Our world in photos: July 5

INDIA — She can say she had a “water birth”: Diluwara Begum, a midwife, holds up a newborn baby after helping in her delivery on a boat over the River Brahmaputra, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Water birth is becoming more popular among expectant mothers in the United States as well as India. This childbirth method has been found to reduce both the intensity of labor pain and the duration of labor. Most water births in India are aided by midwives and take place in rivers. However, not every hospital throughout India has the facilities available for water birth, and the method has only recently (2007) been adopted in this Asian nation.

Records of women giving birth in tubs of warm water date back to 1803 in France.

GERMANY — ‘I … LOVE … SOCCER!’: A soccer fan cheers for the German team prior to a quarter-final match between Germany and Spain at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, Friday, July 5, 2024.

As of press time, Germany and Spain — both past champions — were heading into extra time in this match. 

CONEY ISLAND — It took ten times to get to 51 dogs and buns: Miki Sudo competes in the women’s division of Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Thursday, July 4, 2024, at Brooklyn’s Coney Island entertainment hub. Sudo, who is the women’s division defending champion, secured her 10th title and set a new record by gobbling down 51 hot dogs. The 38-year-old Sudo, a dental hygiene student who hails from Florida, defeated 13 competitors, earning her pink belt.

Interestingly, Sudo’s partner, former Florida bodybuilder Nicholas Wehry, who, in this year’s men’s competition, ate five fewer franks than she did, lost to 39-year-old Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago, who downed 58 hot dogs.

FRANCE — It’s sweat and mindset: Belgium’s Victor Campenaerts strains during the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time-trial over 25.3 kilometers (15.7 miles) with start in Nuits-Saint-Georges and finish in Gevrey-Chambertin, France, Friday, July 5, 2024. Both administrative townships are in eastern France, about 25.3 kilometers apart, according to the Tour de France’s official website.

Situated in France’s Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, Nuites-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin are wine-making villages. Nuites-Saint-Georges hosts an annual Burgundian wine festival, celebrating the wines produced by a different Burgundy village each year. 

ENGLAND — The tour de fathers: A man cycles with his daughter after casting his vote at Whitley Bay cemetery, where there is a polling station inside, in Whitley Bay, England, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Britain went to the polls Thursday after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election, but his Conservative Party lost by a landslide. A Labour Party victory propelled its leader, Keir Starmer, to the traditional handshake with the King and move into 10 Downing St.

Sunak conceded defeat, saying voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.” He spoke for the last time as Prime Minister outside 10 Downing Street, having been required to move out as soon as the votes confirmed his opponent’s win, marking the first time in 14 years that the Labour Party has seen a victory.

LONDON — After over a decade, the Brits finally get a progressive Prime Minister: Britain’s King Charles III, right, shakes hands with Keir Starmer, where he invited the Labour Party leader to become prime minister and to form a new government, following the landslide general election victory for the Labour Party, in London, Friday, July 5, 2024.

As of Friday, Prime Minister Starmer had appointed 22 Labour MPs and peers to key cabinet positions — among them, 11 women, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

MADRID — It’s the tour de heels: Participants compete during the Pride Week annual high heels race in the Chueca district, a popular area for the gay community in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, July 4, 2024. The Pride parades in Madrid date back to the 1980s.

Spain, in 2005, became the third country in the world to recognize the right of homosexual partners to marry and the first to put marriage rights for people of the same gender on the same footing as traditional marriages.

WASHINGTON — The presidential race is heating up; so is the planet: President Joe Biden speaks during a visit to the D.C. Emergency Operations Center, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Washington. The President made his case for why he should remain the Democratic candidate as he enters a critical stretch of campaigning between now and the Democratic National Convention, being held August 19-22 in Chicago.

Meanwhile, several prominent Democratic donors have announced that they are delaying or canceling fundraisers for Biden’s campaign; however, most would not go on the record publicly as having said so, reported the Associated Press on Friday. 

NEW YORK — Pictures of fireworks never get old: Fireworks go off in the sky during the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks seen at the Edge at Hudson Yards on Thursday, July 4, 2024, in New York. This year marked the first time in more than a decade that the fireworks were launched on the west side of Manhattan. The first Macy’s fireworks display was held on July 1, 1958, but to celebrate the iconic department store’s centennial, according to the Times Square Chronicle’s website. In 1976, Macy’s teamed up with the Walt Disney Company for the nation’s bicentennial on July 4, 1976. A decade later, in 1986, the fireworks display was part of a weekend-long rededication of the Statue of Liberty. 

In recent years, the Macy’s fireworks display has been held on the East River, which affords space for larger pyrotechnics. Every so often, the fireworks are visible from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and from rooftop terraces that face Lower Manhattan.

HOUSTON — ‘You are my special ball, and I will hold and cherish you forever and ever’: Argentina’s goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez catches a ball during a Copa America quarter-final soccer match against Ecuador in Houston, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Argentina beat Ecuador on penalty kicks, even with a 1-1 draw in the score and giving a quick end to the Ecuadorian team’s earlier comeback.

The Argentinian team now advances to the semifinals and will next play on July 9.