Photo Essays

Saying goodbye to 2020. A young seal rests on a beach on the North Sea island of Helgoland, Germany, on Jan. 5. JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images

20 Bright Moments from 2020
A protester carries an upside-down U.S. flag, a sign of distress, next to a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28. Protests broke out all across the nation—and in many other countries, including New Zealand, France, and Spain—over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody three days earlier. Julio Cortez/The Associated Press

Rising Up in Protest: A Year in Photos
A teacher wearing a biosecurity suit as a preventive measure against the spread of COVID-19 works with a girl at a home in Cali, Colombia, on Aug. 4 as part of a local kindergarten’s “teacher at home” program implemented to help children keep in touch with teachers and reduce the emotional impact of isolation. LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images

The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Year in Photos
A crane lifts the wreckage of a car as rescue workers search for survivors in the debris of a collapsed building in the Bayrakli district of Izmir, Turkey, on Nov. 1 after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Turkey’s western coast and parts of Greece. AFP via Getty Images

The Month in World Photos
Former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden delivers remarks in the pouring rain during a drive-in event in Tampa, Florida, on Oct. 29. JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The Month in World Photos
A Mapuche Indigenous woman plays a drum as riot police use water cannons to disperse demonstrators during a protest against the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Santiago, Chile, on Sept. 4. MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images

The Month in World Photos
A man scoops leaked oil from the vessel MV Wakashio near Blue Bay Marine Park off the coast of southeast Mauritius on Aug. 8. The ship hit a coral reef off the Indian Ocean island and ran aground two weeks prior, spilling about 1,000 tons of oil. JEAN AURELIO PRUDENCE/L’Express Maurice/AFP via Getty Images

The Month in World Photos
Ahead of the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage, a woman stands on a ring marked for social distancing around the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca on July 28. AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A security guard looks at his phone while water is released from the Three Gorges Dam, a gigantic hydropower project on the Yangtze River, to relieve flood pressure in Yichang, China, on July 19. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A woman and a young girl sit in their flooded house in Sunamganj, Bangladesh, on July 16. Al Jazeera reported that “a third of Bangladesh is underwater” after some of the worst flooding in a decade. MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
An aerial photo taken July 8 shows walkways leading to a dock inundated by floodwaters from the swollen Yangtze River following heavy rains in Wuhan, China. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A woman smiles in a rice paddy field during National Paddy Day—which marks the start of the annual rice planting season—in Tokha village on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, on June 29. PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
Acehnese fishermen help evacuate a Rohingya woman onto the shorelines of Lancok village in Indonesia’s North Aceh Regency on June 25. Nearly 100 Rohingya from Myanmar, including 30 children, were rescued from a rickety wooden boat off the coast of Sumatra island, a maritime official said. CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A supporter of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to a soldier as she takes part in a protest against the coronavirus lockdown outside the army headquarters in Brasilia on June 14. SERGIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
Protesters dig symbolic graves at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach on June 11, calling for transparency and change in the way the government is fighting the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 40,000 in Brazil. Buda Mendes/Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
Monique Gray leads a crowd of protesters in a chant in support of George Floyd and against police brutality near Dolores Park in San Francisco on June 3. JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A protester carries an upside-down U.S. flag, a sign of distress, next to a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28. Protests broke out all across the nation—and in many other countries, including New Zealand, France, and Spain—over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody three days earlier. Julio Cortez/The Associated Press

The Week In World Photos
Stella Nyanzi, a prominent Ugandan activist and government critic, is arrested by police officers in Kampala on May 18 during a protest she organized calling for more food distributions by the government to people who have been financially struggling by the nationwide lockdown. SUMY SADURNI/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
Newborn Bibi Amena receives treatment for a gunshot wound in her leg at the French Medical Institute for Children in Kabul on May 15 after losing her mother during an attack on a maternity hospital earlier in the week. WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
A man protests in front of cart carrying the body of Vitallis Ochilo Owino at Muthaiga Police Station in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 4. Police officers are accused of beating Owino, 39, to death the previous night while he was walking in the streets after curfew hours. Human rights activists are claiming that COVID-19-related police brutality has already killed more people in Kenya than the coronavirus itself. LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images

The Week in World Photos
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