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Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
A woman strolls through a lavender field at Saika no sato, a flower park in Nakafurano town, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Wednesday, July 20.
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Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki sets on fire an illegal ivory stockpile, July 20, 2011 at the Tsavo National Park, southeast of Nairobi. Kibaki ignited nearly five tons of ivory stockpiled in the country since being seized in Singapore nearly a decade ago -- destroying some 335 tusks and 42,553 pieces of ivory carvings at the Manyani wildlife rangers training institution in eastern Kenya.
Torching elephant tusks in Kenya
That pile represents an awful lot of dead elephants.
The burning of the ivory is part of the first-ever African Elephant Law Enforcement Day celebrations with the theme 'Fostering cooperation to combat elephant poaching and ivory trafficking in Africa’. This would be the third time for such an exercise to be held in Africa, after Kenya’s in 1989 and Zambia in 1992. The volume of illicit ivory trade rose ninefold in the past five years, from 1366 pounds ( .6 metric tons) in 2005 to 5.7 metric tons in 2010, according to Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF), a regional anti-poaching body. Kenya's Wildlife Service has this year alone seized some three tons of ivory in transit.
Thomas Mukoya / Reuters
Camels wait for their turn to drink water from a tank near Harfo, northwest of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, July 20, 2011. The United Nations on Wednesday declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, and warned that this could spread further within two months in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country unless donors step in.
Camels wait for water in Somalia
Rather than pictures of starving children, this photographer chose camels as a way of illustrating the drought and famine affecting parts of Africa. The UN officially declared a famine in two areas of Somalia today.
More photos from the famine in our slideshow.
Another dramatic photo of the leopard attack
AP
In this photo taken Tuesday, July 19, 2011, a leopard attacks a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara, on the outskirts of Siliguri, India. The leopard strayed into the village area and mauled several villagers, including three guards, before being caught by forest officials. The leopard, which suffered injuries caused by knives and batons, died later in the evening at a veterinary center. The forest guard being attacked was injured.
This photo just moved today, but we also posted some other pictures yesterday on PhotoBlog. Unfortunately it seems the leopard has died from injuries sustained while trying to subdue it.
The leopard wandered into a village, where it mauled nearly a dozen people before being tranquilized and captured. It later died. TODAY.com's Dara Brown reports.
Jason Lee / Reuters
Cameroon's First Lady Chantal Biya, left, the wife of President Paul Biya, stands alongside China's President Hu Jintao's wife Liu Yongqing as they attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July 20.
Cameroon's First Lady towers over her Chinese counterpart
If you're a fan of Cameroon's First Lady Chantal Biya, check out this website devoted to her hair.
Guatemalan villagers form vigilante group against Salvatrucha gang
Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters
An armed villager guards the entrance to the village of Castanas, on the outskirts of Guatemala City, on July 19. The villagers formed an armed group to defend themselves in response to an extortion threat last Friday by the Mara Salvatrucha criminal gang, according to the leader of the armed villagers. There was no official comment from the local authorities.
Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images
Hooded men look for members of the Salvatrucha gang on board a bus in Castanas, a neighborhood on the southern outskirts of Guatemala City, on July 19.
Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images
Hooded men interrogate a man, suspected to belong to the Salvatrucha gang, in Castanas on July 19.
Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images
Hooded men stand guard at the entrance to the Castanas neighborhood on July 19.
See more images of Guatemala on PhotoBlog.
David Gray / Reuters
China's team perform during the preliminary round of the synchronized swimming team free routine at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai on July 20.
Synchronized swimming at the FINA World Championships
Read more about the sport at USA Synchro.
Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images
Somali refugees who recently crossed the border from Somalia into southern Ethiopia cluster between two food tents as they wait to be called to collect food aid at the Kobe refugee camp on July 19.
Fleeing famine, Somali refugees cross into Ethiopia
AFP reports:
Ethiopian authorities and non-governmental organizations have accommodated almost 25,000 refugees at the Kobe camp since it was set up less then three weeks ago. Thousands of Somalis have fled in recent months to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food and water, with many dying along the way, as the region suffers what the UN has described as the worst drought in decades.
Read more about the crisis and see more images in our slideshow.
Yao Ming retires from basketball
Carlos Barria / Reuters
NBA player Yao Ming reacts during a news conference to announce his retirement from basketball, in Shanghai, China, on July 20. Yao, who ignited China's interest in the NBA and became one of Asia's best-known athletes, announced his retirement from basketball on Wednesday. The 30-year-old had been widely expected to retire after he told the Houston Rockets he would not be returning next season after two years blighted by injuries.
