Estonia’s triplet Olympic Marathoners, labor reform protests in France, U.S. special operations forces in Syria, Lag Ba'Omer in Israel, the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Maryland, a thousand Indian Runner ducks in a South African vineyard, Barack Obama in Hiroshima, and much more.
Photos of the Week: 5/21-5/27
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Armed men in uniform, identified by Syrian Democratic forces as U.S. special operations forces, ride in a pickup truck in the village of Fatisah, in the northern Syrian province of Raqa, on May 25, 2016. U.S.-backed Syrian fighters and Iraqi forces pressed twin assaults against the Islamic State group, in two of the most important ground offensives yet against the jihadists. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), formed in October 2015, announced on May 24 its push for IS territory north of Raqa, which is around 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the Syrian-Turkish border and home to an estimated 300,000 people. The SDF is dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG)—largely considered the most effective independent anti-IS force on the ground in Syria—but it also includes Arab Muslim and Christian fighters. More background on this particular photograph from the photographer here. #
Delil Souleiman / AFP / Getty -
Migrants are seen on a capsizing boat before a rescue operation by the Italian navy ships “Bettica” and “Bergamini,” off the coast of Libya, in this handout picture released by the Italian Marina Militare on May 25, 2016. #
Marina Militare / Reuters -
Stuffed Sumatran tigers, ivory, and other wildlife trophies seized during recent raids are set on fire by Indonesian officials in Banda Aceh on May 23, 2016. Indonesian Forestry Ministry officials and Aceh's Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA) destroyed the wildlife trophies as part of their campaign to fight illegal poaching. #
Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP / Getty -
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A woman sits at the edge of the field of United States flags displayed by the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund on the Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 26, 2016, ahead of the Memorial Day holiday on May 30. The 37,000 U.S. flags are planted in memory of every fallen Massachusetts service member from the Revolutionary War to the present. #
Brian Snyder / Reuters -
Orange County Sheriff's deputies take a protester into custody near the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday, May 25, 2016, in Anaheim, California, after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally at the convention center. #
Jae C. Hong / AP -
A trainer watches a Panama Canal pilot maneuver a miniature tugboat during a training day at the Panama Canal Scale Model Maneuvering Training facility in the outskirts of Panama City on May 25, 2016. The recently inaugurated scale training facility provides realistic training and maneuvering experience for Canal pilots and tugboat captains. #
Arnulfo Franco / AP -
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A picture taken on May 26, 2016, on the French island of La Reunion shows lava during the eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano in an uninhabited area. The last Piton de la Fournaise's eruption occurred on October 30, 2015. #
Richard Bouhet / AFP / Getty -
President Barack Obama hugs Shigeaki Mori, an atomic bomb survivor and creator of the memorial for American WWII prisoners of war killed at Hiroshima, during a ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on May 27, 2016. Obama on Friday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world's first atomic bomb attack, bringing global attention both to survivors and to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons. #
Carolyn Kaster / AP -
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Demonstrators clash with riot police near Congress in Valparaiso, Chile, while Chilean President Michelle Bachelet delivers her annual message to the nation on May 21, 2016. A security guard died during protests due to a fire authorities said was “intentionally” set by protesters. #
Claudio Reyes / AFP / Getty -
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Workers lower the styrofoam face of Soviet leader Josef Stalin they sawed off while dismantling a giant sculpture at Letna Park, on May 21, 2016, in Prague, Czech Republic. The styrofoam sculpture, which looks like granite, was part of a movie set and stood at the same spot where a real statue of Stalin stood 60 years before. The original Stalin sculpture, 15.5 meters tall, was unveiled in 1955 in then-communist Czechoslovakia but soon came into disapproval during de-Stalinization. City authorities removed it in 1962 by blowing it up with 800 kilograms of explosives. #
Sean Gallup / Getty -
The last remaining space shuttle external propellant tank is moved across the 405 freeway in Los Angeles on May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. #
Chris Carlson / AP -
