From an AP story by Seth Borenstein, John Locher, and Adam Beam headlined “California’s Death Valley sizzles as brutal heat wave continues:”

Long the hottest place on Earth, Death Valley put a sizzling exclamation point Sunday on a record warm summer that is baking nearly the entire globe by flirting with some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded.

Temperatures in Death Valley, which runs along part of central California’s border with Nevada, reached 128 degrees on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek.