The past 12 months have been eventful, to say the least. From Donald Trump’s new presidency to the enormous Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh; the devastating effects of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria; violent clashes between nationalists and protesters in the U.S.; ongoing struggles against extremists across the globe; and so much more. Here, we present the Top 25 News Photos of 2017—be sure to also see the more comprehensive series, 2017: The Year in Photos, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Warning, some of the photos may contain graphic or objectionable content.
Top 25 News Photos of 2017
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People fly into the air as a vehicle is driven into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, killing one person and injuring 19 others. Police say the driver was James Alex Fields Jr., who was in Charlottesville to take part in the rally. Fields is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old protester Heather Heyer. The white nationalists were holding a "Unite the Right" rally, bringing groups of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, militias, and like-minded groups together to openly voice their ideologies and to protest the city of Charlottesville's plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. #
Ryan M. Kelly / The Daily Progress via AP -
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An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on September 11, 2017. The United Nations Refugee Agency now reports that more than 624,000 people have fled Myanmar since August 24. The refugees, mostly Rohingya Muslims, crossed into Bangladesh to escape the violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine state—a situation the UN now describes as ethnic cleansing. #
Danish Siddiqui / Reuters -
The steep and well-defined eyewall of Hurricane Jose, imaged by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2A satellite, on September 9, 2017. Jose was the tenth named storm, and third major hurricane of the 2017 hurricane season. This year was an especially destructive season for hurricanes. Multiple storms reached category 5 intensity, and several hurricanes made significant damaging landfall, including hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. #
CC BY CC BY ESA / Processed by Antti Lipponen -
United States President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife, Melania Trump, holds the Bible and his son, Barron Trump, looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, D.C. #
Chip Somodevilla / Getty -
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Hand-held candles burn in the background as Pope Francis touches the figure representing Our Lady of Fatima during his visit to the Chapel of the Apparitions at the Fatima shrine, in Fatima, Portugal, on May 12, 2017. Two of the three child shepherds who reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fatima one century ago were declared saints on May 13, 2017 by Pope Francis. #
Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty -
A young girl dances with an American flag in baggage claim while women pray behind her during a protest against the travel ban imposed by executive order, at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Dallas, Texas, on January 29, 2017. Legal challenges to the ban emerged almost immediately, leading to court battles throughout the year, and eventually, the Supreme Court, which lifted previous injunctions on December 4, allowing the ban to go into full effect for six mainly Muslim countries. Several lawsuits are still pending. #
Laura Buckman / Reuters -
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A migrant tries to board a boat of the German NGO Sea-Watch in the Mediterranean Sea on November 6, 2017. During a shipwreck, five people died, including a newborn child. The United Nations estimates that 164,654 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to enter Europe in 2017, less than half of last year's total of 350,549. Despite the lower numbers, the journey remains extremely dangerous—3,038 deaths were reported this year. Analysts are uncertain why the numbers declined so sharply. #
Alessio Paduano / AFP / Getty -
A man wearing a shirt with swastikas is punched by an unidentified member of the crowd near the site of a planned speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer (who popularized the term "alt-right") at the University of Florida campus on October 19, 2017, in Gainesville, Florida. #
Brian Blanco / Getty -
A member of the Mexican navy kneels next to Frida the rescue dog after an earthquake struck the southern coast of Mexico, in Juchitan, Mexico, on September 10, 2017. Mexico suffered a pair of major earthquakes in September—an 8.2 magnitude on the 7th in the state of Chiapas, and a 7.1 on the 19th near Mexico City. The combined quakes cause widespread damage and claimed more than 450 lives. The work of the rescue dogs and massive displays of volunteerism became the visual symbols of the response to the disasters. #
Edgard Garrido / Reuters -
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Rohingya refugee Azida Begum, 11, was shot twice, under her arm and on her leg. She was shot by the Burmese military when they killed her mother as she was fleeing her village in Myanmar. Azida now lives with her grandmother; her father died years ago. This photograph was taken in Palongkhali, Bangladesh, on October 10, 2017. #
Paula Bronstein / Getty -
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, right, and his wife Louise Linton, hold up a sheet of new $1 bills, the first currency notes bearing his and U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza's signatures, at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 2017. At left is BEP Director Leonard Olijar. #
Jacquelyn Martin / AP -
