A devotee of the Jor Soo Gong Naka shrine with skewers pierced through her cheeks takes part in a procession during the annual Vegetarian Festival in Phuket on September 27, 2022. The festival, back after two years of hiatus because of the Covid-19 pandemic, features religious devotees who slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Photo by Manan Vatsyayana/AFP Photo)

In this photograph taken on September 1, 2024, a tea picker shows her hands whilst she reaps leaves at a plantation in Hatton. The backbone of the economy, Sri Lanka's tea pickers are determined to use their powerful vote to choose a president this month who will change grim working conditions for good. The pickers' main political party, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), are backing the incumbent Wickremesinghe. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Drivers merge onto expressway lanes after passing through the Wuzhuang toll station at Chuzhou, in China's eastern Anhui province, as they make their way back home on the second-to-last day of an eight-day National Day holiday on October 7, 2025. The Wuzhuang toll station, located on the border between Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, is China's largest expressway toll station, with a total of 36 lanes. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

In more “raccoons are getting more like us” news, a drunk raccoon was found in a liquor store in Virginia, US in the first decade of December 2025. The animal had got into the shop via some loose ceiling tiles, knocked bottles of spirits off the shelves, lapped up the contents and passed out in the toilets. Once it had sobered up, it was released back into the wild – no doubt with a crashing hangover. (Photo by AP Photo)

A woman loyal to the Houthi movement holds a rifle as she takes part in a parade to show support to the movement in Sanaa, Yemen September 6, 2016. The Saudi-led Arab coalition launched a military campaign against the Huthis and their allies in March 2015, after the rebels closed in on Gulf-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in his southern refuge of Aden, forcing him into exile. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

Artist Terry Border gives new life to old books in his latest series titled Wiry Limbs, Paper Backs. The artist, who is no stranger to breathing new life into inanimate objects, utilizes his handcrafted technique of bending wires to serve as limbs and combines it with a great sense of humor. Each whimsical creation in the ongoing project is a sculptural work that stands on its own, reflecting its respective text.

Fishermen slaughter a 9.61m Baird's Beaked whale at Wada Port on June 28, 2008 in Minami Boso, Chiba, Japan. Only five ports are allowed whaling under the coastal whaling program which tries to keep whaling tradition that dates back to the seventeenth century. Japan is only allowed to hunt a limited number of whales every year. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)