Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

The Rio de Janeiro Olympics kick off on August 5 for some two weeks of competitive games drawing athletes as well as audiences from around the world. As they prepare to cover the event, Reuters photographers look back on their favourite pictures from past Olympics where they captured the action on the ground as well as the participants' tears and joy that followed. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Palestinian barber Ramadan Odwan styles and straightens the hair of a customer with fire at his salon in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 2, 2017. In Ramadan Odwan's barbershop in Gaza, hair isn't just blow-dried, it's blowtorch-dried. “People have gone crazy about it, many people are curious to go through the experience and they are not afraid”, he told Reuters. “People here love adventures”. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

“The Darwin Beer Can Regatta is an event which has been held annually since 1974 in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia at Mindil Beach. Participants create boats using empty beer cans, soft drink (soda) cans, soft drink bottle and milk cartons. The vessels are not tested for seaworthiness, prior to water events, and those that fall apart are part of the day's entertainment. A great many sundry events go along with the regatta, including concerts, a thong-throwing contest and the "Henley-on-Mindil" competition (named after the Henley-on-Todd Regatta), where participants run their "boats" around like Flintstones cars”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A Darwin Beer Can Boat sails in Darling Harbour on October 31, in Sydney, Australia. Darwin has been named as one of Lonely Planet's top ten cities in the world to visit in it's Best in Travel publication. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images for Tourism NT)

Exhilaration beyond imaginable, intense concentration on a single point, and complete freedom of soul – all these things very accurately describe the art of highlining. Highlining is a branch of a new sport called slacklining, which involves walking on special webbing secured between two points. Andi Lewis is one of the most famous slackliners in the world, particularly due to his performance during Superbowl Halftime Show in 2012. He never fails to surprise people with an amazing stunt or a project. This time he and his friends have created a completely incredible hand-knitted hammock located hundreds of feet above the ground. Just getting to this hammock requires immense skills and bravery. But once you’re finally there, you can rest a while, before mustering up the courage to go back across a narrow line with nothing but thin air beneath your feet.

Haitian policemen arrest a demonstrator with machetes at the end of a march, in Port-au-Prince, on November 26, 2015. Supporters of Fanmi Lavalas and Petit Dessalines political parties marched to protest against the results given by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), against the Haitian President Michel Martelly, and against the candidate of the ruling party Jovenel Moise. Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) confirmed this week that Haiti's presidential election will go to a runoff on December 27, between ruling party candidate Jovenel Moise and Jude Celestin, close to former president Rene Preval. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

Gertrude “Billie” Murphy, 22, is brought in for questioning in the murder case of Michael Stopec, who was shot and killed in an apartment hotel, circa July 1927. Murphy had been friends of the married Stopec and his suspected killer Henry Guardino, 31. It is said that Stopec and Guardino were “bitter rivals for the favor of Billie” and that Murphy had tired of Guardino and was going to stay with Stopec. Murphy was also married to a man in the Joliet penitentiary. (Photo by Chicago Herald & Examiner Historical Photo)

A worker at the Jabal Saraj cement factory poses for a photograph in Jabal Saraj, north of Kabul, Afghanistan April 19, 2016. In an area desperately short of industry and jobs, local workers hope that the relaunch of the plant in Jabal Saraj, built by Czech engineers in 1957 and closed down by the Taliban in 1995, can show that Afghanistan's shattered industry can climb back to its feet after decades of war and destruction. But the outdated state-owned plant some 75 kilometres outside Kabul also shows how far it has to go before that promise can be achieved and there are serious questions over whether it has a viable future unless a new, modern facility is built to replace it. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)