The year in photos: AP’s most memorable photos of 2023
The mission of photojournalism is to capture moments that represent — and, at their best, truly reveal — the endless spectrum of the human experience.
By Ted Anthony, Associated Press
Updated: December 31, 2023 Published: December 30, 2023
Two moments, at opposite ends of the human experience.
In the first, on July 20, a woman squats in the thick mud in Raigad, India, as she peers out from a plastic tarp that covers her body. Her face is frozen in anguish and uncertainty as she faces the most dire of circumstances — the realization that her family is trapped under rubble after a landslide.
A woman, whose family members are trapped under rubble, wails after a landslide washed away houses in Raigad district, western Maharashtra state, India, July 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
The second scene could not be more different. It is from March 2, on the beach in Gaza City — a starkly different Gaza City than the one its residents are experiencing today. In this image, a group of Palestinians sit in chairs under an umbrella enjoying a day at the beach. In the background, a man rides by on a horse; both are airborne, their image reflected in water on the sand.
Palestinians enjoy the day on the beach in Gaza City, Thursday, March 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Unthinkable anguish. Casual joy. And everything in between, too — in a world where, it is proven over and over, anything can happen and often does.
The mission of photojournalism is to capture moments that represent — and, at their best, truly reveal — the endless spectrum of the human experience. Associated Press photographers across the world have spent 2023 doing exactly that — sometimes at great risk or personal exertion, always with ethics and compassion and quality, and with an eye forever trained toward the memorable.
When those photographers encounter the world, though — from Israel and Gaza to Brazil, from Mongolia to the American heartland and beyond — often they have no idea what they’ll find until it is upon them.
Here is some of what they found in 2023, in all its contradictions:
Conflict. Ambition. Anger. Injustice. Striving. Merriment. Poverty. Blood. The quest for excellence, no matter the arena. The human body, in glorious and panicked motion and, too often, sadly stilled. Struggle — to protect loved ones, to navigate a warming planet, to escape strife and oppression, to survive nature’s capriciousness.
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Police stand outside Planalto Palace, the official workplace of Brazil's president in Brasilia, as seen through a shattered window after supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the building on Jan. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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Children ride a model of World War II-era Soviet tank during a military historical festival at the family historical tank park outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
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Nina Nikiforovа, 80, cries outside a church after attending the funeral of her son Oleg Kunynets, a Ukrainian military serviceman who was killed in the east of the country, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Death, life and more death — in all its unwelcome permutations. Bursts of joy in unexpected places. Tears upon tears upon tears. Wars that have just begun, wars that continue, wars already almost forgotten. The gamut of human existence.
News photographers in the 21st century find astonishingly different ways to show the world to us — ways we might not even notice consciously but, to them, are carefully calibrated storytelling tools.
Sometimes blur tells the story best, as in the chaos-drenched photo of a Ukrainian MSLR BM-21 “Grad” rocket launcher firing toward Russian positions in March. Or the image of a young female protester’s blurred, expectant face reflected amid painted slogans during pension-related strikes and protests in France in March.
A Ukrainian MSLR BM-21 "Grad" rocket launcher of the 95 Air Assault brigade fires towards Russian positions at the frontline near Kreminna, Ukraine, Thursday, March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Sometimes startling closeups reveal texture and pain — as in the detail of the worn-out portrait of Dmytro Andriyovych that sat on his grave outside Kyiv when it was photographed in February, 10 months after he was buried during the opening weeks of the Ukraine war. The rain, sun and frost etched into the portrait speak of loss, of passing time, of decay and sadness.
A worn-out portrait of Dmytro Andriyovych, 34, sits on his grave at a cemetery in Irpin, Ukraine, on the outskirts of Kyiv, on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. He was buried on April 26, 2022. Exposed to rain, sun and frost over the course of a war that began nearly a year ago, the graveside portraits' once bright hues are fading away and yellow stains and mold are encroaching. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Sometimes it is repeating shapes that grab the senses: A pattern of brown, cracked earth that resembles a jigsaw puzzle frames a single green plant in a parched reservoir in Spain, captured in April. The seemingly dead reservoir bed makes the bright assertion of life seem all the more memorable.
