A woman wearing a protective face mask makes merit during the Songkran holiday which marks the Thai New Year during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Bangkok, Thailand, April 13, 2022. (Photo by Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)

A guide dangles a live chicken in front of a crocodile in the village of Bazoule, Burkina Faso, December 4, 2015. The villagers believe the crocodiles that live there are sacred. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Children try to push an injured and weak dolphin back into the water after it washed ashore during bad weather and high tide on a beach in Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia August 12, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. (Photo by Idhad Zakaria/Reuters/Antara Foto)

The sanctuary of Lourdes flooded, in Lourdes, southwestern France, Tuesday, June 18, 2013. French rescue services and police are evacuating hundreds of pilgrims from hotels threatened by floodwaters from a rain-swollen river in the Roman Catholic shrine town of Lourdes. (Photo by Bob Edme/AP Photo)

Chinese women wear face-kinis as they walk in to the water to swim at the beach on August 20, 2014 in the Yellow Sea in Qingdao, China. The locally designed mask is worn by many local women to protect them from jellyfish stings, algae and the sun's ultraviolet rays. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Kashmiri residents are evacuated in a tractor from their flooded neighborhood in Srinagar, India, Sunday, September 7, 2014. (Photo by Dar Yasin/AP Photo)

Hindu women worship the Sun god Surya in the polluted waters of the river Yamuna during the Hindu religious festival of Chatt Puja in New Delhi October 30, 2014. Hindu women fast for the whole day for the betterment of their family and the society during the festival. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

The northeastern United States sweltered this week in a scorching summer heat wave, complete with stagnant, sticky air and no winds for relief, forecasters said. Even in a summer already filled with stretches of very hot weather, this week will be stubbornly brutal, with no relief in sight until the weekend brings thunderstorms to the region, they said. "Plain and simple, this week may feel the worst of any week for this summer in the Northeast," said Accuweather.com meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. (Reuters)