The successful splashdown of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, a candlelit procession in Jerusalem, a 100-million-year-old fossil in Australia, an oil spill in rural Kansas, scenes from the World Cup in Qatar, tornado destruction in Louisiana, a war-damaged church in Ukraine, and much more
Photos of the Week: Frosty Morning, Meteor Shower, Surfing Santa
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Lithuanian pianist Darius Majintas plays music by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Sylvestrov near a monument on the Kremyanets mountain in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on December 13, 2022. #
Sergey Bobok / AFP / Getty -
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More than 300 skiers and snowboarders dressed as Santa Claus and other holiday characters took part in the Santa Sunday fundraiser event at Sunday River Resort in Newry, Maine, on December 11, 2022. #
Joseph Prezioso / AFP / Getty -
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Local stargazers Tamas Csabala (right) and Viktor Szeman try to look for shooting stars from the Geminid meteor shower in a snow-covered, pitch-black, and foggy field just before midnight on December 13, 2022, near Debrad, Slovakia. #
Robert Nemeti / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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Isaac, the son of Morocco's Yassine Bounou, plays on the pitch after the World Cup match between Morocco and Portugal, at Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, Qatar, on December 10, 2022. #
Carl Recine / Reuters -
Argentina's forward Julian Alvarez (center) celebrates with Lionel Messi (left) after Alvarez scored his team's second goal during the 2022 World Cup football semifinal match against Croatia at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, on December 13, 2022. #
Jack Guez / AFP / Getty -
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Fans of Argentina celebrate while watching the live broadcast of the World Cup semifinal between Argentina and Croatia at the Francisco Seeber square in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 13, 2022. #
Emiliano Lasalvia / AFP / Getty -
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This aerial view shows Venezuelan state workers removing containers at the "Tiendita" international bridge on the border between Colombia and Venezuela in Cucuta, Colombia, on December 14, 2022. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on December 12 that his country would fully reopen its land border with Colombia on January 1, 2023, completing a negotiating process that began in September with the two South American neighbors reestablishing diplomatic ties. #
Edinson Estupinan / AFP / Getty -
Migrants traveling in a caravan of more than a thousand people from countries such as Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic cross the Rio Grande river to ask for political asylum in the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on December 11, 2022. #
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Syrians line up to fills their tanks outside a gas station in an area controlled by jihadists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, which controls much of northwestern Syria, on December 15, 2022, in the country's Idlib province. Syria's civil war, which has killed nearly half a million people, has fragmented the country and caused economic collapse. Ninety percent of the population now lives below the poverty line, and 12.4 million people are food insecure, according to the UN. #
Omar Haj Kadour / AFP / Getty -
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Emergency crews work to clean up the largest U.S. crude oil spill in nearly a decade, following a leak at the Keystone pipeline operated by TC Energy in rural Washington County, Kansas, on December 9, 2022. #
Drone Base / Reuters -
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Bells lie in a pile of debris from a destroyed Orthodox church, amid Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, in the village of Bohorodychne, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on December 8, 2022. #
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Workers give final touches to a large statue of the guru Pramukh Swami Maharaj ahead of his centenary celebrations, at a festival ground on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, on December 10, 2022. #
Sam Panthaky / AFP / Getty -
Workers begin to move the bronze statue of Confederate General A. P. Hill onto a flatbed truck on December 12, 2022, in Richmond, Virginia. The city of Richmond—the capital of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War—removed the statue, its last city-owned Confederate statue, on Monday, more than two years after it began to purge itself of what many saw as painful symbols of racial oppression. #
John C. Clark / AP -
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Queensland Museum Network paleontologists, led by Dr. Espen Knutsen, pose for a picture at the site where they claim to have unearthed fossils of a 100-million-year-old long-necked marine reptile, in Mckinlay, Queensland, Australia. #
Queensland Museum / Reuters -
Officials and a surfer look at a dead beached whale on Rockaway Beach in the Queens borough of New York City on December 13, 2022. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the 23-foot sperm whale to be beached. #
Bryan Bedder / Getty -
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A girl wearing a crown of candles leads other participants in the Saint Lucia celebration procession, near the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem, on December 13, 2022, to celebrate the Christian feast of Saint Lucy's Day. #
Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty -
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Aparna Shrivastava (right) takes a photo as her partner, Shelby Teeter, gives her a kiss, after President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 2022. #
Andrew Harnik / AP -
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NASA's Orion Capsule splashes down after a successful uncrewed Artemis I Moon Mission on December 11, 2022, seen from aboard the U.S.S. Portland in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. The 26-day mission took the Orion spacecraft around the moon and back, completing a historic test flight that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 17 on the moon, the last time NASA astronauts walked there. #
Caroline Brehman / Getty
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