The AP reports:
The NBA's version of the Ming Dynasty is done. After helping pro basketball gain a foothold in the world's most populous market, Chinese star Yao Ming has retired.
Yao made it official Wednesday, telling a packed news conference in his hometown that a series of foot and leg injuries forced him to end his playing career at the age of 30. Continue reading.
Read a blog post by Ed Flanagan of NBC News on Yao's legacy, and hear from some of his fans in this video:
Chinese fans of Yao Ming react to news of the basketball giant's retirement.
Our galaxy's mysterious twist
ESA / NASA / JPL-Caltech
The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope provides an infrared view of a twisted ring at the center of our galaxy.
If you look for signs and portents in the skies, you can't do much better than this: The Herschel Space Telescope has provided the best view yet of an infinity sign at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
"This is what is so exciting about launching a new space telescope like Herschel," Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in Rome said in an image advisory issued today. "We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the center of our own galaxy."
Molinari is the lead author of a research paper on the twisted ring, appearing in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. Portions of the ring have been spotted before, but Herschel's image cuts through the dust at the galactic center to reveal the full structure in submillimeter wavelengths. This version of Herschel's view highlights the shape of the ring, which stretches across more than 600 light-years:
ESA / NASA / JPL-Caltech
This version of the Herschel image highlights the infinity sign or twisted ring at the Milky Way's center.
"We have looked at this region at the center of the Milky Way many times before in the infrared," said Alberto Noriega-Crespo of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, one of the paper's co-authors. "But when we looked at the high-resolution images using Herschel's submillimeter wavelengths, the presence of a ring is quite clear."
Astronomers say the ring is a dense, twisted tube of cold gas mixed with dust — and a cradle for infant stars. They used readings from the ground-based Nobeyama Radio Observatory in Japan to determine how fast gas was circulating around the ring. The radio observations showed that the ring is rolling as a unit, at the same speed as the rest of our galaxy.
The main mystery has to do with how the ring got twisted. The origins of the structure of galactic centers are not well understood, but astronomers suspect that our Milky Way's shape may have been affected by gravitational interactions with nearby galaxies — perhaps including the Andromeda Galaxy, our big celestial neighbor.
There's another mystery as well: The center of the twisted ring does not correspond with the actual center of our galaxy, a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*. Noriega-Crespo said it's not clear why the centers don't match up.
"There's still so much about our galaxy to discover," he said.
Amen...
More about Herschel and our bent-up galaxy:
- Greatest hits from Herschel
- Is Milky Way bent like a sombrero? Si!
- Telescope witnesses Milky Way starbirth
- Slideshow: Month in Space Pictures
In addition to Molinari and Noriega-Crespo, authors of "A 100-Parsec Elliptical and Twisted Ring of Cold and Dense Molecular Clouds Revealed by Herschel Around the Galactic Center" include J. Bally, M. Compiegne, J.P. Bernard, D. Paradis, P. Martin, L. Testi, M. Barlow, T. Moore, R. Plume, B. Swinyard, A. Zavagno, L. Calzoletti, A.M. Di Giorgio, D. Elia, F. Faustini, P. Natoli, M. Pestalozzi, S. Pezzuto, F. Piacentini, G. Polenta, D. Polychroni, E. Schisano, A. Traficante, M. Veneziani, C. Battersby, M. Burton, S. Carey, Y. Fukui, J.Z. Li, S.D. Lord, L. Morgan, F. Motte, F. Schuller, G.S. Stringfellow, J.C. Tan, M. A. Thompson, D. Ward-Thompson, G. White and G. Umana.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Abused mental patients in Chile saved by employee
Eliseo Fernandez / Reuters
Mental patients sleep as police raid the Pequeno Cottolengo shelter in Quintero, some 100 miles northwest of Santiago on July 12. Police raided the local branch of the Pequeno Cottolengo international network of shelters run by the Roman Catholic Church to shelter and aid mentally handicapped children and adolescents, after an employee denounced them for physically abusing the patients.
Reuters photographer Rodrigo Garrido writes:
It was three weeks ago when a woman named Carolina called me to denounce abuses inside the Pequeño Cottolengo shelter in the city of Quintero, near Valparaiso. The shelter is part of a chain of homes for mentally handicapped children and youths run by the Catholic Church. Carolina had been working there only three months.
I met with her and saw photos that she had taken with her cell phone during the different shifts she worked there. One of the images showed very clearly the bruises caused by the beating of a young girl, a girl too handicapped to defend herself.
