A Guinean kid poses for a photo in Conakry, Guinea on July 23, 2021. Children, most of whom start working after a certain age to support their families, have their hair braided in different ways and decorated with colorful beads on all special days, especially on holidays, despite these difficult conditions. (Photo by Ozkan Bilgin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“Smudge” an orphaned echidna puggle is held by Veterinary nurse Sarah Male ahead of its feeding on November 07, 2022 in Sydney, Australia. Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are native to Australia. A baby echidna was found orphaned by the side of the road and is being cared for at Sydney's Taronga Zoo hospital. The care is intensive with several feedings per day, and the echidna is housed in temperature-controlled environment to aid its recovery and growth. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

A masquerade dances to drums along the streets during the kankurang Festival in Janjanbureh on January 27, 2024. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005, Kankurang, a combination of the Mandingo words “kango” and “Kurango”, literally translated as “voice” and “force”, ensures the transmission and teaching of the values and practices that form the basis of Mandingo cultural identity, a West African people whose historical home was the Mali empire. (Photo by Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP Photo)

A Filipino dancer performs with fire to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year in Manila's Chinatown, Philippines, 28 January 2017. Chinese around the world celebrate the Lunar New Year on 28 January 2017, the first day of the year of rooster. (Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA)

Second place, Nature: double trapping. Picture taken in the Brazilian Pantanal ... when I downloaded the CF did not want to believe it ... The nature knows we always give magnificent events but sometimes extraordinary. (Photo by Massimiliano Bencivenni/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

“When I was 8 years old, my parents paid a smuggler to take me across the Himalayas, a weekslong walk over the mountains from Tibet to India. It was a trek that tens of thousands of other Tibetans have taken since the Dalai Lama fled a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. My parents must have had their reasons to send me here; they must have had the best of intentions. But 18 years later, I still don't know why they did it. They are not political people. They are small farmers who raise barley and a few yak in a rural area not far from Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. I have not seen them since I left...”. – Tsering Topgyal via The Associated Press. (Photo by Tsering Topgyal/AP Photo)

Devotees in traditional attire play flutes as they take part in a parade commemorating the Neku Jatra-Mataya festival, the Festival of Lights, in Lalitpur, Nepal August 31, 2015. Devotees celebrate the Buddhist festival which marks the victory of Sakyamuni Buddha over Mara, by praying for the souls of departed family members and holding parades throughout the city. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Smoke rises during an explosion from an Israeli forces strike in Gaza City, Saturday, November 17, 2012. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations by militants to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. (Photo Hatem Moussa/AP Photo)