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)

An adorable baby koala is seen enjoying a snooze after a traumatic start to life. The baby koala, nicknamed “Blondie Bumstead”, is being cared for by a volunteer from the Ipswich Koala protection society in Queensland after her mother was killed by a dog. Blondie, who was named for her light fur, was given just a 50-50 chance of pulling through after the attack. But after a course of antibiotics and some tender loving car from volunteer Marilyn Spletter she has now been given a clean bill of health. According to Marilyn she has hand-reared around 40 baby koalas but says that Blondie, who will be released back into the wild after 15 months, is one of her favourites. She said: “She's got a little character all of her own and she knows what she wants and what she doesn't. When she's stressed I kiss her on the nose or I rub my nose on hers and it relaxes her”. (Photo by Jamie Hanson/Newspix/REX Features)

Cheng Liping, whose husband Ju was onboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8, 2014, shows a picture of she and her husband together and an old card with a message given by her husband, at a park near her house where she and her husband used to visit during an interview with Reuters in Beijing July 24, 2014. Cheng said her life has been totally changed since the incident. Their two little sons, who don't know about this incident, keep asking her when their dad is coming back. Six months after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 mostly Chinese people on board, disappeared about an hour into a routine journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing March 8, loved ones of missing passengers derive what comfort they can from what's left behind after the world's greatest aviation mystery. More than two dozen countries have been involved in the air, sea and underwater search for the Boeing 777 but months of sorties failed to turn up any trace – even after narrowing the search area to the southern Indian Ocean – long after batteries on the black box voice and data recorders had gone flat. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

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)

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)

Inflatable pools were set up by volunteer youth to cool children living in tents in Khan Yunis city of Gaza under Israeli attacks, on July 18, 2024. (Photo by Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Mother Nesrin Mehre, mourns near the body of Muhammad Mehre was killed in an Israeli attack on al-Nasr neighborhood in northwestern Gaza, on September 23, 2025. His body was taken from al-Shifa Hospital for burial. (Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Palestinian refugees walk home in Gaza City on January 19, 2025, making a V sign with their fingers toward the camera, just before the ceasefire took effect. (Photo by Reuters/Yonhap News)