The main church in the town of San Damian Texoloc, Mexico stands in front of the Popocatepetl volcano as is spews ash and vapor early Tuesday, July 9, 2013. Last Saturday, Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention raised the volcano alert from Stage 2 Yellow to Stage 3 Yellow, the final step before a Red alert, when possible evacuations could be ordered after the Popocatepetl volcano spit out a cloud of ash and vapor 2 miles (3 kilometers) high over several days of eruptions. (Photo by J. Guadalupe Perez/AP Photo)

In this Sunday, August 5, 2012 file photo South Africa's Oscar Pistorius starts in the men's semi-finals of the 400-meter in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Summer Olympics, London. Pistorius could be granted parole on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023 after nearly 10 years in prison for killing his girlfriend. The double-amputee Olympic runner was convicted of a charge comparable to third-degree murder for shooting Reeva Steenkamp in his home in 2013. He has been in prison since late 2014. (Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP Photo)

“The Carnival Triumph finally made port on Thursday night, after what should have been an idyllic four-day cruise turned into a grueling week-long ordeal for more than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. Some kissed the ground as they disembarked the ship, while others swore never to go on another cruise again. Many spoke of the well-documented unsanitary conditions on board the 272-metre Triumph, which lost power in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday”. – Tom Dart and Adam Gabbatt via Guardian

Photo: Kendall Jenkins of Houston kisses the ground after stepping off the Carnival ship Triumph (Photo by AP Photo)

Cats and p*rn have got to be the two most searched keywords on the Internet, and finally there’s a whole page dedicated to both! “Des Hommes et des Chatons” tumblr page presents a hilarious series of diptychs showing hot guys and cats doing similar expressions and poses. And as if it wasn’t enough, the combinations include such celebrities as Johnny Depp, Ryan Gosling, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Pierce Brosnan.

Ayesha Farooq, 26, Pakistan's only female war-ready fighter pilot watches an airforce jet about to take off at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan June 7, 2013. Farooq, from Punjab province's historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade – there are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat. A growing number of women have joined Pakistan's defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Badminton School sixth form pupils (L-R) Lucy Warden, who got 3 A* and is off to study English at Durham, Sam Crumpton, who got 1 A* and 2 A's and is off to study to be a vet at Cambridge and Madeline Sunter, who got 2 A* and 1 B, and is off to study fashion at St. Martins, celebrate their A-level results on August 18, 2011 in Bristol, England. With another record year for A-level results, sixth-form students face a scramble for university places in the final year before tuition fees rise. According to the examination bodies the pass rate rose for the 29th successive year to hit 97.8 percent, while around one in 12 exams achieved the top A* grade. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A contestant for Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018 gets ready backstage during the annual transgender beauty contest “Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018” at the Tiffany's Show Theatre in Pattaya city, Chonburi province, Thailand, 31 August 2018. Thirty Thai transgender contestants took part in the final stage of the annual beauty contest which is aimed to promote the tourism industry in the resort city of Pattaya city. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA/EFE)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.