A Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Units (YPG) fires his rifle at Islamic State militants as he runs across a street in Raqqa, Syria, July 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Excited Brits beamed as they grabbed a pint outside in Leeds, United Kingdom on April 17, 2021. Pubs and restaurants with outdoor space have been allowed to reopen as lockdown restrictions are eased in the UK. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

Edgar Sanchez stops on a walk with his dogs who cool off in a pool beside a fire hydrant sprayer, Saturday, June 22, 2024, in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York. (Photo by John Minchillo/AP Photo)

Newly hired employees for Japan Airlines (JAL) attend an entrance ceremony in a hangar at Haneda Airport on April 03, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan. 2,000 new employees from 37 JAL group companies were welcomed at the event held for the first time in four years following a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

Isaac Young rests his cheek on the family horse Rusty's forehead during farm chores before homeschooling in Sunbury, Ohio, November 12, 2024. (Photo by Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

Alex Neal-Bullen during an Adelaide Crows match against Port Adelaide Power at Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia on July 26, 2025. (Photo by Matt Turner/AAP)

A bonnet macaque sits on consecrated idols of snakes as it drinks milk offered by a devotee during the Hindu festival of Nag Panchami, which is celebrated by worshipping snakes to honour the serpent god, inside a temple on the outskirts of Bengaluru, India, July 27, 2017. (Photo by Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)