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A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012.  The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)
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02 Aug 2012 12:59:00
NASA handout photographs from the various Apollo missions are shown in this combination photograph. The photographs are some of more than 12,000 from NASA's archives recently aggregated on the Project Apollo Archive Flickr account. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)

NASA handout photographs from the various Apollo missions are shown in this combination photograph. The photographs are some of more than 12,000 from NASA's archives recently aggregated on the Project Apollo Archive Flickr account. (Top L) David R. Scott, command module pilot, stands in the open hatch of the Command Module during the Apollo 9 mission March 6, 1969. (Top centre) Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr.walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission July 20, 1969. (Top R) Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander, is pictured inside the Lunar Module during the Apollo 11 mission July 20, 1969. (Bottom L) Alan Bean holds a container filled with lunar soil collected during the Apollo 12 mission November 19, 1969. (Bottom centre) Scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt rides in the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the Apollo 17 mission December 13, 1972. (Bottom R) Harrison Schmitt stands next to a huge, split boulder during the Apollo 17 mission December 13, 1972. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)
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13 Oct 2015 08:02:00
It is said that Torajans are people who “live to die”. For this Indonesian ethnic group, funerals are such extravagant events that they sometimes attract tourists. Families can postpone burials years (and the deceased are considered sick and hosted at home until the funeral) until the family can raise enough money and gather as many relatives as possible. And then it’s a jubilant multiday social event with a parade, dances and animal sacrifices. Agung Parameswara photographed these funerary practices when he traveled to South Sulawesi province, where the Torajans live. But often, their funeral isn’t the last time the dead are seen. In August, crypts are opened, coffins are slid back out and bodies delicately unsheathed. This tender ritual is known as Ma’Nene, which is customarily performed every few years. (Photo by Agung Parameswara/The Washington Post)

It is said that Torajans are people who “live to die”. For this Indonesian ethnic group, funerals are such extravagant events that they sometimes attract tourists. Families can postpone burials years (and the deceased are considered sick and hosted at home until the funeral) until the family can raise enough money and gather as many relatives as possible. And then it’s a jubilant multiday social event with a parade, dances and animal sacrifices. Agung Parameswara photographed these funerary practices when he traveled to South Sulawesi province, where the Torajans live. (Photo by Agung Parameswara/The Washington Post)
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06 Oct 2016 09:15:00
Jenna carefully watches two giant boa constrictors that their owner, a street performer she barely knows, entrusted to her. She is careful to keep the one snake wrapped around exercise bars to prevent a wound in the animal’s mouth from touching the sand and getting infected. Jenna is a single mom on disability. She suffers from failed back surgery syndrome, acquired from a violent car accident she had as a teenager. She and her young son Jackson can be found most afternoons on the beach. Originally from South Carolina, Jenna came to Venice in 2010 and describes herself as “an open-minded Christian who loves everyone for who they are”. Nowadays Jenna sometimes has trouble reconciling her inclusive progressive values with her family’s conservative political stance, especially in today’s toxic political climate. (Photo by Dotan Saguy)

Over the past three years, Los Angeles-based photographer Dotan Saguy has spent hundreds of hours documenting the diverse culture, people and pageantry of the iconic Venice Beach boardwalk. He was irresistibly drawn to the free-spirited, anti-materialistic and inclusive nature of the world-famous location, which he found to be a breath of fresh air in contrast to Los Angeles’s sometimes homogenized, celebrity-obsessed culture. (Photo by Dotan Saguy)
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01 Aug 2018 00:03:00
A crane loads logs at the Novoyeniseisk wood processing plant, with the air temperature at about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), in the town of Lesosibirsk in Krasnoyarsk Region, Siberia, Russia, February 16, 2016. The plant exports timber to Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. The Taiga, also known as the boreal forest, on the coast of the Angara River and Yenisei River is one of the main areas for the industrial cutting of wood thanks to the high quality of the Angara pine. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A crane loads logs at the Novoyeniseisk wood processing plant, with the air temperature at about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), in the town of Lesosibirsk in Krasnoyarsk Region, Siberia, Russia, February 16, 2016. The plant exports timber to Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. The Taiga, also known as the boreal forest, on the coast of the Angara River and Yenisei River is one of the main areas for the industrial cutting of wood thanks to the high quality of the Angara pine. Open air work continues all year around regardless to temperatures which can drop to minus 52 degrees Celsius (minus 61.6 degrees Fahrenheit), according to employees. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)
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18 Feb 2016 13:10:00
A face mask is placed on one of the 'Three business men who brought lunch' statues on Swanston street on March 29, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. All international arrivals into Australia from midnight on Saturday will be placed into mandatory quarantine in hotels for 14 days as the Federal Government increases restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19. All libraries, museums, galleries, beauty salons, tattoo parlours, shopping centre food courts, auctions, open houses, amusement parks, arcades, indoor and outdoor play centres, swimming pools are closed and indoor exercise activities are now banned. This is in addition to the closure of bars, pubs and nightclubs which came into effect on Monday. Restaurants and cafes are restricted to providing takeaway only. Weddings will now be restricted to five people including the couple while funerals are limited to 10 mourners. All Australians are now expected to stay at home except for essential outings such as work, grocery shopping and medical appointments. Exercising outdoors alone is still permitted. Australia now has more than 3,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19 while the death toll now stands at 16. (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

A face mask is placed on one of the 'Three business men who brought lunch' statues on Swanston street on March 29, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. All international arrivals into Australia from midnight on Saturday will be placed into mandatory quarantine in hotels for 14 days as the Federal Government increases restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19. (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
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31 Mar 2020 00:07:00
A Chinese woman wears her dress and a protective mask as she waits to change after taking pictures in advance of her wedding near the Forbidden City, on April 30, 2020 in Beijing, China. Beijing lowered its risk level after more than three months Thursday in advance of the May holiday, allowing most domestic travellers arriving in the city to do so without having to do 14 days of quarantine. The Forbidden City will open to a limited number of visitors as of Thursday morning. After decades of growth, officials said China's economy had shrunk in the latest quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus epidemic. The slump in the world's second largest economy is regarded as a sign of difficult times ahead for the global economy. While industrial sectors in China are showing signs of reviving production, a majority of private companies are operating at only 50% capacity, according to analysts. With the pandemic hitting hard across the world, officially the number of coronavirus cases in China is dwindling, ever since the government imposed sweeping measures to keep the disease from spreading. Officials believe the worst appears to be over in China, though there are concerns of another wave of infections as the government attempts to reboot the world's second largest economy. Since January, China has recorded more than 81,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 3,200 deaths, mostly in and around the city of Wuhan, in central Hubei province, where the outbreak first started. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A Chinese woman wears her dress and a protective mask as she waits to change after taking pictures in advance of her wedding near the Forbidden City, on April 30, 2020 in Beijing, China. Beijing lowered its risk level after more than three months Thursday in advance of the May holiday, allowing most domestic travellers arriving in the city to do so without having to do 14 days of quarantine. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
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03 May 2020 00:07:00
Participants celebrate during the “Chupinazo” (start rocket) to mark the kickoff at noon sharp of the San Fermin Festival, in front of the Town Hall of Pamplona, northern Spain, on July 6, 2018. (Photo by Jaime Reina/AFP Photo)

Participants celebrate during the “Chupinazo” (start rocket) to mark the kickoff at noon sharp of the San Fermin Festival, in front of the Town Hall of Pamplona, northern Spain, on July 6, 2018. (Photo by Jaime Reina/AFP Photo)
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09 Jul 2018 00:05:00