About a dozen dogs traded in their leashes for life vests Saturday for the chance to ride the waves at Jupiter beach as part of a canine surfing competition to raise money for an animal rescue group. Photo: Musso paddles in with Jengo. (Photo by Taylor Jones/The Palm Beach Post)

At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

These poignant portraits look to shine awareness on the plight of some of the world’s most endangered ecosystems and species of wildlife. The images combine animals, art and celebrity, with Asia's top models posing with the likes of rhinos, giraffes, leopards and marine life. Here: Mikki Yao with an Asian Elephant. (Photo by Sean Lee-Davies/Caters News)

“Car2go fleet is located throughout the greater downtown area and can be accessed on-demand or booked 24 hours in advance. The members may use the vehicle for as long as they like, without committing to a specific return time or return location”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A car2go employee shows how members can use a smartphone or iPad app to locate and reservec car2go vehicles March 22, 2012 in Washington, DC. Beginning March 24, car2go will offer the first free-floating car-sharing service in Washington and Portland, Oregon, where customers can use the smartphone app within the 34-square-mile “Home Area”. After paying a one-time $35 membership fee, drivers can then rent the Smart Fortwo vehicles by the minute, paying only for the time they use the vehicle, with discounted rates for hourly and daily use. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Abdulahi Yaroow, 13, smokes a cigarette while chewing khat at the same time in Mogadishu August 10, 2014. Grown on plantations in the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia, tonnes of khat, or qat, dubbed “the flower of paradise” by its users, are flown daily into Mogadishu airport, to be distributed from there in convoys of lorries to markets across Somalia. Britain, whose large ethnic Somali community sustained a lucrative demand for the leaves, banned khat from July as an illegal drug. This prohibition jolted the khat market, creating a supply glut in Somalia and pushing down prices, to the delight of the many connoisseurs of its amphetamine-like high. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)