World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

A model who uses the name V. Stiviano walks outside her home in Los Angeles, California April 28, 2014. Los Angeles Clippers players staged a protest at a playoff game against racist comments allegedly made by team owner Donald Sterling, turning their warm-up jerseys inside-out to hide the team name before a loss to the Golden State Warriors. The silent demonstration came as Sterling faced a firestorm of criticism over a 10-minute recording obtained by celebrity news website TMZ in which a man reported to be Sterling tells Stiviano not to post photographs of herself with black people online and not to bring African-Americans to Clippers games. "Mr Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of who he is, what he believes and how he has lived his life," Clippers President Andy Roeser said in a statement.



Police detain a driver suspected of deliberately ramming his vehicle into pedestrians in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China April 28, 2014. Seven people, including three children, were killed in the incident near a primary school, according to Xinhua News Agency.



An Israeli woman is comforted as she cries in the Hall of Remembrance during a ceremony entitled "Unto Every Person There is a Name," marking Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem April 28, 2014. Israel marked the annual memorial day commemorating the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War Two.

[Mr Lick]

Community in shock after stabbing of Ann Maguire



Pupils, colleagues and friends of Ann Maguire - shown here in a photograph placed outside the Leeds school where she was stabbed yesterday - have been paying tribute to the 'inspirational teacher'







Nichola Davies, 34, broke down as she arrived at her former school on Monday. She said: "She was just amazing. She was such an incredible lady. It's just so heartbreaking, it really is."

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

A tawny owl swoops above a carpet of bluebells at the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey



Have you got any of these £50 notes featuring the portrait Sir John Houblon knocking around in your purse/under the mattress? If so, you need to spend them by midnight Wednesday April 30 2014 as they cease to be legal tender from May 1 2014. Around 53 million of the notes with a total value of £2.6 billion are still in circulation, despite the Bank of England's announcement in January that they are to be withdrawn

[Mr Lick]

Take your pick of Viva Los Dentures or You're the Dentist in Disguise but here we have David Watson displaying teeth belonging to the King of Rock n Roll. Beacon Dental Care in Malvern, Worcestershire, is displaying a model of Elvis's teeth fitted with the false crown after it was donated by Canadian dentist Michael Zuk. The mould and false tooth were made for Elvis by the Kings' former dentist Henry J Weiss in 1971 and they were later bought at auction by Dr Zuk in 2012, who paid a staggering £6,500 for them. The mould and crown were sold with five letters of authenticity from the wife and sons of the dentist and Joe Esposito, Presleys road manager



Crushed cars at the UK's largest car dismantlers, Motor Hog in North Shields, Tyneside. The company owns specialist dismantling and de-polluting equipment capable of handling over 200 vehicles per day and crushing hundreds of thousands a year.

[Mr Lick]

Armed pro-Russian militians attack the regional police building of the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk



Campers scared of spending the night in the woods can now feel safe - by wearing this giant bear sleeping bag



Harry Styles and Lian Payne of boyband One Direction take a break while hiking to see Machu Picchu, Peru, during their world tour

[Mr Lick]

Open wide! A brave keeper cleans the teeth of a hippopotamus at a wildlife reserve park in Guangzhou, China



Italian luxury accessories online retailer Forzieri.com is the very first to offer you the opportunity to get your pooch a miniature bag that is an exact replica of your chosen arm candy. According to publicity material, you can choose any handbag from the Forzieri own-brand or selected partner brand range and have it custom made into a 'pawbag' for your pampered pooch to carry its own trinkets and treats



An estate agent on England's south coast appears to be taking the term 'compact and bijou' to a whole new level. This rather run-down looking garage is being advertised as a 'detached house for sale'. Still, at the bargain price of just £9,000, it could be the cheapest home for sale in the UK

[Mr Lick]

Wigan Athletic fans in full voice as their team take on Birmingham City at the St Andrews Stadium, Birmingham



An employee poses with 'The Blue' diamond at Christie's in London - the largest flawless fancy vivid blue diamond ever to appear at auction. The sparkling 13.22 carats pear-shaped rock is estimated to fetch around £12.5 - £15 million when it goes under the hammer in the Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva

[Mr Lick]

A pro-Russian activist holds a a beautifully painted, but still deadly, morning star outside the regional government headquarters in Luhansk, Ukraine