New batch of Mexican female paratroopers train for first jump
Alfredo Estrella / AFP - Getty Images
Mexican Army female soldiers learn to be paratroopers at the #1A Military Camp in Mexico City, on July 19. 22 years after the last generation of female paratroopers have graduated, a new batch of 71 female soldiers are preparing to make their first jump.
Alfredo Estrella / AFP - Getty Images
Mexican Army female soldiers prepare for jump training.
Alfredo Estrella / AFP - Getty Images
A Mexican Army female soldier hits the ground during jump training.
Charlie Riedel / AP
Alan Perez, from Wilmington, N.C., seeks shelter from the sun under an umbrella while holding a stop sign to close a road for debris removal Tuesday, July 19 in Joplin, Mo. Despite a recent heat wave, crews continue to clean up nearly two months after an EF-5 tornado destroyed much of Joplin.
Crews in Joplin clear tornado debris despite the heat
The low camera angle makes something striking out of an everyday scene. Full story.
Hot weather slideshow.
Detroit's Downtown Boxing Club offers kids academic tutoring and boxing training
Sometimes life imitates art. These pictures resonate for me because they remind me of one of my favorite television shows, HBO's "The Wire". The character Dennis "Cutty" Wise (played by actor Chad Coleman) sets up an inner city boxing program for ghetto kids. Video clip at the bottom of this post.
David Guralnick, Detroit News
Fifteen-year-old Shante Higgs waits for her turn to spar at the Downtown Boxing Club in Detroit. The gym offers a youth program that serves about 30 students ages 8-18, who get valuable after-school academic tutoring and boxing training — all for free. It's the brainchild of trainer Khali Muhammad and Scott Smith, who work with the students from 4-6:30 p.m. each day.
David Guralnick, Detroit News
Seven-year-old Stormi Johnson, center, takes part in a group lesson at the Downtown Boxing Club in Detroit.
David Guralnick, Detroit News
Eleven-year-old Christian White practices with a punching bag at the Downtown Boxing Club in Detroit.
David Guralnick, Detroit News
Thirteen-year-old Cortez Todd, right, spars with head trainer Khali Muhammad at the Downtown Boxing Club in Detroit.
Arben Celi / Reuters
An Albanian man tries to fix a power line near his home in the Albanian capital Tirana July 18. Despite investments and improvements in the power supply over twenty years since Albania toppled communism, transmission lines are connected haphazardly and are often dangerous for those to venture to fix them. The CEZ utility cuts power to those who do not pay bills, but consumers often hook up on the grid and steal power. Picture taken July 18.
Hooking up to the power grid, Albania style
Home improvement is definitely not my thing. I get nervous touching 110 volt wires when it's time to install a lighting fixture. I'm really glad I don't live in Albania.
David Duprey / AP
Amish women ride in a buggy on their way home from shopping in an Amish country store in Centerville, N.Y. Centerville, a town south of Buffalo, has an established Amish community. Longstanding Amish population centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio have lost families while Amish numbers in New York have boomed in the past two years, according to a new study by Elizabethtown College researchers.
Amish communities booming in western New York State
The long lens foreshortening (and some planning) really make this photo.
As AP reported:
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Affordable rural farmland and proximity to traditional population centers are driving a recent boomlet in new Amish colonies in New York state, according to a study by Elizabethtown College researchers.
The Amish, many of them from Ohio or Pennsylvania, have established 10 new settlements in New York since the start of 2010 — growth that doubles any other state. Total population there has grown by nearly a third in the past two years, to 13,000.
The first Amish districts in New York were established in the Conewango Valley in 1949, but in-migration amounted to a trickle until about a decade ago. As recently as 1991, there were just 3,900 Amish in the state.
Jackson County Sheriff's Office via AP
Tammy Lee Hinton's booking photo after she was arrested in her wedding dress on a felony warrant after exchanging vows at a Jackson-area church. Police say she was arrested on a 3-year-old warrant for identity theft, booked and released after less than about 30 minutes. The Jackson Citizen Patriot reports Hinton was scheduled to appear Monday, July 18, 2011, in Jackson County District Court, but she missed the court date.
There goes the bride – to jail
According to the Jackson Citizen Patriot of Jackson, Michigan: The local police department had received tip about her impeding nuptials and discussed whether or not they should arrest her on her wedding day. Blackman-Leoni Township Public Safety Officer Rick Gillespie told the paper, “We can’t ignore it when we have good information on where she’s going to be. We had to do what we had to do.”