View of the Sau reservoir about 100 km (62 miles) north of Barcelona. Spain, Monday, March 20, 2023. The Sau reservoir's water levels now stand at 9% of total capacity, according to Catalan Water Agency data, so officials have taken the decision to remove its fish to stop them from asphyxiating. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
And sometimes epic wide shots show what nothing else can. Consider the arresting image, shot from above, of Argentine Boca Juniors fans gathering on Copacabana Beach the day before a championship game in Rio de Janeiro. Their collective visual — people, umbrellas, signs, sand — tell a story that no land-level image could.
Argentine Boca Juniors fans gather on Copacabana beach the day before their team faces Brazil's Fluminense at the Copa Libertadores championship match in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
As this year’s most memorable photos of all subjects and events roll by, one thing emerges above all others: the ability of human beings to hurt each other. From a young comedian shot and bleeding out on a Haitian street to 4-year-old Kenzi al Madhoun, looking straight at the camera from her spare hospital bed in Gaza after being wounded in an Israeli bombardment, the lenses of AP photographers chronicled pain from all angles.
Kenzi al Madhoun, a four-year-old who was wounded in Israeli bombardment lies at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah City, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Humans gravitate toward time periods like single years, it’s said, so we can find rhythms, commune with nature and make sense of things — so that the entire world isn’t rushing at us all at once. But that practice began when a week, a month, a year only contained so much.
Today, in a connected and absurdly complex world, a single year contains far more cataclysmic news than we can ever begin to process. Ways to make sense of it are rare. But using technology to freeze moments — capturing them in unforgettable photography — offers a small chance to pause and say: At this particular hour in our civilization, this is what happened to us.
These photos, taken together, are a catalog of an entire year. They are a mosaic of news that darted across our stage, astonished us, repulsed us, interested us and — in the best cases — made us care, if only for a few seconds, about a year that passed this way once and will never come again.
A child weeps on a bus leaving The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., following a mass shooting there on March 27, 2023. (Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP)
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Youth play football underneath a highway overpass on Ikoyi Island, Lagos, Nigeria, on Feb. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
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The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames on Aug. 8, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP)
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People salvage items from a home after a tornado hit on May 13, 2023, in the unincorporated community of Laguna Heights, Texas, near South Padre Island. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
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The McDougall Creek wildfire burns on the mountainside above houses in West Kelowna, British Columbia, on Aug. 18, 2023. This year was Canada's worst fire season on record. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)
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Jelly Roll performs "Need a Favor" at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on Nov. 8, 2023, at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
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Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves his apartment building in New York on Aug. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Dancers rehearse for the "2023 Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes" at St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York on Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
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A sea lion swims over sea grass in San Diego's La Jolla Cove on Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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Coal miner Jonny Sandvoll poses for a portrait in the break room of the Gruve 7 coal mine in Adventdalen, Norway, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. Gruve 7, the last Norwegian mine in one of the fastest warming places on earth, was scheduled to shut down this year and only got a reprieve through 2025 because of the energy crisis driven by the war in Ukraine. Sandvoll said he wished people understood more about coal and its uses before deciding to close the mine. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
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Ngwiza Khumbulani Moyo, a vintage collector holds an old radio set outside his home in Bulawayo, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. According to a survey by Afrobarometer, radio is "overwhelmingly" the most common source of news in Africa. About 68% of respondents said they tune in at least a few times a week, compared to about 40% who said they use social media and the internet. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
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Afghan brides and grooms participate in a mass wedding ceremony during the International Women's Day, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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A tribal woman tries to catch small fish as her granddaughter dozes off on her back in a paddy field on the outskirts of Guwahati, northeastern Assam state, India, March 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
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Migrants cross the Rio Grande into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on March 29, 2023, a day after dozens of migrants died in a fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)
