From the shocking to the hilarious to the utterly heartbreaking, our favorite photos of the year
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr"
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Russia’s Oksana Domnina, left, and Maxim Shabalin perform their dance at the ISU European figure skating championships
Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili
A baby is baptized during a mass baptism ceremony in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Jan. 27.
AP/Alastair Grant
Jan. 29: An antiwar protester wearing a Tony Blair mask stands behind wooden bars in a mock jail as he demonstrates outside the Iraq War Inquiry in London as the former British prime minster is called to give evidence.
AP/Sergey Ponomarev
Lindsey Vonn f the United States lies in the snow after crashing during the first run of the women’s giant slalom
Reuters/Eliana Aponte
Judith Vazquez, left, and her partner Lol Kin Castaneda kiss before going to get married in Mexico City on March 11. Castaneda and Vazquez were among the first same-sex couples to get married after the city passed a law in December allowing same-sex marriage.
Reuters/Pilar Olivares
Peruvian surfer Domingo Pianezzi rides a wave with his alpaca Pisco at San Bartolo beach in Lima on March 16.
Reuters/Grace Liang
Tiananmen Square in Beijing is clouded by a sandstorm, caused by severe drought in northern China and Mongolia, on March 20.
Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden laugh during the signing ceremony for the Affordable Health Care for America Act
Reuters/Vincent West
Penitents prepare their costumes before a Holy Week procession in Bilbao, Spain, on March 29.
AP
The Russian Kommersant newspaper identified the couple in this undated photo as Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova and her husband, Islamist rebel Umalat Magomedov
Reuters/Denis Balibouse
A flash mob stages a 10-minute pillow fight in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 3.
AP
Tea Party members hold Tax Day rallies across the country on April 15, including in Washington, right, and in Chicago, where Barbara Ann Nowak lets out a cheer.
Reuters/Lucas Jackson
The Northern Lights are visible above the ash plume of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano
Reuters
Lloyd Blankfein testifies April 27
Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos sings a song with a local band as she entertains her supporters during a victory party in front of her house in Batac town, north of Manila, on May 13. Marcos won a seat in the lower House of Congress.
AP
Erica Miller, left, and Heather Nevill clean a brown pelican
Reuters/Arpad Kurucz/Nepszabadsag
Prosthetic legs are left behind on a bed in a hospital in Szikszo, Hungary, on May 17. Flash floods caused by heavy rain forced the hospital’s evacuation.
AP/Domingo Botan
Spanish matador Julio Aparicio is gored by a bull after losing his footing during a bullfight at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid on May 21. Aparicio underwent multiple surgeries in the aftermath of the incident.
Reuters/Regis Duvignau
American tennis star Venus Williams causes a stir with a controversial outfit
AP
A giant sinkhole covers a street intersection in downtown Guatemala City on June 1.
Reuters
A Golden Retriever, dyed to look like a tiger, plays at the Dahe Pet Civilization Park in Zhengzhou, China, on June 8. The park bought the Golden Retriever and four Chow Chows, dyed to resemble pandas, from a pet market in Sichuan as an attempt to attract visitors, local media said.
Reuters
Passengers look out through bus windows at a crime scene on June 10 in Guatemala City, where police found one of four severed heads left around town. Police say that notes found with the heads point to prison gangs.
Reuters
France’s Nicolas Mahut lies on the ground after missing a point during the fifth set of his match against John Isner of the United States at the 2010 Wimbledon tennis championships in London. The first-round match, ultimately won by Isner, was by far the longest in tennis history at 11 hours, five minutes stretched over three days, June 22-24.
Reuters
A policeman stands guard while confiscated drugs are burned during a campaign on June 26, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Shenyang, China. The campaign was sponsored by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Reuters
Tim Racer embraces Teddles, a dog he claims was rescued from a dog fighting encampment that Racer says was owned by NFL quarterback Michael Vick
Reuters
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan laughs during her Senate confirmation hearing testimony June 30. Kagan was confirmed.