More on her arrest from the Jackson Citizen Patriot. Apparently she missed her court date on Monday and faces being arrested again.
Update: Apparently she was arrested again for missing her court date.
Suhaib Salem / Reuters
A man prepares the grave of Hassan al-Hora during his funeral at a cemetery in Sanaa July 19, 2011. Fighting between government forces and opposition supporters erupted in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Monday, killing six people, among them al-Hora, opposition sources said.
Digging more graves in Yemen
Six people were reportedly killed in the continuing violence in Yemen yesterday.
Mark / EPA
A shop attendant picks a gold ring for a customer at a store in Shenyang, China's Liaoning province, July 19, 2011. Gold jumped pass the 1,600 dollar per ounce mark as investors see it as a safe haven amid concerns on the Eurozone debt crisis.
Interesting view of picking out gold rings in China
I love when photographers find an interesting angle to make a photo - especially when it's a story about the economy.
Vano Shlamov / AFP - Getty Images
People protest in front the residence of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi on July 19, 2011. The alleged ringleader of three Georgian photojournalists accused of spying for enemy Russia has confessed to involvement in espionage. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official at Georgia's interior ministry said the alleged kingpin of the spy ring, European Pressphoto Agency photographer Zurab Kurtsikidze, had become the third of the trio to admit guilt. Saakashvili's personal photographer Irakly Gedenidze, European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) photographer Zurab Kurtsikidze and Foreign Ministry press centre photographer Giorgi have been charged with collecting confidential material on Georgia's pro-Western leadership that was allegedly sent to military intelligence officers from arch-rival Russia.
Protesting photojournalists accused of spying in Tbilisi, Georgia
This is unnerving news for those of us who work in the photojournalism industry.
Jens Buettner / EPA
A swallow feeds a youngster during rainy weather in Seehof, Germany, on Monday, July 19. According to meteorologists, the weather will become sunnier and temperatures will rise in north Germany from middle of the week.
Swallow takes a swallow in Germany
What a mouthful. Check out more great animal photos here.
Jorge Duenes / Reuters
A federal policeman and a soldier help handcuffed detainees get off a truck during an operation in Tijuana on Monday, July 18. At least 58 men detained last Tuesday in the vicinity of the biggest marijuana plantation ever found in the country (300 acres) were taken to a hotel to wait for interrogation by a federal judge, local media reported.
France honors seven soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy stands in front the seven flag-draped coffins in the courtyard outside the Invalides church during a military ceremony as France pays tribute to the seven French soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan during a national ceremony at the Invalides in Paris July 19, 2011.
Eric Feferberg / Pool via Reuters
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy pays his respect as he stands in the rain in front of a flag-draped coffin during the military ceremony for seven French soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan.
Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
Seven flag-draped coffins are seen in the courtyard outside the Invalides church during a military ceremony as France pays tribute to the seven French soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan during a national ceremony at the Invalides in Paris July 19, 2011.
Soldiers continue to die even as international forces pull out of Afghanistan. Five of the soldiers died shortly after Sarkozy's visit to Afghanistan. Full story.
Photos from Afghanistan in our slideshow.
Adek Berry / AFP - Getty Images
Indonesian couples gesture as they attend a mass interfaith wedding ceremony sponsored by an organizer and the Jakarta government in Jakarta on Tuesday, July 19. About 4,541 couples participated in the biggest mass wedding ceremony in Indonesia in order to obtain official marriage documents.
Thousands join Indonesian mass wedding reception
The AP reports:
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Thousands of underprivileged Indonesian newlyweds from various faiths have joined a mass reception to receive free marriage certificates that they otherwise could not afford.
About 15,000 attended the reception Tuesday at the Senayan Sports Palace, including Jakarta city officials and friends and family members of the 4,541 couples. Continue reading.
Leopard mauls six in village in India
Diptendu Dutta / AFP - Getty Images
A leopard attacks a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara on the outskirts of Siliguri on Tuesday, July 19.
Diptendu Dutta / AFP - Getty Images
A leopard is tranquilized after attacking forest guards at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara on the outskirts of Siliguri on Tuesday. Six people were mauled by the leopard after the feline strayed into the village area before it was caught by forestry department officials.
According to AFP, six people were mauled by the leopard after the feline strayed into the Prakash Nagar village area before it was caught by forestry department officials. Forest officials made several attempt to tranquilize the full grown leopard that was wandering through a densely populated area when curious crowds startled the animal, a wildlife official said.