A surfer falls from their board a day after Tropical Storm Hilary swept through the area with large waves hitting south-facing beaches in Huntington Beach, California, on August 21, 2023. Tropical Storm Hilary drenched Southern California with record rainfall, shutting down schools, roads and businesses before edging in on Nevada on August 21, 2023. California Governor Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency over much of the typically dry area, where flash flood warnings remained in effect until this morning. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP Photo)

People drink in the street in the Soho area of London, on April 12, 2021 as coronavirus restrictions are eased across the country in step two of the government's roadmap out of England's third national lockdown. Britons on Monday toasted a significant easing of coronavirus restrictions, with early morning pints – and much-needed haircuts – as the country took a tentative step towards the resumption of normal life. Businesses including non-essential retail, gyms, salons and outdoor hospitality were all able to open for the first time in months in the second step of the government's roadmap out of lockdown. (Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP Photo)

“Warming up”. This photo I capture in the early afternoon, the animal species of lemurs fly. Photo location: Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Hendy Mp/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Without mincing words we would like to present a feature: Self-Publishing, let's call it Samizdat. :-) Sure we aren't Flickr, StumbleUpon or add_whatever_you_like, we're really small in comparison with these giants but we have constant, very attentive and grateful audience. All we can offer you is a place on the main page and attention of all our visitors to your posts, the things that are hard to achieve on numerous social services. Who knows, maybe tiny and humble indie project like AvaxNews will be much more helpful in searching of your audience than facebook for example. %-)

“Hi! I'm Joel, I live in a valley in British Columbia's Rocky Mountains, as close to the forest as I could possibly be! I love to run, bike, jump, eat and create and I hope that you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy creating it!” – Joel Robison. (Photo by: Joel Robison; Source: Flickr)

“The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSR, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster)”. – Wikipedia (Photos by Alexandr Strannik, August 1986; Source: LiveJournal)

Russian artist Salavat Fidai is obsessed with things in miniature, and he has previously painted miniatures on pumpkin seeds and carved sculptures into the graphite tips of pencils. For this project, he's gone for something a little bit bigger, but not by much. One of Fidai's favorite painters is the legendary Vincent Van Gogh, so he decided to do a series where he recreated some of Van Gogh's famous works on matchboxes.

It might have been foggy in the Willamette Valley, but Cerridwen Martin was able to revel in a view of the top of the clouds from the summit of Spencer Butte in Eugene, Ore., on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. Martin was joined by Joe Martinson, right, for the 1.1 mile trek. Fog shrouded much of the city for most of the day. (Photo by Andy Nelson/AP Photo/The Register-Guard)