First lady Michelle Obama — with help from first dog Bo and five-year-old Jordan Akuoko — reads “The Night Before Christmas” to children at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington.
Reuters
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A supporter of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi indicates to his Koran to emphasize a point amid continued demonstrations in fiercely divided Cairo.
AFP/Getty Images
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A wolf bounds through a snowy field near the remote village of Sosnovy Bor, Belarus.
Reuters
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A meteor streaks across the sky over Lafayette, Ind., during the Geminid meteor shower.
AP
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Clergy members observe as employees at the French bell foundry Cornille Havard cast of the bronze bell “Anne-Genevieve,” a replacement headed to the north tower of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral.
Reuters
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A young Syrian boy sports a scarf bearing the colors of the pre-Baath Syrian flag through the northern town of Darkush.
AFP/Getty Images
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A Santa-clad volunteer comforts an infant at the San Juan de Dios Hospital children’s ward in Guatemala City.
Reuters
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A swimmer gets some exercise in the partially frozen Houhai Lake in Beijing as others choose to cross on foot.
Reuters
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Palestinian children play outside a mosque in Gaza City at sunset.
AFP/Getty Images
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Skaters, reflected in mirrored tiles, traverse the giant ice rink set up under the famous glass roof of Paris’ Grand Palais.
AP
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Snow blankets the Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy.
AFP/Getty Images
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US swimmer Ryan Lochte is met with some jealousy as he tries to hand his gold medal (for winning the men’s 200m individual medley) to a local child at the FINA Short Course World Championships in Istanbul.
Getty Images
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National Guard 1st Lt. Jonathan Kiel, on leave from Afghanistan, kisses year-old daughter Molly, after meeting Molly and wife Nan at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
EPA
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Nigerian pilgrims sit inside the Church of Nativity, revered by Christians as Jesus’ birthplace, in Bethlehem.
Reuters
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Hoarfrost coats the trees on the banks of the Yenisei River outside Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
Reuters
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Queen Elizabeth II dons studded 3D glasses to preview a recording of her Christmas greeting to the British commonwealth at Buckingham Palace.
EPA
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A giant panda plays with a tire swing in the snow at Yantai Zoo in Yantai, China.
ZUMA Press
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Twenty-thousand fans of the German soccer club FC Union Berlin gather at the Alte Foersterei staduim in Berlin for a two-hour Christmas sing-along.
AFP/Getty Images
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A man with a horse cart slows traffic on a bridge plagued by a heavy morning fog (which also slowed air and rail traffic) in Jammu, India.
AP
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A black-capped squirrel monkey unwraps a Christmas gift in its enclosure at the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany.
AFP/Getty Images
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Three knee-boarding reindeer ride along the Potomac River at National Harbor in Maryland as part of a Water-Skiing Santa show.
AFP/Getty Images
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School girls watch Indian women’s rights protesters demonstrate in New Delhi, India, where authorities began shutting down roads in an attempt to end a week of the gatherings sparked by a brutal, public gang-rape.
AP
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Londoners walk past sale signs on Oxford Street as the holiday retail assault picks up on Christmas Eve in the UK.
AP
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An Indonesian family evacuates a residential area of Jakarta flooded by heavy rains.
AP
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A cat steals the spotlight in a nativity scene outside a church in Warsaw.
Reuters
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A young girl sits squished among other Syrian refugees fleeing violence on a Jordanian army vehicle after her group crossed into Jordanian territory near the town of Ramtha.
Reuters
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Chinese paramilitary police perform extreme-weather training in Nanjing.
Reuters
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Murphy High School teacher Leland Howard tries to salvage items where his algebra classroom once stood in a temporary building at Murphy High School after a Christmas Day tornado smashed the area.
AP
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A pair of Hamadryas baboons snack on peppers decorating a tree in their enclosure at Safaripark Beekse Bergen in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands.
EPA
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Visitors observe a reproduction of the paintings of Rembrandt at the Magna Plaza shopping center in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The permanent exhibition “Rembrandt: All His Paintings,” contains reproductions of all the Dutch painter’s works.
