An artist draws a tattoo on a woman's arm during a tattoo convention in Ljubljana April 18, 2015. (Photo by Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters)

Francisca Gomez stands at an entrance to her home, a cave where she has been living for the past 50 years, in the mountains on the outskirts of Chusmuy, Honduras April 21, 2015. The 75-year old widow receives help from neighbors and friends and she makes a little money by selling wood she collects, according to a local newspaper. (Photo by Jorge Cabrera/Reuters)

These brave models show no fear as they pose with bears, tigers and wolves in scenes straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The snaps show the models cuddling up to the deadly animals and even taking naps with the often unpredictable creatures. Here: “Marina with a bear”. Stepan, a 700-pound grizzly bear, was adopted by a Russian couple when he was just 3 months old. (Photo by Olga Barantseva/Caters News Agency)

An adult specimen of Nannospalax (leucodon) montanosyrmiensis, a variant of the lesser mole-rat (Spalax leucodon) is pictured near Albertirsa, some 60 kilometers southeast of Budapest, Hungary, 12 May 2018. The critically endangered rodent lives in several isolated populations in the Carpathian Basin. (Photo by Sandor Ujvari/EPA/EFE)

A Syrian man sells vegetables in front of a damaged tank in Homs, on December 20, 2024. Islamist-led rebels took Damascus in a lightning offensive on December 8, ousting president Bashar al-Assad and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. (Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP Photo)

A worker settles mud in a mold to make bricks at a brick factory in Tixtla, on the outskirts of Chilpancingo, in the Guerrero state, January 26, 2015. The worker earns a salary of 15 Mexican pesos, or one dollar, for every 100 bricks made on a working day of at least 5 hours. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

A man wearing a native costume named “Woman Carrying Husband” poses ahead of the Carnival in Sostanj January 15, 2015. Slovenians and members of various ethnological groups celebrate the annual carnival, also known locally as Pust, by wearing traditional masks and costumes to symbolically “chase away” the winter. Prust runs from February 7 to 17 this year. (Photo by Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters)

The northeastern United States sweltered this week in a scorching summer heat wave, complete with stagnant, sticky air and no winds for relief, forecasters said. Even in a summer already filled with stretches of very hot weather, this week will be stubbornly brutal, with no relief in sight until the weekend brings thunderstorms to the region, they said. "Plain and simple, this week may feel the worst of any week for this summer in the Northeast," said Accuweather.com meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. (Reuters)