity — hit between 100 and 110 degrees in some places Thursday.
• The temperature is forecast to rise in the mid-Atlantic, through the mid-90s Friday and perhaps into the 100s Saturday, with 64 million people still under heat alerts in the region and “record-tying or breaking temperatures possible”
• Elsewhere, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 51 Texas counties after the first named storm of the hurricane season, Alberto, made landfall in Mexico bringing heavy rain.
• On the West Coast, some 26 million people were under heat alerts in California. And in New Mexico a pair of wildfires have forced thousands of people to evacuate, destroyed 1,400 structures and led to the deaths of at least two people.

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