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A group of Indian Runner ducks march past farm buildings at the Vergenoegd wine estate near Cape Town, South Africa, on May 11, 2016. Each day, a quack squad of killer ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa's Vergenoegd wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their mission: seek and destroy thousands of pests out to ruin the season's harvest. Fanning out across the vineyards, some 1,000 Indian Runner ducks hone in on their hidden targets with uncanny precision, locating the tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines. #
Mike Hutchings / Reuters -
Iraqi policeman Saad Ali Thabit detains a would-be suicide bomber at a checkpoint north of Baghdad’s Kadhimiyah neighborhood on May 25, 2016. Thabit is being honored as a hero by Iraqi officials and on social media. Closed Circuit video of Thabit discovering and then disarming the would-be bomber during routine searches was quickly shared on social media racking up hundreds of thousands of views. #
Iraq Federal Police via AP -
After the discovery of mysterious ring-shaped structures fashioned about 176,500 years ago by Neanderthals, a scientist takes measurements for the archaeo-magnetic survey in the Bruniquel Cave, in southwestern France, in this undated handout photo. More on the discovery here: A Shocking Find in a Neanderthal Cave in France. #
Etienne FABRE - SSAC / Reuters -
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The manager of Jinhua Partytime Latex Art and Crafts Factory wears a mask of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump after talking to reporters in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China, on May 25, 2016. The factory is expecting Donald Trump to beat his likely U.S. presidential rival Hilary Clinton in the popularity stakes. At the factory, masks of Donald Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton faces are being churned out. Sales of the two expected presidential candidates are at about half a million each but the factory management believes Trump will eventually turn out to be the winner. “Even though the sales are more or less the same, I think in 2016 this mask will completely sell out,” said factory manager Jacky Chen. #
Aly Song / Reuters -
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Migrants chat before spending the night aboard the rescue ship “Aquarius,” on May 25, 2016, a day after a rescue operation of migrants off the Libyan coast. A 21-year-old Cameroonian woman gave birth to a little boy as the Aquarius headed to the Sardinian port of Cagliari with 385 migrants on board. #
Gabriel Bouys / AFP / Getty -
Sylvie Lamontagne, 13, of Lakewood, Colorado, incorrectly spells ‘panachure’ during the final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Maryland, on May 26, 2016. #
Cliff Owen / AP -
A Kenyan policeman wears a gas mask as he stands in from of a milk dispenser at a kiosk, during running battles between police firing tear gas and protesters throwing rocks, in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, on May 23, 2016. Kenya's police shot, beat, and tear-gassed opposition demonstrators across the country as protestors tried to gather to call for the electoral commission to be dissolved due to allegations of bias and corruption. #
Ben Curtis / AP -
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A man watches from a distance as youngsters dance during a music and laser show, in a forest outside Bucharest, Romania, on May 21, 2016. People attended in large numbers to see a display of laser lighting and music that lasted until the morning hours. #
Vadim Ghirda / AP -
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A man stands on top of a set of traffic signals as he threatens to jump on May 24, 2016 in Changsha, Hunan Province, China. Police officers, fire workers and traffic police set up an inflatable safety mattress but he missed it when he fell after trying to jump onto the overpass. An ambulance hurried the man to nearby hospital. The reasons for his actions are unknown. #
VCG / Getty -
Cars are engulfed by a chasm which opened along the Arno river near the Ponte Vecchio Old Bridge, in Florence, Italy, on May 25, 2016. According to reports, the collapse occurred early in the morning and was caused by the rupture of an aqueduct. No one was injured. #
Maurizio degl'Innocenti / ANSA via AP -
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A man holds a bouquet of flowers and a torch as he faces riot police during a demonstration against the government's planned labor reform, on May 26, 2016, in Lyon, central-eastern France. The French government's labor market proposals, which are designed to make it easier for companies to hire and fire, have sparked a series of nationwide protests and strikes over the past three months. Masked youths clashed with police in Paris and striking workers blockaded refineries and nuclear power stations on May 26, 2016, as an escalating wave of industrial action against labor reforms rocked France. #
Jean-Philippe Ksiazek / AFP / Getty
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