US News

Day in Photos: May 16, 2012

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A pirate skiff is set on fire after HMS Westminster's Merlin 502 fired on it in the Indian Ocean. European Union naval forces in attack helicopters conducted their first onshore raid Tuesday, on a suspected pirate lair in Somalia. A pirate said the strike destroyed a supply center and set back operations. No deaths were reported in the Tuesday attack on Handulle village, about 11 miles north of Haradhere town.

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Britain's Princess Anne is surrounded by security officers as she walks atop Athens' Acropolis to attend an Olympic Flame ceremony. The Olympic flame will be handed over to the London 2012 delegation on Thursday.

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A worker takes a break at his workshop in Shanghai. A slew of bleak data has raised fears China's economy is cooling faster than previously thought, but analysts say Beijing has only limited means to prevent a politically damaging slowdown.

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A passenger bus burns after it was set on fire in Dhaka. Three vehicles, including the bus, were set on fire in the city by unidentified arsonists hours after a Dhaka court sent 33 senior opposition leaders and activists of a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led party alliance to jail for their alleged involvement in violence including setting fire to vehicles during general strikes last month.

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Bangladeshi firefighters control a blaze at a slum in Dhaka. Over a thousand homes burnt down as a devastating blaze raged through the slum.

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Police officers carry away a protester as they close down the Occupy Camp in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt/Main, western Germany. German authorities cleared out a group of protesters who have camped for months in front of the European Central Bank, ahead of huge anti-capitalism protests expected this weekend. Some of the demonstrators hurled paint at police who were moving them after they ignored a request to leave voluntarily.

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A woman poses for pictures outside Harrods department store in London, as employees of the store celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's upcoming Diamond Jubilee. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee will take place June 2-5, 2012, and celebrations will include a festival of boats on the river Thames and the lighting of more than 2,000 beacons around the country during a four-day public holiday.

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Women try to salvage their belongings after a fire in a slum at Shyamoli in Dhaka. At least 10 people were injured, including a fire fighter who sustained burn injuries.

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Smoke rises from an illegal oil refinery along the Diebu creek in Nigeria's Bayelsa state. Nigeria is Africa's largest crude oil exporter but its production capacity has been slashed by thieves drilling into pipelines passing through winding creeks and waterways in the vast delta. The underground industry is thought to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

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Local children catch in the water during an ICC Cricket Development Program Clinic on Mele Beach in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

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A group of 'catadores' (scavengers) dig through trash at the Jardim Gramacho landfill, the biggest in South America. The landfill is set to shut down next June 1st.

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A young athlete from the provincial diving team rests on sponges during a training session at a training center in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China.

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This handout photo provided by the European Southern Observatory shows the galaxy Centaurus A. With a total exposure time of more than 50 hours this is probably the deepest view of this peculiar and spectacular object. Centaurus A, also known as NGC 5128, is a peculiar massive elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its heart. It lies about 12 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus and has the distinction of being the most prominent radio galaxy in the sky.

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The Hewlett Gulch Fire continues to burn in the Poudre Canyon near Fort Collins, Colo. The US Forest Service said Wednesday that the blaze northwest of Fort Collins was caused by humans and the investigation is continuing. About 200 firefighters are now fighting the blaze, which is only about 5 percent contained.

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T-shirts showing an image of a revolutionary-styled President Obama at a stall in Beijing. A slew of bleak economic data has raised fears China's economy is cooling faster than previously thought, but analysts say Beijing has only limited ways of preventing a politically damaging slowdown.