A parrot stuck on a roof for three days greeted firefighters sent to its aid on August 13, 2018 with a four-letter tirade. Jessie, the multi-lingual Macaw, flipped the bird after escaping from her owner's home in Edmonton, north London, UK. When she could not be lured down from a neighbour's roof, firefighters were called out and told to tell the bird “I love you” – to which Jessie replied “I love you back”. But she then ruffled her would-be rescuers' feathers by telling them to “f**k off” before flying off to another nearby rooftop. The foul-mouthed pet also speaks Turkish and Greek according to its owner, but had its own choice words in English for the rescue team. As Jessie wasn't injured, the firefighters, who had been called in by the RSPCA, left her on her perch. The parrot was later reunited with its owner. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Most Russians intending to vote for Vladimir Putin in Sunday's election say stability is at the root of their faith in their candidate – though many young voters believe it's time for a change of leader. Putin, 65, is expected to win a fourth term in office with 69 percent of the vote, according to the latest survey by a state-run pollster. Reuters correspondents and photographers who travelled around the country talking to voters ahead of the March 18 election found nothing to contradict expectation of an emphatic Putin victory. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

(Excuse me for the clumsy electronic translator) Today in Moscow presidential elections are spent. Abundantly clear that without dependence from their results the winner will be declared Vladimir Putin. It can lead to the mass protest. Therefore the authorities have deduced on streets of thousand soldiers and policemen. For example, personally I (Avax) see from the window: four buses and two trucks with RIOT police. In photos more low – Moscow on March 04, 2012. A Garden Ring, The Tverskaya street, The Mayoralty, The State Duma, and The Bolshoi theater. (Photos by: Vladimir Maltsev; Source: LiveJournal; Rustem Adagamov; Source: LiveJournal).

Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

Do you think that history is a science? Well, not exactly. First, and foremost, history is the state's “legend of wars”, it’s official regalia. Of course, public historians are not interested in scientific truth – quite the opposite. In this respect, any attempt to present a state’s history as altruistic and benevolent as possible is welcomed and encouraged – as opposed to any revisionism attempts that may be more accurate. In this matter, Chinese have surpassed us all – they revised in highly creative manner (but rather shamelessly) the technology already invented by Europeans, a process that resulted in oldest state on the planet. Here is an interesting paradox: ask any sinologist about the Middle Kingdom during second century B.C., and he will describe it to you in such a vivid manner as if he has been living there all his life – but as soon as you will ask him to describe Chinese history in the 19-20th centuries… let's say, his eagerness will be greatly diminished. However, we will discuss China in a different article, and in the meantime we will try to understand how exactly historic “legend of wars” is formed and functions – based on a specific and well-known example. A great example is Ferdinand Magellan's first voyage around the world.

A wheelbarrow loaded with two butchered pigs is seen at La Saline slaughterhouse in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 19, 2015. Reuters photographer Andres Martinez Casares: “The grunts of a pig or the bleating of a goat are one thing. Then there's the sound of animals about to be killed. That's something else. If you haven't heard that before, it's quite something... (Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)

Mystical Forest. Tracey Jennings photographed this seven-gill shark in a kelp forest just off the shore of Simon's Town near Cape Town, South Africa. You don't need to travel far from cities to visit Narnia. This 7 gill shark was photographed in a kelp forest just off the shore of Simonstown near Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Tracey Jennings/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

In Dougie Wallace’s photos of Mumbai taxis, the chatter, yelling, and constant horns of the city are almost audible. A selection of his images is on show at Gayfield Creative Spaces, Edinburgh, as part of the Retina photography festival until 30 July. For four years, the Glasgow-born Wallace focused his photos on one kind of taxi in particular: the Premier Padmini, a 1960s workhorse painted in black and yellow. Locally known as “Kaali-Peeli”, there were once more than 60,000 of them in the Indian city. But thanks to laws restricting pollution, the cars now are fast disappearing from Mumbai’s streets. (Photo by Dougie Wallace/The Guardian)