Major wildfires burning for days in northeastern Greece and on the fringes of the country's capital have incinerated more tracts of forest and forced additional evacuations Thursday as firefighters struggled against strong winds and arid conditions to bring the multiple fronts under control.

The wildfires have left 20 people dead over the last week. Eighteen of those, including two boys aged between 10 and 15, are believed to be migrants who crossed the nearby border with Turkey. Their bodies were found by firefighters near a shack in a burnt forest area in northeastern Greece.

Deadly heat that has gripped Texas for much of the summer has spread into other parts of the central U.S. this week where it is forecast to stay for days, with triple-digit temperatures buckling roads, straining water systems and threatening the power grid of the nation's energy capitol.

With heat warnings and advisories stretching from New Orleans to Minneapolis, the unyielding weather is stressing the systems put in place to keep resources moving and people safe. Just this week, a 1-year-old left in a hot van in Nebraska died, and Louisiana reported 25 heat-related deaths this summer — more than twice the average number in recent years.

Most octopuses lead solitary lives. So scientists were startled to find thousands of octopus huddled together, protecting their eggs at the bottom of the ocean off the central California coast.

Now researchers may have solved the mystery of why these pearl octopus congregate: Heat seeping up from the base of an extinct underwater volcano helps their eggs hatch faster.

The destructive power of wildfire has been a defining feature of a summer of climate extremes.

Dozens of people on multiple continents have died. Blazes have reduced homes and businesses to rubble. Thick smoke has darkened skies and carried fine-particle pollution thousands of miles from its source.

Yevgeny Prigozhin's fate has been entwined with the Kremlin for decades — as a trusted government contractor, and the head of the Wagner mercenary army that fought in Ukraine and has been blamed for doing Russia's dirty work in Syria and Africa.

But when he turned his men toward Moscow two months ago, many inside Russia and beyond started wondering just how long he could last after drawing the fury of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Palestinian hamlet of al-Qabun in the central occupied West Bank was silent this week — the grazing fields for sheep deserted, the empty schoolhouse locked, the makeshift homes left as steel carcasses.

The last families living there packed up two weeks ago, driven from their homes of nearly three decades by what they said was a year of intensified attacks and harassment by armed Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts on neighboring hilltops.

An avalanche of rocks tumbled down a hillside in Israel near the Dead Sea on Thursday, Israeli medics said, injuring at least seven people, including children.

Israel's rescue service said the victims ranged from 4 to 40 years old, including a 5-year-old boy in critical condition. A 4-year-old girl was in moderate condition and others were less seriously injured after layers of mud and rocks slammed into the hiking trail.

Donald Trump is set to surrender Thursday to authorities in Georgia on charges that he schemed to overturn the 2020 election in that state, a booking process expected to yield a historic first: a mug shot of a former American president.

Trump's arrival follows a presidential debate featuring his leading rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, a contest in which he remains the leading candidate despite accelerating legal troubles. His presence in the state, though likely brief, is expected to swipe the spotlight at least temporarily from his opponents in the aftermath of a debate in which other candidates sought to seize on Trump's absence to elevate their own presidential prospects.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are among six nations invited Thursday to join the BRICS bloc of developing economies.

United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia are also set to join the bloc from 2024.

Cyprus said Wednesday it dismantled a criminal human smuggling ring responsible for bringing boatloads of Syrian migrants from Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The eastern Mediterranean island nation has seen almost daily migrant boat arrivals in recent days.

Cypriot police said three months of investigative work resulted in the arrest of five suspects following a raid by a combined force of 40 officers on several homes in the island's southeast.