A nurse gives the rotavirus vaccine to a baby during the start of a vaccination programme against the infection in Haiti



Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shows his ink-marked finger to his supporters after casting his vote at a polling station during the seventh phase of India's general election in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Around 815 million people have registered to vote in the world's biggest election - a number exceeding the population of Europe and a world record - and results of the mammoth exercise, which concludes on May 12, are due on May 16

[Mr Lick]

Many motorists were caught out by the spring tide on the River Thames. This chap at Putney, south west London, ties his stricken Golf to a lamppost to prevent it floating away



This multiple exposure sequence shows the solar eclipse as seen from the Australian Antarctic Division's Casey Station at Vincennes Bay in Antarctica. The annular eclipse was visible from Antarctica and some areas in the southern Indian Ocean, with just a partial eclipse visible in Australia. It was one of just two solar eclipses in 2014.



Members of staff at the Australian Antarctic Division's Casey Station wore homemade protective masks to watch the natural phenomenon



A sheep stares down the camera lens during a protest by shepherds outside local government offices in Potsdam, Germany. The shepherds are demanding more support from the Brandenburg state as they claim rising costs, especially for leasing grazing land, are pushing many of them towards bankruptcy. According to them the number of full time shepherds in Brandenburg has dropped from over 200 ten years ago to 77 as few young people see a future in the traditional profession



Government workers begin the process of incinerating more than eleven tons of drugs at a military facility on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Mainly consisting of cocaine, the drugs were seized in raids during the first four months of the year

[Mr Lick]

Ukrainian Interior Ministry security forces, blocked by pro-Russian activists, gather outside the regional government headquarters in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine



Protesters clash with anti-riot police as they attempt to march towards the U.S. Embassy during the visit of Barack Obama



Heads of Playmobil figures are produced in a factory near Valletta, Malta. Playmobil is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year



Osama bin Laden lookalike Ceara Francisco Helder Braga Fernandes poses in his bar in São Paulo, Brazil



Palestinian women take part in the funeral of leading Hamas militants Imad and Adel Awadallah, who were killed in 1998. Israel handed over the remains of four Palestinian militants, including the Awadallah brothers, on Tuesday

[Mr Lick]

People's Liberation Front activists paint their political symbol during preparations for a May Day rally in Colombo, Sri Lanka



French police officers stop a protest by former Tunisian Femen activist Amina Sboui, left, and two other women outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris as they demonstrate against death sentences handed by an Egyptian court to 683 alleged Islamists



Greek farmers and market vendors distribute free produce in Athens as part of a protest against the implementation of new operating rules



Aymara Indians shout slogans in support of air force and army soldiers who are protesting for a second week in La Paz, Bolivia. Hundreds of enlisted men have been expelled for sedition, rebellion and attacking the 'honour of the armed forces'

[Mr Lick]

QESHM ISLAND, Iran — Crocodile farming isn't the most obvious business opportunity in Iran. The wide-jawed reptiles aren't native to the country, their meat can't legally be served at home and they don't have the friendliest reputation.

That hasn't stopped one enterprising woman from sinking her teeth into a business that most Iranians would rather avoid.





Mojgan Roostaei's first-of-its-kind crocodile farm on this southern Persian Gulf island is one of the more eccentric examples of Iranians supporting the Islamic Republic's plan of pursuing an "economy of resistance," which aims to create jobs and counter biting sanctions by building up a broader range of exports.

"I wanted to go after a novel idea, something nobody has touched in Iran before," Roostaei, a zoologist by training, said while coddling and kissing one of the newborn crocs.

Government officials have taken notice, last year awarding Roostaei the title of "meritorious entrepreneur

[Mr Lick]

Wade Lentz, the pastor of the local Baptist church in Vilonia, Ark., and his family were praying for a miracle on Monday that Oreo, the beloved family dog, had somehow survived the devastating tornado that obliterated their home.

On Tuesday, their prayers were answered.





Returning to the spot where their home once stood to clean up the debris, Lentz's son, Landon, noticed movement in the rubble and then watched the family's dog emerge from it — tail wagging — with just one small scratch on its leg.

"We were thinking he was gone," Lentz said. "And there he was."

