Revelers enter the cold water during the annual Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

Young dancers perform in a ballet adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland” during the Baghdad Ballet Academy's annual gala at Rasheed Theatre in Baghdad on August 29, 2025. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

A performer wearing costumes walk on stilts before a show during a lantern fair at the beginning of Chinese Lunar New Year, in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, February 11, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

An Olympic Airways airplane stands on the premises of the former Athens International airport, Hellenikon June 16, 2014. For about six decades Hellenikon was Athens' only airport but it closed down in 2001 to make way for a newer, more modern airport before the city hosted the 2004 Olympic Games. After languishing for years as a wasteland of crumbling terminals, Hellenikon is set for resurrection as a glitzy coastal resort. Lamda Development, controlled by Greece's powerful Latsis family and leading a consortium of Chinese and Abu-Dhabi based companies, has big dreams for the area since signing a 915 million euro deal for a 99-year lease in March 2014. (Photo by Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters)

“Elat’ma, the Ryazan Oblast region of Russia. This small town is only 300 kilometers (186 miles) from modern Moscow but remains 60 years in the past, dominated by the spirit of socialism. The air of the communist ‘50s can be seen in the town’s architecture, celebrations and other occurrences. But neither its beauty nor its ties to a socialist past brought photographer Anastasia Rudenko to this village. Elat’ma is unique in that it functions as a town for mentally disabled people”. – Michelle Cohan via CNN. (Photo by Anastasia Rudenko)

McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic research centre located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents, and serves as the United States Antarctic science facility. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo.

David Guttenfelder was born in Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology. He has worked for the AP since 1994 based in Kenya, the Ivory Coast, India and Japan. He is currently AP’s chief Asia photographer and his feature work has been used prominently in editorial publications throughout the world including Time and National Geographic. Photo: U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, fire mortars at known enemy firing positions from a base in the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, Saturday, October 24, 2009. (Photo by David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)

People enjoy skating at the open air Christmas ice rink on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower after its reopening on December 19, 2016 in Paris The ice rink of about 200 square metres and on the first floor of the tower (57 metres above the ground) is open to the public until February 19, 2017. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo)