With millions of Americans facing broiling heat across the Southwest, President Joe Biden on Thursday plans to announce new steps to protect workers, improve weather forecasts and make drinking water more accessible, the White House says.

He'll be joined by the leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The coastal Chinese city of Shantou on Thursday joined parts of Taiwan in shutting down schools and offices as Typhoon Doksuri brings heavy wind and rain to the Taiwan Strait and surrounding areas.

Doksuri weakened further on Thursday, with sustained winds of 155 kph (96 mph) and gusts of up to 190 kph (118 mph), according to Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau. The typhoon's center will not hit Taiwan's mainland, but its outlying bands will still bring stronger winds and rains Thursday afternoon.

Wildfires reached the outskirts of Athens on Thursday as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around Greece, disrupting highway traffic and rail services.

The fires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead, including two firefighting pilots, and triggering a huge evacuation of tourists over the weekend on the island of Rhodes.

Another seven heat-associated deaths were confirmed over the last week in America's hottest big metro, health officials reported Wednesday, amid a blistering heat wave with daytime highs over 110 F (43.3 C) and overnight lows not dropping below 90 F (32.2 C).

Maricopa County, the most populous county in Arizona and home to Phoenix, reported that its health department has confirmed 25 heat-associated deaths this year as of Saturday since the first one was recorded in April, with 249 more under investigation.

Typhoon Doksuri blew ashore in a cluster of islands and lashed northern Philippine provinces with ferocious wind and rain Wednesday, leaving at least two people dead and displacing thousands of others as it blew roofs off rural houses, flooded low-lying villages and toppled trees, officials said.

The typhoon slammed into Fuga Island before dawn and later hit another island in Cagayan province, where nearly 16,000 people were evacuated from high-risk coastal villages and schools and workplaces were shut down as a precaution as Doksuri approached.

Major fires raging in parts of Greece and in other Mediterranean countries advanced Wednesday, causing additional deaths, destroying homes and threatening nature reserves during a third successive wave of extreme temperatures.

The summer wildfires have struck countries across the region, prompting the European Union to expand its support, sending two Spanish firefighting planes to Tunisia after wildfires in neighboring Algeria left at least 34 people dead in recent days.

Volunteers worked frantically on a second day Wednesday to save dozens of pilot whales that have stranded themselves on a beach in Western Australia, but more than 50 have already died.

Nearly 100 long-finned pilot whales, stranded themselves Tuesday on the beach by the city of Albany, on the southern tip of Western Australia, south of Perth.

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.

These unusually strong heat waves are becoming more common, Tuesday's study said. The same research found the increase in heat-trapping gases, largely from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has made another heat wave — the one in China — 50 times more likely with the potential to occur every five years or so.

A firefighting plane crashed in southern Greece on Tuesday as authorities battled fires across the country amid a return of heat wave temperatures.

The crash occurred on the island of Evia and was aired in a state television broadcast that showed the low-flying aircraft disappearing into a canyon before a fireball was seen moments later. There was no immediate information about the plane's crew.

A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 C (104 F) across parts of the country Tuesday following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days.

The latest evacuations orders were issued on the islands of Corfu and Evia, while a blaze on the island of Rhodes continued to move inland, torching mountainous forest areas, including part of a nature reserve.