[Mr Lick]

Trees uprooted by tornadoes lie amid scattered debris in Vilonia, Arkansas (above) and Bessemer, Alabama (below)

[Mr Lick]

The worst flooding in Florida in a generation — more than 2 feet of water in 26 hours, by one rain gauge — left drivers stranded overnight and into Wednesday, the latest pummeling from the monster storm system lumbering across the country.

[Mr Lick]

The Deep South took cover again Tuesday as tornadoes and floods swept across the battered region for a third night.

At least four tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down Tuesday afternoon and evening in Cumberland, Craven, Jones and Edgecombe counties in North Carolina, and reported funnel clouds were being reviewed in several counties in Mississippi and Florida, the National Weather Service said.

[Mr Lick]

This is very cute: It's Curiosity's latest "selfie," a mosaic assembled from about a dozen images acquired with the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager on April 27-28, 2014 (Sol 613). The (5.5-kilometer-high) Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, rises up in the background

[Mr Lick]

Champions League: Bayern Munich v Real Madrid

All the best images from the Allianz Arena where Bayern Munich need to rediscover their form in order to come back against Real Madrid and keep hold of the Champions League trophy



The Bayern fans do know how to put on a nice show






Despite Bayern being 1-0 down from the first leg, Franck Ribery seems to be in confident mood



Just after the 15-minute mark, the Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos puts his heading ability to good use in the Bayern box when Luca Modric swings in a corner, he is unmarked and leaps up to meet the ball ...



Which flies past Manuel Nueur and Bayern now need to score three goals to go through



He's rather happy about that

[Mr Lick]

just four minutes later Ramos grabs his and Madrid's second with a diving header



Wonder what the odds were on Ramos bagging the first two goals of the game?



With Bayern having to chase the game, they are vunerable to the counter and that's exactly what happens just after the half hour mark. Di Maria, fed Benzema, who played in the rampaging Bale, who flipped over to Ronaldo, who slammed it under Manuel Neuer from the edge of the area. That's his 15th goal in the Champions League this season, a new record

[Mr Lick]

In the last minute Real Madrid get a free kick 22 yards out, as the Bayern players make up a wall Pepe starts the celebrations early with the Real fans






With the Bayern wall expecting the free-kick to be whipped over the wall like the last one, they jump to block, but Ronaldo has double bluffed them and fires an grass cutter underneath the wall and it fizzes past Neuer and into the net






The final whistle goes and Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer comforts his teammates Franck Ribery, left, and Toni Kroos



The Madrid players celebrate after reaching the Champions League final, the club's first for 12 years. They will face either their former manager Jose Mourinho or their Madrid rivals Atletico. Final score: Bayern Munich 0-4 Real Madrid (agg 0-5)

[Mr Lick]

Giant Playmobil characters line Camden Lock in north London to mark the 40th anniversary of the children's toy.



The relative of a woman who recently gave birth to twins holds one of the babies before departing Bangui for Chad, under escort by soldiers of the African Union operation in Central African Republic. Most Muslims have now fled the capital, following attacks by Christians militias.



Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion stand during the rehearsal of a ceremony commemorating the battle of Camaron. This occurred on 30 April 1863, involving the French Foreign Legion and the Mexican army.



The Queen and Prince Philip conclude a two-day tour of south Wales with visits to a stationery firm and an international residential school. Here the Queen meets Kerry Deller at International Greetings UK Ltd.



A masked pro-Russian protester poses for a picture inside a regional government building in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

[Mr Lick]

Actor Bob Hoskins, known for roles in films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Long Good Friday, has died from pneumonia at the age of 71.



Here Bob Hoskins poses with the best actor award he won for his role in Mona Lisa at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

[Mr Lick]

Deadly China blast at Xinjiang railway station



A bomb and knife attack at a railway station in China's western Xinjiang region has killed three and injured 79 others, officials and state media say.

The attackers used explosives and knives at Urumqi's south railway station on Wednesday, officials said.

The local government described it as a "violent terrorist attack" but said the situation was now under control.

[Mr Lick]

Derailed US train in bursts into flames in Lynchburg



A freight train carrying crude oil has derailed and burst into flames in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from a number of buildings in the city, but no injuries have been reported.

Oil has been spilling into the James River, according to reports.

Three or four tanker cars carrying crude oil were breached, according to a tweet by the city of Lynchburg, and more than a dozen tanker cars were involved in the collision