Aerial view of people circling around bonfires to celebrate the Torch Festival on Axilixi Prairie on August 12, 2023 in Bijie, Guizhou Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Athletes compete in the women's 100m semi-final during the World Athletics Championships at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest on August 21, 2023. (Photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP Photo)

A child dressed in a Santa Claus costume reacts, on the day Palestinian Christians attend an Orthodox Christmas Mass at the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City on January 7, 2025. (Photo by Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)

A hummingbird drinks from a flower in a garden on the outfield lawn before a spring training baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the Athletics, Monday, February 24, 2025, in Surprise, Ariz. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo)

An alpaca is seen near the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Cusco December 2, 2014. Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is Peru's top tourist attraction, with the government limiting tourists to 2,500 per day due to safety reasons and concerns over the preservation of the ruins. (Photo by Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters)

Nine years ago, Tom Carter traveled from San Francisco to China, responding to a job posting that turned out to be a scam. He managed to find another job as a teacher, and saved enough money to embark on a 56,000 km trip through all of China's 33 provinces that lasted two years. Carrying a camera – just a a 4-megapixel point-and-shoot – Carter captured some amazing images of the widely varying landscape, people, and architecture across the nation. Photo: Buddhist pilgrim family from Sichuan. (Photo by Tom Carter via The Atlantic)

Students of Kiev's Olympic College perform during a rally in front of the Parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine, 15 September 2020. Students were protesting against the reorganization of the college, at risk of being closed, and the land where it rises which could end up for sale along with the facility's stadium. (Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA/EFE)

Visitors pose for pictures under blooming cherry blossoms at a botanical garden in Nanjing, capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province on March 15, 2019. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)