A demonstrator jumps from a vehicle of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) during a protest to demand what protesters say is true information from the OSCE about the shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine (since April 2014, the city is the administrative centre of the Donetsk People's Republic), July 23, 2015. The graffiti reads, “Stop moronic war!”. (Photo by Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

A Donald Trump impersonator with a bikini clad model stops at a hot dog vendor near Trump Tower on October 25, 2016 in New York, as part of a performance art piece by British artist Alison Jackson. The event is to promote Jackson's new show, “Private”, in New York, which features staged photographs portraying the private lives of public individuals. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

Residents watch the ocean waves crash into the water front, after the passage of Hurricane Irma, in Cuba, Sunday, September 10, 2017. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

A migrant boy sits on railway tracks at a train station in Tovarnik, Croatia, September 20, 2015. (Photo by Antonio Bronic/Reuters)

A woman walks through flood water during heavy downpour at a street in Genoa, Italy, 10 October 2014. At least one person died due to flooding after heavy rains caused the Bisagno river, which runs through Genoa city to overflow. Part of the city was in black-out with flooded streets and parked cars dragged away by the water's force. (Photo by Luca Zennaro/EPA)

People carry their pets before the start of a pet blessing at Greenhills shopping mall in Manila October 3, 2015. Pets were blessed on Saturday in a celebration honouring the patron saint of animals Saint Francis of Assisi. (Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)

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)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)