Monday, Jul. 25, 2011 [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-504659922_0503826203_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Deep breath and hold: Baby pygmy hippos stay afloat apparently by inflating their cheeks. (Ueno Zoo, Tokyo.) [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-nationipad072_0503830616_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Please, ma’am, may I have s’mores? Oliver the pug knows an easy touch when she sits down at the picnic table at Falls Lake Shinleaf Campground in Raleigh, N.C. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-germany_finge_0503827033_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]While everyone else in Europe is watching some bicycle race, the strongest fingers in Germany knuckle under at the finger-wrestler championship in Stoetten am Auerberg. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/22_t/ba-nationipad23_0503820237_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Aural test: If Noel Strick (left) and Mitsi Evans yank much harder in the Ear Pull event at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics in Fairbanks, Alaska, someone’s going to lose an appendage. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-heat_wave_new_0503820092_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The sensible red fox, on the other hands, relaxes on a bed of ice because it’s insane to be jumping over anything when it’s 100 degrees at the Staten Island Zoo. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-houston_zoo_w_0503824773_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]We bring you gifts, o’ Great Kong: A chimp at the Houston Zoo investigates three tiny snowmen offering fruits and nuts. The figures were made from some of the more than eight tons of snow donated by TXU Energy to help the animals cope with the oppressive heat. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-tough_mudder_0503825618_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Electrifying finish: Near the end of the grueling, 10-mile Tough Mudder race in Merrimac, Wis., they make the runners, like Hannah Renfro here, run through curtains of live electrical wires. A burn ban kept race organizers from forcing the athletes to brave a fire pit with 4-foot flames. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/22_t/ba-nationipad23_0503819961_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Semper Fido: Is Cpl. Russell Midori fighting a smile or tears as Col. Brian Palmer promotes longtime Marine canine Archibald Hummer to sergeant at Parris Island, S.C.? Could be either since the bulldog now outranks him. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-correction_mi_0503831214_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Cardboard a la cart: A stack of boxes lists to starboard as it travels by donkey in the Palestinian city of Gaza. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-nationipad072_0503830570_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Pork and recreation: Strawberry blows past Alpigone (8) and Bob (6), and goes on to bring home the bacon in the All-Alaskan Pig Races at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, Calif. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-india_rice_0503819073_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Few jobs could be tougher than planting a rice paddy in the village of Kondagaon, India, while minding a son on your back. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-nicaragua_san_0503830170_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]A bull charges a man during pre-Santo Domingo festivities in Managua, Nicaragua. Much like Pamplona’s San Fermin festivals, Managua celebrates the holiday with processions, bullfights, partying and hazardous human-bovine encounters. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-504645666_0503822474_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Dancers in wheelchairs practice during a training session in Minsk. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/23_t/ba-worldipad24_0503824347_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]This is about as close as honeybee Lauren Goldsack cares to get to the swarm forming a buzzing beard on Daryl Haney’s face. The two were competing in a bee-themed contest sponsored by Clovermead Bees and Honey in Aylmer, Ontario. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-aptopix_thail_0503822172_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]Stripping for safer shoes: Some of 40 Greenpeace activists pull off their shirts to show their “detox tattoos” in Bangkok. The protesters demanded that sportswear giants Adidas and Nike remove toxic chemicals from their products in Thailand. [https://imgs.sfgate.com/inline/c/pxs/2011/07/25_t/ba-aptopix_afgha_0503823139_t.gif] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/dayinpictures/slideshow/sfgate-day-in-pictures-33046.php]In two places at the same time: Marine Cpl. Kyle Roberts appears both standing and sitting while playing a video game in this photo taken at Patrol Base Salaam Bazaar in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. A long exposure accounts for the two Kyles.