Hasta La Gadget!

World Cup madness is sweeping the internet—and even the little yellow guy on Google Maps is getting in on it. Awww, s’cute.

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Nothing quite compares to the power of a photograph to communicate the goings on in the world. Ranging from the serious to the silly, these photos offer peeks into what happened around the globe this week.

1. A woman enters the sea at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro at sunrise on June 27, 2014, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup football tournament in Brazil.

(GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images)

2. Palestinian boys, one wearing an Algerian flag, look at graffiti artist Belal Khaled painting a portrait of Italian football player Andrea Pirlo on June 23, 2014 in Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

(SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)

3. U.S. President Barack Obama and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett (L) watch the 2014 World Cup match between the U.S. and Germany while en route to Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 26, 2014.

(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

4. A cyclist attempts to travel along a waterlogged avenue in Recife, Brazil on June 26, 2014, ahead of the U.S.-Germany World Cup match.

(PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

5. A newly born giraffe stays close to her mother in their enclosure at the zoo in Brono, Czech Republic on June 26, 2014.


(RADEK MICA/AFP/Getty Images)

6. Russian Navy officers and other officials attend a ceremony launching the Rostov-on-Don Russian diesel-electric torpedo submarine at the Admiralteiskiye verfy shipyard in St. Petersburg, on June 26, 2014.

(OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP/Getty Images)

7. Festival-goers gather to watch the sunset ahead of the Glastonbury Festival of Music and Performing Arts on Worthy Farm in Somerset, southwest England, on June 25, 2014.

(LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images)

8. Residents of the self-proclaimed ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ cross into Russia at the Russian-Ukrainian border crossing of Izvarino on June 22, 2014.

(JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

9. Tourists visit the Bell caves located at the Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park in central Israel, on June 24 2014.

(MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

10. Members of the Al-Abbas brigades, who volunteered to protect the Shiite Muslim holy sites in Karbala against Sunni militants, parade in the streets of the shrine city on June 26, 2014.

(MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON (AP) — Five-time champion Serena Williams lost to 25th-seeded Alize Cornet of France 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the third round of Wimbledon on Saturday.

It’s Williams’ earliest exit at the All England Club since 2005, when she also was beaten in the third round.

“I don’t know how I did it,” Cornet said. “Just with my heart — and the help of the crowd.”

The No. 1-ranked and No. 1-seeded Williams owns 17 Grand Slam titles, but she now has departed before the quarterfinals at four of the past five major tournaments. That includes a fourth-round loss at the Australian Open in January, and a second-round loss at the French Open in May.

But of Williams’ five total losses in all tournaments this season, two have come against Cornet, who also beat the American at the Dubai Championships in February.

Still, this result was rather unexpected, given their comparative Grand Slam careers. Cornet never had been past the third round at the All England Club, and she only once before got to the fourth round of a major — way back at the 2009 Australian Open.

Saturday’s match was halted at 1-all, deuce in the opening set because of rain that disrupted play around the grounds most of the day. After a delay of about 4 1/2 hours, Williams was terrific when they resumed, reeling off five games in a row to grab the first set.

And then, quick as can be, things changed dramatically.

Suddenly, it was Cornet who was putting shots right where she wanted them, and Williams who had trouble finding the mark. In all, Williams wound up with 29 unforced errors — 11 more than Cornet.

“She helped me a little bit,” Cornet said, “because she made some mistakes.”

Two particular types of strokes troubled Williams: Her serve, which usually is the best in women’s tennis, let her down repeatedly, with a total of seven double-faults; and her backhand, which produced 12 of those unforced errors. Cornet did not have a single unforced error off her backhand.

In the third set, Cornet took four games in a row to lead 5-2, but she got broken while serving for the match the first time. Given a second chance, she steadied herself, and on match point, delivered a perfect drop shot.

When Williams netted the response, Cornet pounded her chest with her fist. Then she hopped around Court 1, before kneeling to kiss the grass.

Cornet had been 0-13 against top-20 opponents in Grand Slam matches. Now she’s 1-13.

It was by far the most significant — and surprising — outcome on a day full of starts-and-stops thanks to the wet weather.

