Hasta La Gadget!

Caras Ionut is one of those rare photographer/photoshopper hybrids whose work stands head and shoulders above even some of the best retouchers. Some of his images tend towards the realistic, others towards the fantastic, but all of them display a skill with both a camera and post-processing techniques that’s truly remarkable.

Ionut says his goal is to create dreamscapes — both the positive and negative kind.

“Most people when considering dreams would think of good positive dreams, and I like to think I captured that in my work,” he writes in his biography on 500px. “I also seem to visit the darker side of what people may see of dreams, not necessarily what one would see as negative, but possibly a dream that one could not quite understand or may feel alone.”

Below is a selection of our favorite images Ionut has captured, each available to license on 500px’s photo marketplace, 500px Prime.

To see more of Ionut’s work, or if you’d like to license any of the images above for your next project, head over to his 500px Prime store by clicking here. And if you’re a photographer who hasn’t given Prime a shot yet, try submitting your first shot and see what happens!

This article originally appeared on the 500px ISO blog.

DALLAS (AP) — A mother has been charged with leaving her 7-year-old daughter to sleep overnight in a dumpster outside a spa in Dallas, police said.

Alicia Carroll of Garland was being held in the Dallas County jail Tuesday on charges of abandoning and endangering a child. Bond for the 28-year-old woman was set at $25,000. A message left with her attorney was not returned.

Dallas police said in a statement that Carroll left the spa in northwest Dallas with her daughter about 10 p.m. Saturday. An arrest warrant affidavit says Carroll began to run, told her daughter the police were after them and to hide in the garbage bin. The girl fell asleep in the bin waiting for her mother to return. She awoke 10 hours later, climbed out and walked back to the spa Sunday morning. There, officers found her hungry, thirsty, and with scrapes and cuts on her arms and legs.

Meanwhile, Carroll called 911 Sunday morning and reported that she had left her daughter with another person who now was refusing to return her. When confronted with her daughter, Carroll told officers that she had left the spa and drank two glasses of vodka in the parking lot. She told police she then began to walk with her daughter but could remember nothing more.

The girl was examined at a hospital and released to a family member. The case has been referred to Child Protective Services.

The Internet crowned Martha Stewart the queen of Justin Bieber’s Comedy Central roast on Monday night. Seeing Stewart crack jokes about Ludacris, Shaquille O’Neal and Hannibal Buress was nice, but the real highlight came when the lifestyle guru reminded us of the time Snoop Dogg appeared on her talk show, which began in 1993 as “Martha Stewart Living” and continued as simply “Martha” after her five-month prison tenure in late 2004 and early 2005.

“It’s nice to see Snoop again,” she said while tallying the guests during her time at the podium. “One of the highest-rated episodes on my show, ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ was when Snoop and I made brownies together. I’ve used his recipe ever since. As a matter of fact, I ate three of them right before they called and asked me to do this roast.”

If you were wondering what the duo could have discussed while seated next to each other for two hours, don’t. Their aforementioned history dates back to 2008, when Snoop appeared on “Martha” to make mashed potatoes and teach Stewart essential vocabulary like “fo’ shizzle” and “ball till ya fall.” A year later, Snoop returned to teach her a recipe for “green-colored brownies.” (Recommended baking temperature for the “special” treats: 420 degrees.) By that point, they seemed like old friends, which means it’s time we all rewatch this glorious television landmark:

Here are the mashed potatoes and life lessons from 2008’s episode:

“Where’s Snoop? I have brownies FOR YOU,” Stewart said in a Reddit AMA last March.

Here’s some good news amidst the furor over some congressional Republicans’ angst about contraception and, for others, opposition to public funding of contraception: Almost two out of three younger Republicans say every adult woman should have access to affordable, effective birth control.

Why do they say that? Because they realize that birth control allows people to build families when they’re ready, financially and emotionally, according to a report released Tuesday by Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analysis firm founded by two Republicans. Almost half of those polled – compared to one out of three who disagreed – said all birth control methods approved by the Federal Drug Administration should be covered by an employer’s insurance without co-pay. Those without private insurance, these supporters said, should be covered by government funding. Moreover, more young Republicans support the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement than oppose it.

In short, Republicans may not like Obamacare on the whole, but most young Republicans sure are okay with the contraceptive coverage.

Interestingly, according to the report’s author, Kristen Soltis Anderson, co-founder of Echelon Insights and a respected Republican researcher, the more education those surveyed had, the less generous they were about affordability and availability, even if they thought those were serious problems.

On two related issues, the young Republicans surveyed sounded like their elders. Should birth control be sold over the counter? Forty-five percent said yes, but 32 percent said no.

And a majority of young women, as well as young men, said “birth control is more of a personal convenience than a health care need for adult women.”

Really?

They explained themselves, Anderson said in an interview, by saying things like, “Nobody is making you have sex, and you can buy condoms at CVS for $5. You are responsible for your actions. Why should I as an employer have to pay?” Or, a young woman might say, “I can get my birth control pills at Walmart for $25. No big deal.”

Not surprisingly perhaps, on most questions, young Republican men did not support birth control in the same numbers as the women. Only 38 percent of them, for example, agreed that contraception should be included in preventative health care.

“Young men need encouragement,” Anderson said. “They don’t know what their role is in the conversation. To what extent do they have it with their partners? They’re certainly not having it with their doctors.”

For those of us who strongly support making all means of birth control accessible and affordable, there were several heartening numbers, given the political persuasion of those polled. Sixty-two percent approved of educational campaigns for young adults about all methods of birth control. Fifty percent favored increasing public funding for community organizations that offer contraceptive services and education.

Less encouraging was this: on a list of which 12 issues would most influence their vote in upcoming elections, birth control was at the bottom, coming after health care, government spending and the economy, among others.

Even so, no matter what the tenor of public discourse may be at any given time, the use of birth control remains almost ubiquitous and accepted in the United States. Consider:

* There is widespread agreement among Americans that birth control is morally acceptable. Case in point: A survey released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that less than 10 percent of millennials think birth control is morally wrong.

* Most sexually active adults use birth control.

* Almost all women – Republicans as well as Democrats – have used birth control in their lives.

To say it another way, although some elected officials may use their public pulpits to bash contraception, American women have voted with their use. Nothing that has been used by 90-plus percent of women of childbearing age can or should be considered controversial.

(The research report was prepared by Anderson and Echelon Insights for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy, especially among single, young adults. Stepp, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is a senior media fellow at the Campaign.)

Elon Musk teases some new Tesla tech, Jay-Z wants to change the world (with a music streaming service), and benchmarks lay the rumored Z4 bare. Welcome to Bitstream, all the news tidbits and rumors you missed in the last 24 hours.

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