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Former President Donald Trump is escorted to a courtroom in New York on April 4, 2023. Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims potentially harmful to his candidacy. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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Retired members of the Lebanese security forces and other protesters scuffle with Lebanese army after they removed a barbed-wire barrier in order to advance towards government buildings during a protest in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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A race fan walks on the grounds of Churchill Downs before the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race in Louisville, Ky., on May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
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A villager pours water into a canister as others gather around a well to draw water in Telamwadi, northeast of Mumbai, India, on May 6, 2023. Tankers bring water from the Bhatsa River after it has been treated with chlorine. There have been protests in the region since so much of the river water is diverted to urban areas, including Mumbai. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
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A woman smokes during the Big Lunch celebrations in London Regent's Park, Sunday, May 7, 2023. The Big Lunch is part of the weekend of celebrations for the Coronation of King Charles III. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
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Migrants reach through a border wall for clothing handed out by volunteers, as they wait between two border walls to apply for asylum Friday, May 12, 2023, in San Diego. Hundreds of migrants remain waiting between the two walls, many for days. The U.S. entered a new immigration enforcement era Friday, ending a three-year-old asylum restriction and enacting a set of strict new rules that the Biden administration hopes will stabilize the U.S.-Mexico border and push migrants to apply for protections where they are, skipping the dangerous journey north. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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A woman carries two children she is caring for at Fontaine Hospital Center, which treats malnourished children in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on May 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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Venezuelan migrants wave a U.S. flag at a television helicopter flying over the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, on May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
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Cadets practice with gas masks during a lesson in a bomb shelter in a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
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Tetiana holds her pet dogs, Tsatsa and Chunya, in her home that was flooded after the Kakhovka dam blew up overnight, in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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Fisherwomen and men pull in a net of fish off the coast of Chuao, Venezuela, June 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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A large plume of smoke rises over East Palestine, Ohio, after a controlled detonation of a portion of a derailed Norfolk Southern train on Feb. 6, 2023. Three days earlier, about 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed in a fiery crash. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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Debris from a Norfolk Southern freight train lies scattered and burning along the tracks on Feb. 4, 2023, the day after it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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An art installation called "Double Ducks" by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is viewed through a prop at Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, on June 9, 2023. The two giant inflatable ducks marked the return of a pop-art project that sparked a frenzy in the city a decade ago. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)
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In this photo taken with a long exposure, girls dance during an afternoon ritual on the second day of the Wyra'whaw coming-of-age festival in Tenetehar Wa Tembe village, located in the Alto Rio Guama Indigenous territory in Para state, Brazil, on June 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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Longhorn cattle are returned to their pen at the end of the world's only twice daily cattle drive in historic Forth Worth, Texas, on April 21, 2023. Since the early 1600s, ranchers raising cattle have cemented the image of longhorn steers, rugged cowboys and awe-inspiring vistas into the nation's consciousness as what it means to be a Texan. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
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The Moradi family sits for a portrait on a small boat in Band-i-Mir lake, a tourist attraction in the Bamiyan Valley region in Afghanistan, on June 17, 2023. The family traveled there from far away Helmand for their summer vacation. This image was taken with a box camera, once ubiquitous in Afghanistan, but mostly a lost art form due to the Taliban's intolerance of photography and the advent of the digital age. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
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A mourner cries during the wake of Indigenous regional leader Fredy Campo Bomba, in Caldono, Colombia, on July 29, 2023. Campo Bomba was killed by unidentified gunmen on July 26. (AP Photo/Andres Quintero)
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Hikers are silhouetted against the setting sun at Papago park in Phoenix on Feb. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
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Simone Biles performs on the uneven bars at the U.S. Classic gymnastics competition on Aug. 5, 2023, in Hoffman Estates, Ill. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
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Taylor Swift performs during "The Eras Tour" on Aug. 7, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., center, is helped by, from left, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, after the 81-year-old GOP leader froze at the microphones as he arrived for a news conference on July 26, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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Tennessee state troopers block the stairwell leading to the legislative chambers at the Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., on April 6, 2023, as Tennessee Republicans considered whether to expell three House Democrats for using a bullhorn to shout support for pro-gun control protesters in the House chamber. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
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Mary Lou Beaver stands beside her family's kitchen sink on Aug. 17, 2023, in Akiachak, Alaska. Most of the village's nearly 700 people began getting modern plumbing for the first time this spring and summer. Beaver, a retired teacher who now lives in Anchorage, recalls packing water from the river in her youth, collecting rainwater and using an outhouse. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
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Wildfire destruction is visible Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
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Residents are blocked by police as they try to reach their houses in Benijos village as a wildfire advances in La Orotava in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain on Aug. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)
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The Mongolian State Honor Guard enters the Saaral Ordon Government Building in Sukhbaatar Square after the welcoming ceremony with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh and Pope Francis on the square in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sept. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)
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Chris Blowes, of Australia, duck-dives under a wave during the U.S. Open Adaptive Surfing Championships in Oceanside, Calif., on Sept. 8, 2023. More than 100 athletes with disabilities from 17 countries competed in the event. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas militants from Gaza carried out a cross-border massacre in Israel. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
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FILE - A Venezuelan migrant laughs as she jokes with her husband, who gave her a few flowers he picked in the grass, as they wait along the rail lines in hopes of boarding a freight train heading north in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
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Mourners react beside the body of Mapal Adam, during her funeral in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 11, 2023. Adam was killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 as they carried out a cross-border massacre that killed over 1,200 people. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
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Police officers clash with pro-Palestinian demonstrators as they try to enter at a train station in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
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Israelis take cover as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in Rehovot, Israel, on Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Dor Kedmi)
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Palestinian men flee to northern Gaza as Israeli tanks block the Salah al-Din road in the central Gaza Strip on Nov. 24, 2023. A cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war began as part of an agreement that Qatar helped broker. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman)
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A tourist arrives in a classic American car for a cabaret show at the Tropicana performance hall in Havana, Cuba, Nov. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
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Firefighters battle a five-alarm fire in an apartment building on a frigid winter day in Montreal on Feb. 3, 2023. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
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Members of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrate after they defeated the Florida Panthers 9-3 to win the Stanley Cup in Game 5 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Finals Tuesday, June 13, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
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Incarcerated graduate Jose Catalan poses for photos after his graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif., on May 25, 2023. Catalan earned his bachelor's degree in communications through the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State University. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken of Germany celebrate winning the men's doubles race at the Luge World Championships in Oberhof, Germany, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
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Seattle Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez laughs as teammate Teoscar Hernández douses him as they celebrate a 9-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles in a baseball game Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
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Josh Awotunde blows away a bug as he competes in the men's shot put during the U.S. track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., Sunday, July 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
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An Atlantic puffin brings a beak full of baitfish to feed its chick in a burrow under rocks on Eastern Egg Rock, a small island off the coast of Maine on Aug. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
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Volunteer Daniel Hyduke of Miami Beach, Fla., clips a fragment of coral to be transplanted from the coral nursery to the reef near Key Biscayne, Fla., on Aug. 4, 2023. Scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science established a new restoration research site there to identify and better understand the heat tolerance of certain coral species and genotypes during bleaching events. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
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Evacuees from the wildfires in Yellowknife, territorial capital of the Northwest Territories, are greeted with the Aurora Borealis as they arrive at a free campsite provided by the community in High Level, Alberta, on Aug. 18, 2023. (Jason Franson /The Canadian Press via AP)
Ted Anthony is the director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press. Get the best of The AP’s photography delivered to your inbox every Sunday.