“At her job, Maria Torero cares for sick human beings. At home, she lavishes love on slowly dying cats – 175 of them at last count. The 45-year-old nurse has turned her two-story, eight-room apartment into a hospice for cats with feline leukemia, scattering it with scores of feeding dishes and at least two dozen boxes litter boxes. Some have suggested she shelter healthy cats instead. “That's not my role”, she told The Associated Press. “I'm a nurse. My duty is to the cats that nobody cares about”. She said that “people don't adopt adult cats, especially if they are terminally ill”. – Franklin Briceno via Associated Press. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

Traffic moves as water is pumped out of an inundated residential area following torrential rains in Bengaluru, India on September 7, 2022. (Photo by Samuel Rajkumar/Reuters)

A woman in Kimono poses for photos in front of mimosa and cherry blossom trees in Tokyo on March 8, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP Photo)

Seth Moniz and Kelly Slater, of the United States, embrace after Slater won the Billabong Pro Pipeline contest just short of his 50th birthday in Haleiwa, Hawaii, US on February 5, 2022. (Photo by Brent Bielmann/World Surf League via AP Photo)

An eight-week-old sea otter rescued from Seldovia, Alaska, peaks out of his enclosure at Shedd Aquarium Wednesday, December 6, 2023, in Chicago. The otter was found alone and malnourished and was taken to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska, which contacted Shedd, and the Chicago aquarium was able to take the otter in. He will remain quarantined for a few months while he learns to groom and eat solid foods before being introduced to Shedd's five other sea otters. (Photo by Erin Hooley/AP Photo)

A wave carrying plastic waste and other rubbish washes up on a beach in Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand on January 19, 2021. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

A “nail house”, the last building in the area, sits in the middle of a road under construction in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region April 10, 2015. According to local media, the owner of the house didn't reach an agreement with the local authority about compensation of the demolition. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

“Basunga”. Basunga (3 weeks-old newborn with albinism) is happily sleeping with his cousin. For now, he does not yet realize the difficulties he will face to integrate into the Congolese society as a PWA. The success of his integration will greatly depends of how he accepts himself and his skin condition a and how educated he will be. Photo location: Kinshasa, Congo RDC. (Photo and caption by Patricia Willocq/National Geographic Photo Contest)