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)

A Hindu devotee lies on a road as she worships the Sun god during the religious festival of Chhath Puja in Kolkata, India October 26, 2017. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

NASA's DHC-3 Otter plane flies in Operation IceBridge-Alaska surveys of mountain glaciers in Alaska in this image released on September 18, 2014. Over the past few decades, average global temperatures have been on the rise, and this warming is happening two to three times faster in the Arctic. (Photo by Chris Larsen/Reuters/NASA/University of Alaska-Fairbanks)

Despite any political differences between the United States and Russia, the space agencies of the two countries continue their cooperative work in Earth's orbit, aboard the International Space Station. Apart from the research being done in microgravity, ISS crew members continue to send back amazing images of our home world, photographed from low Earth orbit. Gathered here are recent images of Earth from aboard the ISS, and from a handful of other NASA satellites.

Brides display their hands decorated with henna around a bride as she poses for her own photographer during a mass marriage ceremony in which, according to its organizers, 70 Muslim couples took their wedding vows, in Ahmedabad, India, February 11, 2018. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Drag guests attend RuPaul's DragCon UK presented by World Of Wonder at Olympia London on January 19, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for World Of Wonder Productions)

A Rajasthani man displays his moustache during the closing ceremony of annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan, on November 8, 2022. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/AFP Photo)

A black-winged stilt patrols a reservoir in Jezreel Valley in Israel early April 2023. Their eggs are a golden colour mottled with brown. (Photo by Itamar Procaccia/Solent News)