A group of prospective police recruits, ready to be enrolled in the M23 controlled force, salute in the courtyard of a police station in Goma on February 6, 2025. More than a week after the battle for the North Kivu provincial capital, the M23 on Wednesday appointed people to public positions. Goma now has two officials for many public posts – two mayors, two governors – which locals said has created confusion. The M23 administration is still in its embryonic stages and struggling to respond to daily problems in the war-wounded city. (Photo by Michel Lunanga/AFP Photo)

A woman cries near the flowers, brought to the destroyed Amstor shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, 28 June 2022. At least 18 people died following Russian airstrikes on the crowded shopping mall, the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine said in a Telegram post. The Amstor shopping center one-story building was hit by Russian rockets on 27 June afternoon. (Photo by Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA/EFE)

Night lovers; Hormozgan province, Iran. “In this picture, you can see the Milky Way rising on a fascinating spring night on the Persian Gulf coast. The stunning cliffs of this area make every viewer imagine and even talk to them! The light pollution from a faraway city was quite strong, so it was a challenging post-processing process. I’m a nightscaper who tries to achieve an artistic look in my images, and in this image, I tried to convey and capture the magic of this location”. (Photo by Mohammad Hayati/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

Girls Aloud: Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh, Sarah Harding and Cheryl Cole at Kimberley Walsh's birthday party hosted by Damian Darkko at Mint Nightclub in London, Britain on November 25, 2006. The Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding has died at the age of 39, her mother has said in a post on Instagram. Issue date: Sunday September 5, 2021. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Beryl Lipton, left, douses Matt Lee during the ice bucket challenge at Boston's Copley Square, Thursday, August 7, 2014 to raise funds and awareness for ALS. The idea is: pay up for charity or get doused. The fund-raising phenomenon is catching on fast, propelled by popular videos of the dunkers and the dunked – including famous athletes and entertainers – posted on social media sites. And the challenges are raising tens of thousands of dollars and immeasurable awareness for causes from ALS to breast cancer to a camp for kids who've lost a father to war. (Photo by Elise Amendola/AP Photo)

Members of the media film as a ranger performs a post mortem on the carcass of a rhino after it was killed for its horn by poachers at the Kruger national park in Mpumalanga province August 27, 2014. Rhino poachers in South Africa now risk giving themselves away when they shoot thanks to a high-tech, gunfire-detection system being piloted in the country's flagship Kruger National Park. The stakes are high, for rhinos are being slain in escalating numbers for their prized horns, alarming both conservationists and the government since wildlife in South Africa is an important tourist draw. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

The carriages have decayed over time, on February 27, 2015, in Purwakarta, Indonesia. Dozens of trains are stacked on top of each other in what looks like a post-apocalyptic world. The old electric trains that travelled in and out of Jakarta, Indonesia, are weathered and decayed over time. The trains were used everyday since the 1980s and carried thousands of people to work. Now the carriages, which were once the lifeblood of public transport in the south-Asian city, have been left to rust among shrubbery. (Photo by HKV/Barcroft Media)

Some of the best entries so far in the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There are two weeks left to enter, and the winners will be announced in September. Here: Aurora over Laksvatn Fjord, Laksvatn, Norway. The aurora borealis dances in the skies over the town of Laksvatn, with the Milky Way to the left. The image is a single shot with no compositing, only post-processing to bring out the aurora, and some colour corrections. The photographer Matt Walford said: “I love the way the northern lights look like they are just wistfully dancing over the fjord, framed by the mountains on either side”. (Photo by Matt Walford/National Maritime Museum)