Top photos: April 18

Gallery: Despite the depressing spring snowfall that dumped as much as 17 inches of new snow on parts of central Minnesota, there are signs of spring showing up on the Minnesota landscape. Here, a Great Horned Owl, blending into her surroundings, sits on her nest in a hole in a large Silver Maple in St. Paul.

Gallery: Britain's Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, smiles after getting flowers from a baby during a tour of the Sydney Easter Show in Sydney, Friday, April 18, 2014. The royal couple, along with Prince George, are on the 10-day official visit.

Gallery: In this photo taken Thursday April 10, 2014 young goats feed in the barn at the Vermont Goat Collaborative in Colchester, Vt. The project brings together refugee and immigrants seeking goat meat with dairy farmers who otherwise would discard young male goats.

Gallery: Elizabeth Knoll, left, and Jacqueline Chappo, right, from the U.S. enjoy feeding jackdaws during misty weather on the Pilatus mountain near Alpnachstad, central Switzerland, Friday, April 18, 2014.

Gallery: Pope Francis lays prostrate on the floor in prayer before presiding over a Good Friday Passion service, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Friday, April 18, 2014.

Gallery: Former Ukrainian prime minister and presidential hopeful Yulia Tymoshenko, center, is helped as she arrives for a news conference in Donetsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 18, 2014. Tymoshenko arrived Friday in Donetsk in a bid to defuse the tensions and hear "the demands of Ukrainians who live in Donetsk."

Gallery: Wearing ghilli suits, Iranian army troops march in a parade as one of them hold up his weapon, marking National Army Day in front of the mausoleum of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini just outside Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 18, 2014. Ahead of the parade Iran's President Hassan Rouhani underscored his moderate policies and outreach to the West in a speech.

Gallery: A relative of a missing passenger on the sunken Sewol ferry weeps at Paeng Mok Harbor in Jindo, South Korea, April 18, 2014. Prosecutors in South Korea filed for arrest warrants for the ship�s captain Friday as hopes for new survivors turned into despair with the death toll rising to 28 deaths, and 268 still unaccounted for.

Gallery: One of relatives of Chinese passengers onboard the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 grieves at a hotel conference room in Beijing, China, Friday, April 18, 2014. A robotic submarine headed back down into the depths of the Indian Ocean on Friday to scour the seafloor for any trace of the missing Malaysian jet one month after the search began off Australia's west coast, as data from the sub's previous missions turned up no evidence of the plane.

Gallery: Kevin, a man accused of being a thief by civil servants at the Work Inspection office, lays in pain after being attacked by a man with a machete and sticks, in plain view of others, in Bangui, Central African Republic, Friday, April 18, 2014. Foreign journalists intervened and stopped the beating, as the crowd shouted "he is a thief, he must die." Police arrived and took Kevin into custody. He was then taken to a local hospital for treatment under police surveillance before being brought before a prosecuting officer.

Gallery: Despite the depressing spring snowfall that dumped as much as 17 inches of new snow on parts of central Minnesota, there are signs of spring showing up on the Minnesota landscape. Here, Great Blue Herons have returned to a rookery along the Snake River in Pine City, preparing to raise their young.