Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

The competition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. This year astrophotographers from 91 countries sent in more than 4,200 spectacular entries. Here: The Milky Way rises above an isolated lighthouse in Tasmania. Shot by James Stone of Australia. (Photo by James Stone/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Dozens of people participate in the religious pilgrimage to the National Shrine of El Rincon, in the municipality of Boyeros, in Havana, Cuba, 17 December 2018. As is customary every year, thousands of people in mass attend the shrine to pay tribute to Saint Lazarus, to whom the faithful come for personal requests and miracles. (Photo by Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA/EFE)

A woman moves a sandbag along a flooded road in the aftermath of the heaviest recorded rainfall in Zhengzhou in central China's Henan province on Saturday, July 24, 2021. Rescuers used bulldozers and rubber boats to move residents out of flooded neighborhoods in central China on Saturday after torrential rains killed at least 56 people. (Photo by Dake Kang/AP Photo)

A view of an installation part of “We Walked the Earth” by artist Uffe Isolotto at Denmark's pavilion during the 59th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 19, 2022. (Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

A relative of journalist Romelo Vilsaint grieves after learning that he was fatally shot outside a police station, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, October 30, 2022. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

A visitor wears an outfit as she watches the St. George NextGen show for Fashion Week in Sydney on May 16, 2017. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

Winner. “This was taken in the South Ari Atolls, Maldives, as the south-west monsoon season was setting in. It features my partner – and dive buddy – Emma after surfacing at the end of the last dive of the day to find 1.5 metre swells and dark monsoon clouds. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: This beautiful portrait of a diver in an ocean swell below a menacing sky stands out this month for its emotional and elemental beauty. It is a reminder that while we may play among nature we are always dwarfed by its power and must be constantly on our guard”. (Photo by Simon Dunn/The Guardian)