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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. (© Amos Chapple)     show less

Yuccas catch fire as the Powerhouse fire makes a fast run toward Lake Hughes on June 1, 2013 south of Lake Hughes, California. The 32,000-acre wildfire destroyed numerous homes. More than 2,000 firefighters have been working in hot, dry conditions to establish containment lines around 60 percent of the fire as of June 4. (David McNew/Getty Images)     show less

An Afghan National Army soldier assigned to the Mobile Strike Force Kandak fires an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher during a live-fire exercise supervised by the Marines with the Mobile Strike Force Advisor Team on Camp Shorabak, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on May 20, 2013. (USMC/Staff Sgt. Ezekiel R. Kitandwe)     show less

Riot police use tear gas to disperse the a during an anti-government protest in Taksim Square in central Istanbul, Turkey, on May 31, 2013. Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests for years. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)     show less

A Arvind Mahankali of New York holds his trophy after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor in Maryland, on May 30, 2013. Mahankali, a 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, New York, won the competition by correctly spelling "knaidel," a kind of dumpling. Mahankali, a student at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School, had finished third in the contest twice before. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)     show less

Aerial view of the almost intact ancient Sabratha Theatre located in Sabratha, Libya, on the Mediterranean coast. The site was originally a Phoenician trading-post, but became part of the Roman Empire, and its monuments were built in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. View on Google Maps. (© Jason Hawkes)     show less

A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on April 14, 2013. In northern Syria, the Kurdish population has largely observed a careful compromise with regime and rebel forces, fighting alongside neither, in return for security and semi-autonomy over majority Kurdish areas, but there have been reports of Kurdish fighters joining the battle with Syrian rebels in certain areas, including in Sheikh Maqsud. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)     show less

Contestants in the men's race chase a Double Gloucester Cheese down the steep gradient of Cooper's Hill during the annual tradition of cheese-rolling on May 27, 2013 in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, England. Although no longer a officially organized event since 2009, thousands of spectators still gathered to watch contestants from around the world tumbling down the 200m slope, which has a 1:1 gradient in parts, in a series of races that are said to date back hundreds of years, with the winner of each receiving a cheese. Injuries such as broken arms and legs are commonplace. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)     show less

Lightning from a thunderstorm strikes amid the wreckage of twisted cars and structures at Plaza Elementary School, where seven children were killed earlier in the week when a tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, on May 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)     show less

A soldier with a pack Reindeer, on slippery ice, near the tiny village of Nautsi, in northern Lapland, Finland, on October 26, 1941. (SA-kuva)     show less