American actress and model Karruche Tran arrives at Highlight Room for a Halloween party in Hollywood, CA. on October 29, 2019, dressed as Nancy Callahan from “Sin City”. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

In this Thursday, March 28, 2019, photo, a “golden giant burger” is served at a restaurant of Hotel Grand Hyatt Tokyo in Tokyo. The $900 wagyu (Japanese-produced beef) burger was unveiled to commemorate the era change. What’s in a name? Quite a lot if you’re a Japanese citizen awaiting the official announcement Monday, April 1, 2019 of what the soon-to-be-installed new emperor’s next era will be called. It’s a proclamation that has happened only twice in nearly a century, and the new name will follow Emperor Naruhito, after his May 1 investiture, for the duration of his rule, attaching itself to much of what happens in Japan. (Photo by Kyodo News via AP Photo)

Shironeko, also known as “Basket Cat”, is a Turkish van cat called “Shiro”, which is best known for his extremely relaxed demeanor and ability to balance things on his head, similar to Oolong the Pancake Bunny. The cat has been given several nicknames by its fans, most notably “Basket Cat” and “Zen Cat.”

American singer-songwriter Maggie Lindemann poses on the red carpet at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Californian, U.S., March 22, 2022. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Raining on their New Year's Eve parade. Revellers in Leeds, United Kingdom get ready ready for the new year on December 31, 2022. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

A model presents a creation from the Blonds Fall 2020 collection during New York Fashion Week in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., February 9, 2020. (Photo by Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

With temperatures soaring and summer well underway, countless Americans will be spending their Independence Day weekend at the beach. Here we revisit some classic images from the turn-of-the-century to the 1930's of vacations by the sea, from Coney Island to Santa Monica.

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.