Three other past Wimbledon champions won on Centre Court, where the roof was closed and soccer star David Beckham was in the Royal Box: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova.

For his third match in a row this year at Wimbledon, two-time champion Nadal dropped the first set before coming back to win, this time beating 63rd-ranked Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-1, 6-1.

Sharapova, the 2004 champion, was up next in the main stadium, and she, too, overcame a slow start. But after falling behind 3-1, she won 11 consecutive games for a 6-3, 6-0 victory over 44th-ranked Alison Riske of the United States.

As for Federer, who has collected seven of his 17 major trophies at the All England Club, there really was never any trouble spot. He needed less than 75 minutes to eliminate 35th-ranked Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 6-3, 6-1, 6-3.

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Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

MOSCOW (AP) — Pro-Russian insurgents on Saturday released a second team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who had been held captive since the end of May, the organization said.

OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said that the four observers were released and met by an OSCE official in the eastern city of Donetsk. “They’re in good health, they’re in good spirits,” he said.

OSCE lost contact with four monitors from its Donetsk team and four monitors from its Luhansk team in late May. The members of the Donetsk team were freed earlier this week.

At a European Union summit Friday leaders decided not to immediately impose new sanctions on Russia for destabilizing eastern Ukraine, but gave the Russian government and pro-Russian insurgents until Monday to take steps to improve the situation.

The EU leaders said Russia and the rebels should work to release all captives, retreat from border checkpoints, agree on a way to verify the cease-fire and launch “substantial negotiations” on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan.

“We have fulfilled our obligations before the Ukrainian side. All eight observers have been released,” Alexander Borodai, one of the leaders of the insurgents, said after the release, according to news agency Interfax.

Ukraine on Friday signed a free-trade pact with the EU, the very deal that a former Ukrainian president dumped under pressure from Moscow in November, fueling huge protests that eventually drove him from power. Moscow responded by annexing the mainly Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula in March, and a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine erupted the month after, leading to the developments that have brought Russia-West relations to their lowest point since the Cold War times.

The U.S. and the EU have slapped travel bans and asset freezes on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and threatened to impose more crippling sanctions against entire sectors of Russia’s economy if the Kremlin fails to de-escalate the crisis.

Earlier Saturday, Russia’s foreign minister accused the United States of encouraging Ukraine to challenge Moscow and heavily weighing in on the European Union. In televised remarks, Sergey Lavrov said that “our American colleagues still prefer to push the Ukrainian leadership toward a confrontational path.”

He added that chances for settling the Ukrainian crisis would have been higher if it only depended on Russia and Europe.

The weeklong cease-fire, which both sides have been accused of violating, expired at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Friday, but Poroshenko quickly declared its extension until 10 p.m. local time Monday. He warned, however, that the cease-fire could be terminated in areas where rebels violate it.

Borodai, promised to abide by the extended cease-fire after Friday’s troika talks that included a former Ukrainian president who represented the Kiev government, the Russian ambassador and an OSCE envoy.

He rejected the EU leaders’ demand to retreat from three checkpoints on the border with Russia captured by the rebels, but invited OSCE to send its monitors to the border crossings and any other areas in the east.

Borodai also said that the rebels have offered the government that the conflicting parties free all the captives they hold. He demanded that the Ukrainian government pull back its forces as a condition for holding meaningful talks to settle the crisis.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that the situation in the east was largely quiet overnight and there were no casualties among Ukrainian troops despite sporadic shooting. But later on Saturday, Ukrainian military spokesman Olexiy Dmitrashkovskiy said that three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and four others were wounded in a rebel shelling near Slovyansk, a key flashpoint in the insurgency, Interfax reported.

Rebels, in turn, claimed that Ukrainian troops tried to capture one of the checkpoints on the Russian border, which they control, but were rebuffed.

Russian officials said that several Ukrainian shells landed on Russian territory early Saturday, and one shell fragment hit the border checkpoint on the Russian side of the border, but there were no injuries.

The insurgents also descended on a Ukrainian National Guards unit in Donetsk, demanding that the troops leave or join the rebels’ ranks. None of the troops voiced a desire to switch sides. There was no fighting there.

