Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

A woman carries her cat as she walks near Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station in Kyiv in the morning of February 24, 2022. Air raid sirens rang out in downtown Kyiv today as cities across Ukraine were hit with what Ukrainian officials said were Russian missile strikes and artillery. (Photo by Daniel Leal/AFP Photo)

A model presents a creation from the Versace Fall-Winter 2022/2023 collection during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 25, 2022. (Photo by Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters)

Sikh devotee take part in Nagar Keertan procession on the occasion of Guru Gobind Singh birth anniversary in Allahabad, India on December 29, 2016. Guru Gobind Singh, born Gobind Rai (1666 – 1708), was the 10th Sikh Guru, a spiritual master, warrior, poet and philosopher. When his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, Guru Gobind Singh was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs at age nine, becoming the last of the living Sikh Gurus. (Photo by Prabhat Kumar Verma/Pacific Press via ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Indian dancers perform a fire breathing act during a procession to mark the 661st anniversary of the birth of Hindu guru Bawa Lal Dayal Maharaj in Amritsar on February 9, 2016. Bawa Lal Dayal Maharaj, a popular leader of his time, is especially revered by devotees of a temple in the town of Dhyanpur, some 45 kms north of Amritsar. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

A child looks at window cleaners work while dressed in sheep (C) and monkey costumes, denoting animal signs of the Chinese zodiac calendar, during an event marking the upcoming end of the year at a hotel in Tokyo, Japan, December 21, 2015. According to the zodiac calendar, 2015 is the year of the sheep and 2016 is the year of the monkey. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A body of a victim lies trapped in the debris after an earthquake hit, in Kathmandu, Nepal April 25, 2015. Rescue efforts in Nepal are intensifying after nearly 2,000 people were killed on Saturday in the worst earthquake there in more than 80 years. Many countries and charities have offered aid to deal with the disaster. Seventeen people have been killed on Mount Everest by avalanches – the mountain's worst-ever disaster. Meanwhile a powerful aftershock was felt on Sunday in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and more avalanches were reported near Everest. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

“A fter the former Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in August 1949, the US reevaluated its postwar defense policies. With the US monopoly on atomic weapons broken, military and political leaders chose to diversify the American stockpile by developing thermonuclear and tactical nuclear weapons. One of the more interesting concepts to come out of this period was atomic artillery, which was successfully tested at the Nevada Proving Grounds (now the Nevada Test Site) in May 1953”. – Alan Carr. Photo: Atomic Annie at work during the Upshot-Knothole test series, 1953. (Photo by Los Alamos National Laboratory/US Army)