In this photograph taken on October 4, 2016, an Afghan baker prepares bread at his shop as he waits for customers in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand province. For years Helmand was the centerpiece of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability, with almost the entire southern province teetering on the verge of collapse. Intensified fighting has killed hundreds and forced thousands to flee to besieged capital Lashkar Gah, sparking a humanitarian crisis as the city – one of the last government- held enclaves – risks falling to the Taliban' s repeated ferocious assaults. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

College students take shelter at a traffic point as a man paddles his rickshaw through a flooded road during heavy rain in Guwahati, India, June 13, 2017. (Photo by Anuwar Hazarika/Reuters)

A woman runs across the street next to an anti-tank constructions in central Kyiv, Ukraine on March 10, 2022. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Afghan child stands in front of a makeshift shelter after an earthquake in Gayan village, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, Friday June 24, 2022. A powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, flattening stone and mud-brick homes in the country's deadliest quake in two decades, the state-run news agency reported. (Photo by Ebrahim Nooroozi/AP Photo)

A woman visits the exhibition “Pop Air” at the Balloon Museum in Madrid, Spain, 22 March 2023. The exhibition, dedicated to balloons and inflatable arts, opened to the public in Madrid on 18 March and runs through 23 July 2023. (Photo by Alejandro Lopez/EPA)

A Palestinian holding a weapon takes cover between buildings amid clashes with Israeli troops during an Israeli raid in Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 13, 2023. (Photo by Raneen Sawafta/Reuters)

People light fireworks to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in New Delhi, India on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

In more “raccoons are getting more like us” news, a drunk raccoon was found in a liquor store in Virginia, US in the first decade of December 2025. The animal had got into the shop via some loose ceiling tiles, knocked bottles of spirits off the shelves, lapped up the contents and passed out in the toilets. Once it had sobered up, it was released back into the wild – no doubt with a crashing hangover. (Photo by AP Photo)