A star-spangled spectator takes in a perfect Sunday afternoon, November 3, 2024 for stock-car racing. About 50,000 fans turned up for Sunday afternoon’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia. (Photo by Lauren Caulk/The Guardian)

Talini (R), a 9-month old 160-pound polar bear cub, swims with her mother Barle at the Detroit Zoo's Artic Ring of Life exhibit August 25, 2005 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Talini's birth was the first polar bear birth at the Detroit Zoo in fifteen years. Her mother Barle was wild born and was rescued by the Detroit Zoo from a circus in Puerto Rico in 2002. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

International photographic competition, which runs in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, awards special prize for the best close-up images. Here: Winner – Mayflies by Petar Sabol, Goričan, Croatia. (Photo by Sabol Petar/International Garden Photographer of the Year)

A man dressed as “El Chapulin Colorado”, a character by screenwriter Roberto Gomez Bolanos, performs for fans and media as they wait for the arrival of the funeral van carrying the body of Bolanos, at Mexican media company Televisa in Mexico City November 29, 2014. Mexican actor and screenwriter Roberto Gomez Bolanos, one of Latin America's most beloved comedians, whose slapstick acts charmed fans from Spain to Argentina for over four decades, died on Friday at the age 85. Known as “Chespirito”, a word play on “Little Shakespeare” for his diminutive stature and his prolific scripts, Gomez Bolanos created some of the region's most enduring comic characters. (Photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

This screengrab from Thai TV Pool video taken on May 1, 2019 shows a ceremony in which Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn “legally married” Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya in Bangkok. Thailand announced on May 1, 2019 that King Maha Vajiralongkorn's long-time consort had become his fourth wife, bestowed with the title Queen Suthida – a surprise move just days before his coronation. (Photo by Bureau of the Royal Household via Reuters)

Runner-up. “The City of London, looking towards the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. The ever-changing London skyline provides many excellent opportunities for cityscape photography, none more exciting than the ebb and flow of traffic at night”. (Photo by Mark Caldon/The Guardian)

A “Star Wars” superfan has brought the universe to his backyard. Amateur photographer Zahir Batin, from Selangor in Malaysia, added stormtroopers, X-wings and other famous sights to his native Tanjong Karang rice fields. The Malaysian snapper decided to combine his love for his hometown with his passion for the out-of-this-world space opera and, in particular, the toys. The amazing shots show TIE fighters on fire flying overhead and AT-AT walking tanks towering over tiny children, as well as Dark Side forces marching through the countryside. Here: a Nubian Royal Starship hovers over the Malaysian rice fields. (Photo by Zahir Batin/Mercury Press)

Vanessa Silva, 38, feeds macaws that fly to her apartment window every day looking for food, in Caracas, Venezuela, on November 24, 2014. A group of gold-and-royal blue birds poked their heads through Silva’s window, as if saying “I’m here, is anyone home?” “I’d seen them flying when I was down on the street, and I thought ‘Oh how pretty,’” the 38-year-old said, a macaw eating out of her hand. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)