Labor Day Feature: The World In Photos

The Perseids meteor shower streaks through the early morning sky,
lighting up the outskirts of Sofiya (Sofia), Bulgaria. The meteor
shower, which occurs in July and August, provided the most stunning
views on the night between August 12 and August 13. Named for
the constellation Perseus, this annual event offers spectators around
the world a dazzling show, peaking at nearly a hundred meteors an hour.
Photo Credit: Boryana Katsarova/AFP

The annual food fight in Buñol, Spain turns saucy as a reveler is doused
with a bucket of tomato pulp. An estimated 40,000 people were on hand
for this year's bout of messy fun, hurling truckloads of juicy red tomatoes
at each other. The "Tomatina" festival's origins are uncertain,
though local lore traces it to a 1940s food fight between kids near a
town-square vegetable stand.Photo Credit: Fernando Bustamante/AP

A mask adorned with striking blue eyes covered the face of one of
three 1,300-year-old Wari mummies recently excavated from a pyramid in
Peru's capital city. The remains of a sacrificed child were also found with
the mummy bundles. Child sacrifices were common among the Wari,
a pre-Incan people that flourished in Peru from about A.D. 600 to 1000.
Photo Credit: Karel Navarro/AP

A spot of tea, anyone? An employee at the London auction house
Bonhams lays out more than a hundred teacups by designer Clarice Cliff
that will come up for auction on September 23. The cups, each valued between
U.S. $180 and $1,100, are believed to be the largest collection by the designer
best known for her bizarre style that flourished in the 1920s and '30s. Since Cliff's
death in 1972, her work has steadily increased in value, according to Bonhams.
Photo Credit: Cate Gillon


An "exquisitely carved" statue of the Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius—with heavy-lidded, bulging eyes and a feathery beard—
has been discovered in western Turkey. The Turkish and Belgian
archeological teams were not entirely surprised to find the
sculpture of the Roman leader and philosopher, who ruled from
A.D. 161 to 180, in Roman-era baths in the ancient city of Sagalassos.
That's because a rich repository of artifacts from the second century A.D.
had already been unearthed at the baths, including the 2007 discovery
of a colossal statue of the emperor Hadrian.
Photo Credit: Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project

After being knighted by Norway's elite King's Guard at the behest of
Norwegian King Harald V, king penguin Nils Olav walks past soldiers at
Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo. Olav has been an honorary member and mascot
of the King's Guard for decades and was made an honorary colonel-in-chief
in 2005. King penguins live up to about 40 years in captivity, twice as
long as in the wild. About a million wild kings inhabit relatively
temperate regions of northern Antarctica.
Photo Credit: David Moir/Reuters


Ashley Webb of Burton, Michigan took the Best of Show award
during the 1st Annual Woodward Dream Show for a car she and her father
Dan built from scratch. Photo Credit: Woodward Dream Cruise

Walter