A woman assists an injured person after an incident on Westminster Bridge in London on March 22, 2017. Reuters photographer Toby Melville was taking pictures around Parliament for stories about Britain's exit from the European Union. Melville was standing below the bridge on the south bank of the River Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament at around 2:30 p.m. when a man fell from the bridge, landing near him. "There was a lot of blood coming from his head. I thought this must be a domestic or horrible accident," Melville said. He immediately phoned the emergency services and decided to go to nearby St. Thomas's Hospital to alert doctors about the injured man. He climbed the steps to reach the bridge above, and that's when he saw other injured women lying on the pavement. "At which point I thought this looks like it's more than someone's fallen over the wall," he said. Other bystanders were already rushing to help the victims. At the top of the bridge he began taking pictures. British police say four people were killed and at least 20 injured on Wednesday. A car hit pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to parliament and was shot. "Of a dozen or so people, some of them seemed to be conscious. I didn't know there had been a vehicle involved at the time, someone said 'bus,' someone said 'car' someone said 'shooting,'" he said. "It was just surreal and it was a fairly quick computation that this was a serious incident and a lot of people injured." #
Toby Melville / Reuters -
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The Eagle Creek wildfire burns as golfers play at the Beacon Rock Golf Course in North Bonneville, Washington, on September 4, 2017. A teenager was charged with reckless burning in an incident involving fireworks that is believed to have started the fire that eventually burned nearly 50,000 acres. #
Kirsti McCluer / Reuters -
Iraqi civilians flee the Old City district where heavy fighting was taking place in Mosul, Iraq, on July 2, 2017. Iraqi forces continued to encounter stiff resistance from Islamic State fighters with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, suicide bombers, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. #
Martyn Aim / Corbis via Getty -
Air Force One departs Las Vegas past the broken windows on the Mandalay Bay hotel, where shooter Stephen Paddock conducted his mass shooting along the Las Vegas Strip on October 4, 2017. On the night of October 1, Stephen Paddock, holed up in his hotel room with 23 guns, opened fire on fans attending a concert across the street. He fired more than 1,000 bullets from the windows in a span of 10 minutes, killing 58 people and injuring another 546 before police entered his hotel room to discover him dead on the floor. At this time, authorities believe Paddock acted on his own, and have been unable to discover any motive for the attack. #
Mike Blake / Reuters -
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Bride Katty Malang Mikunug takes a photo with friends before her wedding in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur, southern Philippines, on October 21, 2017. Paulo Mamayo Ambor, a resident of Marawi who was displaced by the fighting between government troops and ISIS-inspired militants, wed Mikunug, a resident of a neighboring town in Saguiaran. #
Jes Aznar / Getty -
Stephanie Woodward of Rochester, New York, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, is removed from a sit-in at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office as she and other disability rights advocates protest proposed funding caps to Medicaid on June 22, 2017, on Capitol Hill. #
Jacquelyn Martin / AP -
Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, also known as Abu Omar, 70, smokes his pipe as he sits in his destroyed bedroom, listening to music on his hand-cranked gramophone in Aleppo's formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood in Syria. Anis had recently returned to Aleppo, with plans to rebuild not only his home, but also his large collection of vintage American cars, despite everything being reduced to rubble. When reporters asked him about the gramophone, he responded, “I will play it for you, but first I have to light my pipe. Because I never listen to music without it.” Read photographer Joseph Eid's full account of his time spent with Anis here. #
Joseph Eid / AFP / Getty -
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A demonstrator catches fire during clashes with riot police during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas on May 3, 2017. The photographer later said that bystanders were able to douse the flames and the man was taken to a hospital. #
Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Getty -
After the passage of Hurricane Maria, a man rides his bicycle on a storm-damaged road in Toa Alta, west of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The official government death toll from Maria's impact on Puerto Rico has climbed to 58 as the island continues its long work to rebuild infrastructure and buildings wrecked by the monstrous storm. #
Ricardo Arduengo / AFP / Getty -
Rohingya refugees wait to receive aid in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on September 21, 2017. The vast numbers of refugees have overwhelmed the capabilities of both Bangladesh and international aid agencies working in the region. #
Cathal McNaughton / Reuters -
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A Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopter carries a horse to Bowen Ranch in rural Apple Valley, California, on November 27, 2017. San Bernardino County firefighters, with assistance from the LAFD helicopter, rescued the horse from a 300-foot ravine. #
James Quigg / The Daily Press via AP -
Juli Briskman, riding her bike, gestures with her middle finger as a motorcade carrying President Donald Trump departs Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia, on October 28, 2017. After the photo was published, Briskman posted it on her social media profiles, and decided to alert her employer, Akima, a government contracting firm, that the photo might go viral. Akima fired her for violating its policies, but someone shortly set up a GoFundMe page for Briskman. The page has raised more than $130,000 so far. #
Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty -
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