L.L. Bean employees wear Santa hats and antlers as they celebrate the holiday spirit while working in the company's order fulfillment center in Freeport, Maine. The outdoor store is making its final push to get things shipped in time for Christmas. Robert F. Bukaty/AP
A police officer stands guard while confiscated drugs burn in the background inside a military base in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Some 3.5 tons of cocaine, 1 ton of marijuana, 0.017 tons of heroin, and 0.0044 tons of crack were burned after they were confiscated from around the country in the past four months, according to the National Direction to Control Drugs. Ricardo Rojas/Reuters
A woman lights candles in the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP
Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (from l. to r.), Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pose for photos before the start of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) India commemorative summit in New Delhi. Manish Swarup/AP
Three week-old orangutan baby Sayang clings to its mother, Rosa, at the zoo in Frankfurt, central Germany. It has not been determined if the cub is male or female. Alex Domanski/dapd/AP
An Afghan policeman demonstrates skills during a graduation ceremony in Herat west of Kabul, Afghanistan. More than 200 police security forces, including eight female policewomen, graduated after receiving six months of training. The process of taking over security from the NATO-led ISAF forces by Afghan troops should be completed by the end of 2014. Hoshang Hashimi/AP
Students dressed in Santa costumes pose as they wait to perform during Christmas celebrations at their school in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh. Ajay Verma/Reuters
Palestinians warm themselves by a fire inside a house in the northern Gaza Strip that witnesses said was damaged in an Israeli air strike during an eight-day conflict. The conflict ended in an Egyptian-brokered truce agreement last month. Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Family members of Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, look on as his casket is carried into the Capitol to lie in state in the Rotunda in Washington. Inouye has been in public office since 1959 and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in Europe in World War II. Evan Vucci/AP
A local resident clears snow from his driveway after an overnight snowfall left many schools and businesses closed for the day in Urbandale, Iowa. Charlie Neibergall/AP
A supporter of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds his party's lotus symbol during a felicitation ceremony outside the party office in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Narendra Modi won a fourth successive term as the chief minister of Gujarat, a victory that could launch the prime ministerial ambitions of one of the country's most popular but controversial leaders. Amit Dave/Reuters
A Romanian homeless man eats hot soup received from a charity organization in Bucharest, Romania. The charity has also handed out clothing to homeless people in a city where an estimated 5,000 sleep outside in conditions so precarious that 300 die a year from the cold and illness. Vadim Ghirda/AP
A man walks past street art in east London. The clock is ticking down to Dec. 21, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, and from China to California to Mexico, thousands are getting ready for what they think is going to be a fateful day. The Maya didn't say much about what would happen next, after a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count comes to an end. So into that void have rushed occult writers, bloggers and New Age visionaries foreseeing all manner of monumental change, from doomsday to a new age of enlightenment. Matt Dunham/AP
Syrian refugees, who fled their home in Idlib due to a government airstrike, look out of a bus window just after crossing the border from Syria to Cilvegozu, Turkey. Muhammed Muheisen/AP
A Palestinian man picks flowers for export on a flower farm in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
An Indian man sits on a horse-drawn cart on a foggy morning on the outskirts of Jammu, India. A cold wave has gripped large parts of northern India. Channi Anand/AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin is reflected in the glasses of a cadet watching Putin's annual news conference on TV at the cadet school outside the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Putin said that a US law that punishes Russians who abuse human rights was poisoning ties with Washington and signaled support for a retaliatory ban on Americans adopting Russian children. Vladimir Konstantinov/Reuters
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189, in this NASA handout photo. Hubble/NASA/Reuters
Students take a class at a primary school in Dabie Mountain, Anhui province, China. The majority of the students' parents left them behind to work outside their hometown. As the only primary school covering a large mountainous area, some of the children live more than 5 miles away and leave home about 5 to attend morning class at 7:30. Reuters
Heavy traffic fills the streets in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. Hasan Shaaban/Reuters
President-elect Park Geun-hye greets reporters after a press conference at the headquarters of the Saenuri Party in Seoul, South Korea. Park will be the country's first female leader despite being the daughter of a divisive dictator. Ahn Young-joon/AP
Window cleaners dressed as Santa Claus work during an event promoting Christmas at a hotel in the business district of Tokyo. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
A woman participates in a candlelight vigil in support of women's safety in Mumbai, India. The brutal gang rape of a young woman on a bus in the Indian capital has sparked a wave of protests across India, with calls for tougher and swifter action on cases of alleged sexual assault. Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
Pedestrians cast shadows on the sidewalk near the headquarters of the Bank of Japan in Tokyo. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
People gather for an interfaith prayer vigil to end gun violence in front of City Hall in Los Angeles. A gunman killed 20 children and six adults in a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on December 14. Jason Redmond/Reuters
Chefs at hotel lobby in Pyongyang, North Korea, wait to welcome scientists and technicians from the recent successful launch of a rocket that sent an artificial satellite into orbit. Ng Han Guan/AP
Muslim worshippers gather for an evening collective prayer outside a mosque in Banda Aceh. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but nowhere is the faith more strictly interpreted than in Aceh where sharia, or Islamic laws, have been implemented. Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Miss USA Olivia Culpo (from l. to r.) is congratulated as the winner by Miss Universe 2011 Leila Lopes of Angola and Miss Teen USA 2012 Logan West during the Miss Universe pageant at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Steve Marcus/Reuters
A woman's silhouette is seen through Christmas lights at Usaquen Park during the annual Festival de Navidad (Festival of Christmas) celebrations in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday night. Fredy Builes/Reuters
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed hundreds of thousands of his cheering supporters in Istanbul saying, 'My patience has run out' with anti-government protests.
Turkey’s largest city was divided on Sunday by competing shows of force, between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who staged a mammoth rally of loyalists, and anti-government demonstrators, who clashed with police on Istanbul's streets once again to protest his rule.
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-Day-06-16
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-Day-0615
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-06-14
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Erin-go-bragh-images-of-Ireland
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Weather-extremes-2013
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-06-13
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Children-s-labors
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Wildfires-2013
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-06-12
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Turkey-s-discontent
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Venezuela-after-Chavez
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/James-Whitey-Bulger-on-trial