People stranded at Disneyland; a spectacular rocket launch in California; polar bears dance for the Pope; violent attacks in Afghanistan and Mexico; a ridiculous amount of snow buries Erie, Pennsylvania; Christmas on an Australian beach; and much more.
Photos of the Week: Chilly Days, a Bearskin Parade, Preparations for 2018
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A member of the Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Hunt crashes as she jumps a fence during the annual Boxing Day hunt in Chiddingstone, England, on December 26, 2017. According to Reuters editor Corinne Perkins, the horse got up after the fall and is okay. #
Simon Dawson / Reuters -
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Head coach David Cutcliffe of the Duke Blue Devils reacts to his Gatorade bath by Mike Ramsay and Trevon McSwain after defeating the Northern Illinois Huskies 36 to 14 in the Quick Lane Bowl at Ford Field on December 26, 2017, in Detroit, Michigan. #
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People dressed as devils dance in the street under fire torches during the Nit de Llufes festival on December 28, 2017, in Barcelona, Spain. People dance and perform in the streets with the torches to mark the Day of the Innocents. #
Chris McGrath / Getty -
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The contrail from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched at Vandenberg Air Force Base lights up the early evening sky on December 22, 2017, as viewed from Solvang, California. The spectacular event, seen by millions of people throughout parts of Arizona and central and southern California, was the result of setting sun light hitting the contrail left behind as 10 communication satellites were placed into orbit by the private space company. #
George Rose / Getty -
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A privately-owned Dassault Falcon 7X business jet aircraft is seen after it was blown off the airport apron and into an adjacent building as strong winds hit the Maltese islands, according to local media, at Malta International Airport in Luqa, Malta, on December 27, 2017. #
Darrin Zammit Lupi / Reuters -
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Pedestrians stand around the scene of a bus crash in Moscow, Russia, on December 25, 2017. Several people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a bus careened off a road and onto steps leading into an underground passageway, authorities said. #
Ivan Sekretarev / AP -
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Indian school girls take part in a self-defense camp at a police training school in New Delhi on December 28, 2017. More than 100 women and children participated in the opening ceremony of the self-defense training winter camp being organized by a special police unit for women and children. #
Money Sharma / AFP / Getty -
Revelers dressed in mock military garb take part in the "Els Enfarinats" battle in the southeastern Spanish town of Ibi on December 28, 2017. During this 200-year-old traditional festival, participants known as Els Enfarinats (those covered in flour) dress in military clothes and stage a mock coup d'etat as they battle using flour, eggs, and firecrackers outside the town hall as part of the celebrations of the Day of the Innocents. #
Jaime Reina / AFP / Getty -
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A young man photographs his friends at Bondi Beach on December 25, 2017, in Sydney, Australia. December is one of the hottest months of the year across Australia, with Christmas Day traditionally involving a trip to the beach and celebrations outdoors, although temperatures at Bondi Beach reached only a top of 20 degrees Celcius (60 degrees Fahrenheit) with an unseasonal cold spell hitting the city of Sydney. #
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Qatar's midfielder Almoez Ali leaps into the air as he celebrates scoring a goal against Iraq during their 2017 Gulf Cup of Nations group match at Al Kuwait Sports Club Stadium in Kuwait City on December 26, 2017. #
Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty -
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Newborn babies wearing dog costumes to celebrate the New Year of the Dog are pictured in the nursery room of Paolo Chokchai 4 Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 28, 2017. #
Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters -
Fishermen cover their heads and part of their boats with blankets and straw as they wait to catch fish in the waters of the Anchar Lake on a cold winter day in Srinagar, Jammu, and Kashmir, on December 28, 2017. #
Danish Ismail / Reuters -
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New police officers attend their graduation ceremony at the Beacon Theatre in New York, on December 28, 2017. The new recruits will join approximately 36,000 other police officers on the largest police force in the United States. #
Seth Wenig / AP -
This image may contain graphic or objectionable content.
Click to view imageFirefighters and police work at a crime scene where the body of a man was found hanging from a vehicular bridge at the entrance to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on December 28, 2017. As of November, a total of 23,101 people were murdered in Mexico in 2017, according to the Interior Ministry—the highest number in two decades, surpassing the 22,409 people killed in 2011, when the country's drug cartels began a process of fragmentation. In Ciudad Juarez there were 739 murders this year. #
Herika Martinez / AFP / Getty -
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People wearing bear skins parade as part of a new year and winter festival during which groups from northern Romanian villages are invited to sing winter carols and dance on December 29, 2017, in the city of Vatra Dornei. #
Daniel Mihailescu / AFP / Getty -
An Afghan man runs away as dust blows in the aftermath of a third blast at a Shiite cultural center in Kabul on December 28, 2017. At least 40 people were killed and dozens more wounded in multiple blasts at the cultural center, officials said, in the latest deadly violence to hit the Afghan capital. #
Shah Marai / AFP / Getty -
An Afghan man reads verses of the Quran near the grave of his relative who died in Thursday's suicide attack on a Shiite cultural center in Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 29, 2017. An ISIS suicide bomber struck a Shiite cultural center in Kabul, killing dozens of people and underscoring the extremist group's growing reach in Afghanistan even as its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been dismantled. #
Rahmat Gul / AP -
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A boy with what appears to be a toy gun listens to a prayer before he and other relatives visit the graves of their loved ones, all minors, who were killed a year ago during the government's war on drugs campaign, at the Tala Cemetery in Caloocan, east of Manila, Philippines, on December 28, 2017, as the world commemorates Holy Innocents Day. #
Noel Celis / AFP / Getty -
People sit stranded in the It's a Small World ride during a power outage at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in this December 27, 2017, picture obtained from social media. Photographer Geoff Fienberg said that the ride was immobilized for about 25 minutes, but the Small World music was unaffected by the outage, and continued to play the entire time. #
Geoff Fienberg / Reuters -
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An aerial view shows people dressed as Snow Maiden and Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, with members of the Cryophile winter swimming club forming a large "2018" with their bodies on the bank of the Yenisei River to mark the upcoming New Year and Christmas season in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on December 24, 2017. #
Ilya Naymushin / Reuters
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