A sign advising to pray for rain hangs above an exhibit area at the 47th Annual World Ag Expo in Tulare, February 12, 2014. About a hundred years ago, when urban water systems were being developed throughout the state, the city of Sacramento wrote protections from metering into its charter, vowing that residents would always have the right to use as much water as they needed. But on Tuesday, the state's top water regulators released a framework for enforcing California's first statewide mandatory restrictions on urban water use – cuts of 25 percent for non-agricultural users ordered last week by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown as a devastating drought enters its fourth year. (Photo by David McNew/Reuters)

Combine harvesters work on a wheat field of the Solgonskoye farming company near the village of Talniki, southwest from Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, August 27, 2015. Russia, one of the world's top wheat exporters, will harvest its third-largest grain crop in post-Soviet history this year, leading Russian consultancy SovEcon said on August 27 after upgrading its forecast. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Australian photographer Brendan Fitzpatrick’s X-ray photographs expose the inner workings of toys. Fitzpatrick’s photographs are both whimsical and mechanical, evoking the curiosity of childhood and the desire to discover how things look and work from other perspectives. The strategic placement of wires, batteries, and screws are revealed, the complexity of the inside contrasting with the seemingly simplistic design of the outside. Fitzpatrick uses chest X-ray and mammogram machines to photograph flowers, toys, and creatures, then enhances the color in the images in order to more effectively distinguish the various parts that have been exposed. This photographs are part of series he calls “Invisible Light”. (Photo by Brendan Fitzpatrick)

A creative Dad brings family-favourite cartoon characters to life by putting them into hilarious situations. You would be forgiven for thinking that the following images are created using Photoshop – but complete with real fire and coffee splashes, Mitchel Wuís images are all shot in real-time. Using plastic toy characters from family-favourite films such as Toy Story, Star Wars, ET and The Muppets, the California-based photographer puts the plastic characters into surreal situations. (Photo by Mitchel Wu/Barcroft Images)

The Rogz Grinz Ball Dog Toy is a fun creation by South African Porky Hefer Design. The bounce and fetch toy will turn your dog´s mouth into an hilarious ear-to-ear grin, just like Milo dog from the movie “The Mask”. The toy can be stuffed with your dogs favorite treats and floats nicely on the water.

A model who poses for tips wearing body paint and underwear poses for a portrait in Times Square in New York, August 19, 2015. She declined to give her name. New York officials including Governor Andrew Cuomo are considering measures to curtail the activity, according to local media. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

A photographer is using a unique method to show the shift from day to night across famous cities in spectacular images. Daniel Marker-Moors' take on time-lapse photography – which he calls time slice – sees the photographer snap image after image, before combining them to create beautiful, vibrant works. His images usually focus on a point in the day with the most dramatic change in light, such as sunrise or sunset. Marker-Moors, from Los Angeles, begins by shooting hundreds and sometimes thousands of images from the same spot. Here: Chicago – 35 photographs, 15 minutes. (Photo by Daniel Marker-Moors/Caters News)