Reuters
Locals lower the casket of Manute Bol into the ground during his funeral in Turalei, Sudan, on July 4. Bol, who died at 47 of acute kidney failure and complications from Stevens-Johnson syndrome, was buried in his family’s hometown. Hundreds of mourners paid tribute to the man whose 7-foot-7 frame and basketball talent took him from the grazing lands of Africa to NBA fame in the United States in the 1980s and ’90s.
Reuters
American burlesque star Dita Von Teese presents a creation by French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier as part of his Haute-Couture Fall/Winter 2010-11 fashion show in Paris on July 7.
AP
A single orange vuvuzela lies among other debris in Museum Square in Amsterdam
Reuters
The position of Victim 15 of a deadly stampede is marked on the street between two tunnels in Duisburg, Germany, on July 24. Twenty-one people were killed in a stampede at the Love Parade techno music festival in the western German city after overcrowding at an entrance gate sparked a stampede, police said.
Reuters
A cow grazes on scorched ground near the ruins of a building outside Vyksa, Russia, on July 30. Forest fires sweeping across parts of Russia killed more than 20 people and forced the evacuation of thousands in the hottest summer weather since records began 130 years ago.
Reuters
Marooned flood victims looking to escape grab the side bars of a hovering Army helicopter that arrived to distribute food supplies in the Muzaffargarh district of Pakistan’s Punjab province Aug. 7. The disaster killed more than 1,600 people and disrupted the lives of 12 million.
AP/Peter Dejong
A photographer and cameraman climb on the fallen chestnut tree at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam
AP
Protesters hold up signs as Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Sept. 16.
AP
Actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi Quaid, in booking photos released by the Santa Barbara County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office Sept. 18
Reuters
A boy eats as he takes a break from searching for offerings thrown by worshippers after the immersions of idols of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India, on Sept. 23.
Reuters
Britain’s Prince Charles dances with villagers at Tolasar village near Jodhpur, India, on Oct. 5.
AP
A U.S. Army soldier searches an associate of a suspected Taliban IED placer, behind the soldier in a wheelbarrow, who was killed in a coalition missile strike in Kandahar province
AP
Luis Urzua pumps his fist as Chilean President Sebastian Pinera smiles
AP
Khagendra Thapa Magar sits on a small stool inside his home as his father, Rup Bahadur Magar, speaks to him on the eve of his 18th birthday in Pokhara, Nepal, Oct. 13. Thapa was measured at 26.4 inches tall in the presence of a Guinness Book of World Records representative, who certified him as the shortest adult in the world.
Reuters
Marisol Valles Garcia attends a news conference with Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero, right, and local official Andres Morales in Pr
Reuters
Members of the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross at a Klansman’s home in Warrenville, S.C., on Oct. 23. KKK Imperial Wizard Duwayne Johnson said it was the first public cross lighting in 50 years.
AP
A rescuer stands at a village hit by pyroclastic flows from the Oct. 26 eruption of Mount Merapi in Kinahrejo, Indonesia. The volcanic eruption and a tsunami killed scores of people hundreds of miles apart in Indonesia, spasms from the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” which spawns disasters from deep within the Earth.
Reuters
Triplets Aliah, Steven and Aiden Tarabokija, from left, ride in the annual Halloween Ragamuffin Parade in Hoboken, N.J.
Reuters
House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who broke into tears during his speech, addresses supporters
AP
U.N. soldiers and an aid worker take a little girl up into a U.N. truck as earthquake survivors are evacuated from the Corail-Cesselesse tent refugee camp before the arrival of tropical storm Tomas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 4.
AP/Mark Lennihan
Jesse Paloger stands on Wall Street with a sign on Dec. 15 in hopes of finding a job in New York.
Reuters/China Daily
Winter swimmers in Santa hats play with a ball on a snow-covered river in Shenyang, China, on Dec. 20.
Reuters/Doug Murray
The moon is engulfed in Earth’s shadow in the early hours of Dec. 21 as it nears the peak of a rare winter solstice total lunar eclipse. This image was made through a telescope from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
