Puppies, pugs and the perfect antidote to political pandemonium, it’s the Kennel Club’s dog photographer of the year competition. Here: Jamie Morgan’s two Afghan hounds won first place in the portrait category. (Photo by Jamie Morgan/PA Wire)

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)

A woman and a girl dressed in historical Red Army uniform, wait before watching the Victory Day parade, marking the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, at Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2016. (Photo by Grigory Dukor/Reuters)

A member of a Chinese opera troupe applies make-up before performing at a shrine during the annual vegetarian festival in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 4, 2016. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

A woman dressed in a costume poses for a photograph at Tokyo Comic Con at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan December 2, 2016. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Barrier tape is tied around 15-month-old Shivani's ankle to prevent her from running away, while her mother Sarta Kalara works at a construction site nearby, in Ahmedabad, India, April 19, 2016. Kalara says she has no option but to tether her daughter Shivani to a stone despite her crying, while she and her husband work for 250 rupees ($3.8) each a shift digging holes for electricity cables in the city of Ahmedabad. There are about 40 million construction workers in India, at least one in five of them women, and the majority poor migrants who shift from site to site, building infrastructure for India's booming cities. Across the country it is not uncommon to see young children rolling in the sand and mud as their parents carry bricks or dig for new roads or luxury houses. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A cat sits in the flooding waters from Hurricane Matthew in downtown Nichols, South Carolina, October 10, 2016. (Photo by Randall Hill/Reuters)

“Early morning in Mandawa, rural Rajasthan: it was the morning of Diwali and the streets were swept by smiling women in brightly coloured sarees as I took an early morning cup of chai. Celebrations started later, when darkness fell”. (Photo by Hamish Scott-Brown/Guardian Witness)