Drivers merge onto expressway lanes after passing through the Wuzhuang toll station at Chuzhou, in China's eastern Anhui province, as they make their way back home on the second-to-last day of an eight-day National Day holiday on October 7, 2025. The Wuzhuang toll station, located on the border between Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, is China's largest expressway toll station, with a total of 36 lanes. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

People walk on the 'Swiftie Steps' ahead of a Taylor Swift concert, following the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna because of a planned attack, at Wembley Stadium in London, Britain on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

A reveler jumps over a bonfire during the night of San Juan in Alcobendas near Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. The San Juan night coincides with the Summer solstice and it's the welcome to Summer. This celebration takes place during the shortest night of the year in almost all cities and towns of Spain. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

A humanoid robot named Kansei, meaning “sensibility” in Japanese, makes a facial expression depicting “happiness”, next to the word “Love” during a demonstration at a laboratory of Meiji University's Robot and Science Institute in Kawasaki, south of Tokyo in this June 4, 2007 file photo. Three-fourths of robot installations over the next decade are expected to be concentrated in four areas: transportation equipment, including the automotive sector; computer and electronic products; electrical equipment and machinery. Labor costs have climbed in countries such as China that have been popular for outsourcing production, while technological advances for robots allow them to be more flexible and perform more tasks. (Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)

An original 1850 puntabout rugby football is displayed at Rugby School in central England, March 18, 2015. Rugby School is known as the spiritual home of rugby. According to a popular version of the game's origins, it was on the school's playing field that in 1823, in a game that could loosely be described as football but was more like a brawl, a pupil called William Webb Ellis caught the ball and, instead of kicking towards the goal, sprinted with it – breaking the code and laying the way for modern-day rugby. (Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters)

During a jungle survival program February 20, 2013 taught by Royal Thai Special Forces in Sannapit, Thailand, U.S. Marines learned to catch cobras and drink their fresh blood, not to mention eat forest insects and pull the heads off of chicken. The training was part of Operation Cobra Gold 13, the 32nd edition of international military exercises hosted by the Thai. According to a U.S. Marines press release, Cobra Gold is the largest exercise of its kind in Asia and incorporates troops from five other nations in addition to the U.S. and Thailand. The Daily Mail reports that the Marines were invited to experience the local custom of drinking cobra blood after being taught to catch and kill cobras in the wild. As CNN notes, Cobra blood is believed to be a panacea and aphrodiasic in parts of Southeast Asia. In Jakarta, vendors can earn over $100 a night selling shots of cobra blood mixed with liquor. (Photo by Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP Photo)

Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn’t resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union.

Israeli soldiers pray at dawn as the conflict between Palestine and Gaza enters its seventh day on November 20, 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants and Israel are continuing talks aimed at a ceasefire as the death toll in Gaza reaches more than 100 and also three Israelis killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants. (Photo by Christopher Furlong)