Across the northern hemisphere, people are doing what they can to cope with the summer weather. Heatwaves have recently struck the Midwest and East Coast in the United States and in parts of Eastern Europe. Hot summer days also bring stormy afternoons, with downpours that have caused numerous flooding problems across parts of China. For many, though, the way to beat the heat is to get outside and cool off in lakes, fountains, or water parks, or to find a place to simply live in the moment and enjoy the sunshine. Collected below are some images from these recent summer days, and of people around the world either enjoying or coping with the heat.
Days of Summer
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A boy swims near an inflow from the river Drim into Ohrid lake in Struga, Macedonia, on July 12, 2011, as temperatures soared to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit). #
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Yasmin Bolden, 7, has mud washed off her after a mud contest at the Wet and Wild Water Week Day Camp, Tuesday, July 12, 2011, at the Ruffner Mountain Nature Center in Birmingham, Alabama. #
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A boy slides down a water chute in a water park in Mogyorod, near Budapest, on July 9, 2011. Temperatures reached 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit) during the weekend in Hungary. #
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Children play in a giant lake of mud during Wayne County's 2011 Mud Day event at Nankin Mills Park, on July 12, 2011, in Westland, Michigan. 20,000 gallons of water are mixed with 200 tons of topsoil at the annual event. #
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A man reads a newspaper as he swims in the salt waters of Tus lake in Russia's Khakassia region, about 370 km (230 miles) southwest of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, on July 15, 2011. Russians from different regions annually arrive at Tus lake rich with curative black and blue mud to live in a camp, bathe in the bitter-salty water and smear themselves with mud, which they see as a healing remedy. #
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The sun sets on the horizon overlooking 42nd street as "Manhattanhenge" occurs in New York on July 13, 2011. The event happens twice a year, when the Sun aligns at dusk, setting streets aglow with rays of sunlight flowing through New York City from west to east. #
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Braxton Barton, 3, catches a stream of water in his face at Macklanburg Park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, June 29, 2011. Oklahoma City set a record for most triple digit days in the month of June. #
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A bull swims after being chased into the sea during the "Bous a la Mar" festival on July 14, 2011, in Denia, Spain. "Bous a la Mar", or "Bulls to the Sea," festival is held to honor the Santisima Sangre and commemorate the monk Pedro Esteve, who is said to have saved the coastal town of Denia from a plague in 1633. The bulls that are chased into the water are brought back to land by small boats. #
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Phoenix Fire fighter Tony Reiter dumps a helmet full of water over his head during a fire that destroyed Fiesta Asadero y Taqueria in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 27, 2011. This was the hottest day of the summer so far with a high of 115 degrees. #
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The sun shines through the smoke from the Las Conchas wildfire near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, June 29, 2011. The New Mexico wildfire was then burning largely unchecked for a fourth day near one of the nation's top nuclear arms production plants, but firefighters finally gained some ground in corralling the flames. #
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Mike Cox of Sherman, Illinois, positions a large fan and specially designed water hoses to cool his Standardbred trotting filly named "Master Charge It", on July 11, 2011, at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois. #
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Girls wash themselves during ab educational forum called "Seliger 2011", organized by Russia's Federal Agency on Youth Affairs, Rosmolodezh and pro-Kremlin youth movement, Nashi (Ours) in a tent camp at Seliger lake in Tverskaya Region, 650km from Moscow, on July 4, 2011. #
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Buyan, a male Siberian brown bear, is given a shower by a zoo employee in his enclosure at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, on July 1, 2011. #
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A swimmer wearing a yellow security cap talks with a police officer on a boat during the launch of the 2011 security measures for swimmers on lake Zurich, Switzerland, on June 27, 2011. #
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Gymnasts play in a fountain to cool down in hot weather, on the second day of the World Gymnaestrada in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 11, 2011. More than 20,000 participants from all over the world will attend group gymnastic performances over seven days at the non-competitive event taking place every four years. #
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