The twin lighthouses of St Joseph on Lake Michigan have been transformed by a winter storm. Ice encases the buildings, giant icicles hang from the piers and the beach is frosted white. Here: Huge icicles hang from the pier. (Photo by Mike Kline/Barcroft Media)

Planned improvements to Rio’s favelas have meant increases in rent, forcing the poorest families into squatting in unoccupied buildings. Photographer Tariq Zaidi visits the Mangueira community favela, less than 1km from the showpiece Maracanã stadium, to see what life is like for the women living there. Here: Victoria, 12, at her home in Mangueira. (Photo by Tariq Zaidi/The Guardian)

“Solar Impulse is a European long-range solar powered plane project being undertaken by Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. The project eventually hopes to succeed in the first circling of the earth with a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power. The first aircraft, bearing the Swiss aircraft registration code of HB-SIA, is a single-seater, capable of taking off under its own power, and intended to remain airborne up to 36 hours. This aircraft first flew an entire diurnal solar cycle, including nearly 9 hours of night flying, in a 26-hour flight on 7–8 July 2010”. – Wikipedia


Photo: Workers prepare the Solar Impulse airplane HB-SIA for a first runway test on November 19, 2009 in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Solar Impulse chairman Bertrand Piccard, psychatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and CEO and former fighter pilot Andrй Borschberg plan a round-the-world flight, driven only by solar energy, for 2012. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

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)

Girls embrace in front of a makeshift memorial for victims by the Covenant School building at the Covenant Presbyterian Church following a shooting, in Nashville, Tennessee, March 28, 2023. A heavily armed former student killed three young children and three staff in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack at a private elementary school in Nashville on Monday, before being shot dead by police Chief of Police John Drake named the suspect as Audrey Hale, 28, who the officer later said identified as transgender. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP Photo)

A bodybuilder applies tan on another participant during the Mr and Mrs East Africa Natural Body Building Contest at Rupaz Gym in Eldoret, western Kenya, on October 8, 2022. 168 bodybuilders from Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenia participate in this competition in Eldoret, a city known as “The City of Champions” for producing some of the best long distance runners in the world, that has not hosted a bodybuilding event since 2015. (Photo by Patrick Meinhardt/AFP Photo)

A woman reacts as rescuers search for survivors through the rubble of collapsed buildings in Adana, on February 6, 2023 after a 7,8 magnitude earthquake struck the country's south-east. The combined death toll has risen to over 1,900 for Turkey and Syria after the region's strongest quake in nearly a century. Turkey's emergency services said at least 1,121 people died in the earthquake, with another 783 confirmed fatalities in Syria. (Photo by Can Erok/AFP Photo)

A child plays with a cat next to a makeshift animal shelter at Cihangir neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, March 23, 2023. Turan comes every single day with cat food in his hand to the makeshift shelter he helped build with the other volunteers in the area and takes care of the needs of the cats that reside their every single day. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)