EPA
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Lyubov Valiyeva, a member of the Cryophil winter swimming club, plays in the snow by the bank of the Yenisei River in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk (where it’s -13 degrees Farenheit).
Reuters
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A Palestinian child signals for peace during a candlelight vigil in front of Red Cross offices in Gaza City. The vigil was held in solidarity with hunger-striking detainees held by Israel.
ZUMA Pres
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Free Syrian Army fighters watch a plume of smoke rise in the distance as clashes in Aleppo continued between the rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
Reuters
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Canadiens defenseman Josh Gorges chases down a puck during a pick-up hockey game in Montreal. Gorges used Twitter to organize a Boxing Day game with fans at a neighborhood rink.
AP
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Workers walk through a plume of dust left in a building demolition in Haikou, China.
AFP/Getty Images
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Tottenham’s Gareth Bale celebrates his third goal against Aston Villa in Spurs’ 4-0 win at Villa Park in Birmingham, England.
ap
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South Korean elementary and middle school students chant together at a winter military camp in Ansan.
AP
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A ring-tailed lemur keeps a close eye on a tomato frog as zookeepers perform the annual inventory at Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg, Germany.
ZUMA Press
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Anti-missle flares fly from an Israeli AH-64 Apache longbow helicopter during a graduation ceremony for Israeli pilots over the Hatzerim air base.
AFP/Getty Images
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An Afghan man and his goat brave the snow in Kabul where temperatures hovered around freezing.
AP
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Judges inspect a patient, adorned elephant during a beauty contest at the Elephant Race in Chitwan, Nepal.
Reuters
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Workers secure the last two crystal panels that make up the giant Waterford ball that will mark the new year from the top of One Times Square in New York.
UPI
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A group of people walk beneath a bridge on a frozen lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing.
AFP/Getty Images
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Snow blankets a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Reuters
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Japan’s new Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera bows from the podium after giving an inauguration address to ministry officials on his first day.
AP
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Children use a boat to navigate the flooded byways in Rantau Panjang, Malaysia. By this morning, 14,000 had been evacuated the flooded areas.
Reuters
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Indian protesters chant amid continuing demonstrations in support of women’s rights after a woman was raped on a moving bus earlier this month. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh responded with a pledge to protect the nation’s women.
AP
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Belgian Niels Albert celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the fifth stage in the Bpost Bank Trofee Cyclocross competition in Loenhout, Belgium.
AFP/Getty Images
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Volunteers fill balloons in preparation for a mass balloon release as part of a year-end tradition in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil.
AP
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Homes damaged by superstorm Sandy remain, looming over Belle Harbor, Queens two months after the storm.
Reuters
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Spanish revelers take part in festival of Els Enfarinats in the town of Ibi. For 200 years the town’s have celebrated outside town hall with a battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers.
AP
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Palestinian protesters prepare a roadblock while protesting in Kfar Kadum, West Bank.
Reuters
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A boy peers through the damaged wall of a home in Chinigam, Kashmir, after a firefight that left two militants dead.
Reuters
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Ohio wide receiver Chase Cochran dances away from Louisiana-Monroe safety Mitch Lane en route to a 68-yard score in a Bobcats romp at the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.
AP
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Reindeer gather around Glenmore Reindeer Centre herder Anna Jemmett to snack on some lichen. The 150-strong herd in the Cairngorm Mountains is the only one in Britain.
Reuters
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Canada’s Mark McNeill gets slammed into the goal by Slovakia’s David Bajanik during the second period of their U20 World Junior Hockey Championship prelim.
Reuters
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Cross country athletes ski with their coaches ahead of the Tour de Ski competition in Oberhof, Germany.
AP
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An Israeli border policeman fires a tear gas grenade toward Palestinian protesters during clashes in Nabi Saleh over the expansion of Jewish settlements.
AFP/Getty Images
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Caron Butler of the Los Angeles Clippers celebrates the team’s 15th straight win as they wrap up their 106-77 romp of the Celtics in LA, securing the league’s best record.
EPA