As part of his peace plan, Poroshenko this week also submitted a set of constitutional amendments that would give broader powers to the regions and allow local authorities to have more say on such issues as language and culture. In an address to the nation Saturday, he voiced hope that the move would strengthen the country’s unity.

Lavrov acknowledged that Russia has some leverage with the rebels, pointing at their move this week to release four observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe after weeks of captivity, but claimed that Moscow’s influence is limited.

“There are reasons to believe that they hear us on other aspects of Russian position regarding the crisis in Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean that they immediately move to heed our calls,” he said. “These people have their own vision, it’s their land and they want to be its masters, they want to negotiate with the central government on what terms it can be done.”

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Balint Szlanko contributed to this report from Donetsk, Ukraine.

Co-authored by Jonathan Voss, Senior Analyst at Lake Research Partners.

In the wake of the Vergara versus California trial, this week the PACE/USC Rossier School of Education released a poll which generated headlines around parent’s negative views toward teachers unions and their impact on the quality of public education. We believe that such headlines miss the full picture of attitudes toward public education in California that other questions in the poll show, which are consistent with recent research we have conducted.

We agree with the USC’s poll finding that voters believe California public schools are underfunded. In the USC poll, 64 percent of voters and 70 percent of parents say “the state of California should be spending more on schools.” Our research found broad agreement that “California schools are underfunded” — 68 percent of voters and 79 percent of parents agree.

But the ongoing discourse before, during and after the Vergara trial decision has tried to blame teachers and further the idea that current policies keep ineffective teachers in low-performing school districts and perpetuate unequal outcomes. Our research suggests voters do not agree with this causality.

We found 82 percent of voters agreed that “blaming teachers when schools struggle may make headlines but it does nothing to help kids.” Additionally, 92 percent of voters agree that “teachers should have a voice in shaping education policies because teachers are in the classroom every day and understand the real problems facing schools.”

California voters overwhelmingly reject the notion that teacher quality explains the differences between high-performing and low-performing districts. By more than 2-to-1, voters believe the main reason for differences between high- and low-performing districts is the resources of the parents and the community (62 percent). Just 28 percent say the quality of teachers in the district explains the differences between high- and low-performing districts.

In contrast to the USC poll, our research shows voters favor due process protections for teachers so that they are not dismissed arbitrarily. The USC poll framed tenure as an “award” and tested two positions that equate experienced teachers with poorly performing teachers, and not surprisingly found a majority rejecting tenure. We asked if they favor or oppose providing tenure for teachers in their 3rd year of teaching after they have passed performance evaluations. Only 41 percent of parents oppose while a 52 majority of parents favor. But when we read the following before asking if they favor or oppose — “Teachers who have passed performance evaluations are eligible for tenure in their third year of teaching. This grants them due process protections from being dismissed arbitrarily” — we find 52 percent of voters and 59 percent of parents favoring tenure.

The backers of the Vergara case want to replace current policies with those that would hold teachers and students accountable based on standardized test scores. While our research shows a strong desire for more accountability in the public school system, it also mirrors the USC poll in showing a rejection of a reliance on standardized tests. The USC poll shows voters and parents alike rejecting Common Core because it is a one-size-fits-all approach that increases our reliance on standardized testing.

We did not test Common Core, but we found that voters and parents strongly believe that a child is “more than a test score,” and reject that standardized test scores are an effective way to measure teacher performance. When asked to compare two statements, 51 percent of voters agree that “we need to have rigorous standards that focus on teaching and learning, and judging how students learn, not standardized testing.” Just 9 percent agree that “we need to hold teachers accountable for their performance basing promotions and dismissals on their student’s test scores.” (29 percent agree with both statements).

We agree with many of the findings of the USC poll about the broader context of education, but disagree with the headlines it has spawned that perpetuate the Vergara trial narrative that teachers are responsible for the difference between high- and low-performing districts. The reality is voters believe the difference in community resources explains district differences. They believe public schools are underfunded, and want to restore the promise of public education for all communities.

Lake Research Partners conducted an online survey of 804 registered likely California voters April 29th through May 6th, 2014. The data was weighted by age, gender, party identification, race, and media market to reflect the proportions of the electorate. The survey has a margin of error of ±3.46 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval.