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Image: Alan Stern

In Focus

The Week in Pictures: Dec. 27 - Jan. 3

Tear gas at the border, Mummers welcome the new year, Nancy hoists the gavel again and more.

/ 17 PHOTOS
Image: Indonesians Countdown To The New Year

Happy New Year!

Fireworks explode over Yogyakarta, Indonesia shortly after midnight on Jan. 1.

Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images
Image: US-POLITICS-CONGRESS

She's back

Newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is surrounded by children and grandchildren of lawmakers at the closing of the opening of the 116th Congress at the Capitol on Jan. 3.

Pelosi was elected speaker for the second time in her political career, a striking comeback for the only woman ever to hold the post.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images
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Climbing the wall

A migrant jumps from the border fence into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico, early on Jan. 1.

Discouraged by the long wait to apply for asylum through official ports of entry, many migrants from recent caravans are choosing to cross the U.S. border wall and hand themselves in to border patrol agents.

Daniel Ochoa de Olza / AP
Image: MEXICO-HONDURAS-US-MIGRATION

Tear gas at the border

Central American migrants run away from tear gas after they tried to cross from Tijuana, Mexico, early on Jan. 1.

U.S. authorities fired tear gas into Mexico during the first hours of the new year to repel about 150 migrants who tried to breach the border fence in Tijuana.

Guillermo Arias / AFP - Getty Images
Image: Winter weather in Prague

Bohemian night

A gull flies over the Charles Bridge over the Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic on Jan. 3. 

Martin Divisek / EPA
Image: TOPSHOT-SKI-JUMPING-FOUR-HILLS

Taking flight

Roman Koudelka of the Czech Republic soars through the air during a training jump at the third stage of the Four-Hills Ski Jumping tournament in Innsbruck, Austria, on Jan. 3.

Georg Hochmuth / AFP - Getty Images
Image: Alan Stern

Way past Pluto

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, center, celebrates with school children at the exact moment that the New Horizons spacecraft made the closest approach of distant space object Ultima Thule on Jan. 1 at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

The icy Kuiper Belt object is 4 billion miles from Earth.

See 31 out-of-this-world space photos from 2018

Bill Ingalls / NASA via AP
Image: Mount Anak Krakatau volcano spews hot ash during an eruption

Volcanic punch

Mount Anak Krakatau volcano spews hot ash during an eruption in Lampung, Indonesia on Jan. 1.

Sigid Kurniawan / Antara Foto via Reuters
Image: A man walks through a paddy field during snowfall on a cold winter morning in Pattan

Kashmir snow

A man walks through a paddy field during snowfall in Pattan, north of Srinagar, in Indian Kashmir, on Jan. 2.

Danish Ismail / Reuters
Image: Revelers celebrate New Year's Eve in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York

Spirits undampened

Revelers celebrate New Year's Eve in Times Square on Dec. 31, 2018. 

For the first time in 24 years, it was raining as New York welcomed the new year.

Photos: Hello 2019! Cities around the world ring in the new year

Darren Ornitz / Reuters
Image: Swimmers In Fancy Dress Take A Dip For For The Annual Loony Dook

Icy plunge

Swimmers brave chilly water during the annual New Year's Day Loony Dook Swim near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Photos: 'Polar Bear' swimmers dive into frosty waters to celebrate New Year's

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images
Image: Philadelphia Celebrates The New Year With Annual Mummers Parade

Mummers Parade

The Clevemore Fancy Brigade Mummers perform "Be Our Guest" during the annual Mummers Parade on New Year's Day in Philadelphia.

Mark Makela / Getty Images
Image: TOPSHOT-SPAIN-CHRISTMAS-TRADITION-ENFARINATS

Flour war

Revelers dressed in mock military garb take part in the "Els Enfarinats" battle in the southeastern Spanish town of Ibi on Dec. 28.

During this 200-year-old tradition, participants known as "Els Enfarinats" dress in military clothes and stage a mock coup d'etat as they battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers outside the town hall as part of the celebrations of the Day of the Innocents.

Jaime Reina / AFP - Getty Images
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Titanic terrapin

Diver Oliver Volz measures sea turtle "Speedy" during an annual stock take at the SeaLife Aquarium in Timmendorfer Strand, northern Germany, on Jan. 3.

Markus Scholz / dpa via AFP - Getty Images
Image: A woman walks along a street in central Moscow

Moscow shadows

A woman walks along a street in central Moscow on Dec. 29.

Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Image: Catarina Perez, grandmother of Felipe Gomez Alonzo, a 8-year-old boy who fell ill and died in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, reacts as she prays at an altar in memory of Felipe at the family's home in the village of Yalambojoch

Young life lost

Catarina Perez, center, grandmother of Felipe Gomez Alonzo, an 8-year-old boy who died in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, prays at an altar in memory of Felipe at the family's home in the village of Yalambojoch, Guatemala on Dec. 27.

The boy, who was initially diagnosed with a common cold, died minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve in New Mexico. 

Luis Echeverria / Reuters
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