Tuesday, Feb. 02, 2010

When you nosh upon a star: A starfish becomes breakfast at the North Jetty of Humboldt Bay in Eureka, Calif.

How dare you say that about my brother? Big sister lioness cub protects her siblings at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol, England.

Full coverage: An umbrella keeps a pedestrian flake free during a heavy snowfall in Minsk, Belarus.

You know you've been feeding your guinea pig too much when ... he takes up two of the three seats on your couch. Actually, Pigzilla here is a capybara named Caplin owned by Melanie Typaldos of Buda, Texas. He and Neptune - an authentic guinea pig - like to curl up together.

Scarved for attention: On cold days in Franklin, Tenn., Butler Steltemeier likes to keep her pug Butterfly cocooned.

'The FBI and Pakistani Police have tortured us': A Pakistani journalist shows a note written on tissue paper tossed by a detained American Muslim from a prison van outside an anti-terrorism court in Sargodha, Pakistan. Five American terrorism suspects alleged that they were subjected to electric shocks and other torture, the latest wrinkle in a case that has added to sensitivities in U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Big brother to the rescue: Nine-year-old Afghan refugee Shawkat Kamel comforts his sister, Samreen, 3, after she was shoved by another child in a poor neighborhood of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Opium kids: Children play with balloons at the Sanga Amaj Treatment Center in Kabul where they and their mothers are being treated for opium addiction. Though most of Afghanistan's massive opium crop is smuggled abroad to feed heroin demand in rich countries, many Afghans have also become addicted to the drug.

Another Detroit mortgage underwater: Photographer Gregory Holm hoses down an abandoned house to encase it in ice in frigid Detroit. He and architect Matthew Radune have spent weeks spraying water on the home to help draw attention to the nation's housing crisis.

Sledding uphill is easy when you're tethered to a tractor like Sara Bormann, who got dad Hank to give her a pull in Woodburn, Ky.

Where does the fur end and the bunny begin? The cottontail at top seems particularly in danger of dissolving into a fur that was donated to the Humane Society.

Smiling at the condemned: For centuries, women in the Bulgarian village of Golica have been slaughtering chickens on Rooster Day to keep their young boys healthy.

Momma mia, fa freddo! At the Rome Zoo, a shivering chimp peers out from under his banana cape, sees his shadow and predicts six more weeks of winter.

Ducks lift off from a thawed-out channel on the frozen Oder River near Frankfurt, Germany.

London enjoys a stunning sunset after a clear but brisk day in the British capital.