Members of the all-girl band Pussy Riot -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich -- sit in a glass-walled cage during a court hearing in Moscow on Aug. 17. A Russian court handed down a guilty verdict and a two-year prison sentence on Friday for the three punk-rock dissidents, who captured global attention by ridiculing Russian President Vladimir Putin in a church. Rallies in defense of Pussy Riot and in condemnation of Putin's crackdown on free speech have stretched from Sydney to New York.
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney jokes with Rep. Paul Ryan during an event announcing Ryan as his running mate in front of the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia on Aug. 11. Ryan, a seven-term congressman, chairs the House Budget Committee and has positioned himself as a deficit hawk.
Police stand guard on Aug. 15 outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has been granted safe haven. Assange has been living inside Ecuador's London embassy since June 19, 2012, after requesting political asylum while facing extradition to Sweden for allegations of sexual assault.
A Syrian youth reacts as others look for people trapped under the rubble following an air strike on Aug. 15 in the town of Azaaz, near the restive northern Syrian city of Aleppo. U.N. investigators said this week that the Syrian regime had committed crimes against humanity, while dozens were reported killed in regime air strikes against civilians.
A boy sits in the back of a truck as his family leaves the restive city of Aleppo through a Free Syrian Army checkpoint on Aug. 15. A new active front opened up in the Bayadeen district while heavy fighting took place in other neighborhoods, forcing many to flee their homes.
Yao Ming, China's retired NBA star and Wild Aid Ambassador, looks at the carcass of an elephant on Aug.16 in Samburu, Kenya. Yao is in Kenya to film a feature-length documentary called The End of the Wild, which explores the economic importance of wildlife tourism and how it is threatened by the current elephant and rhino poaching crisis.
Members of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment carry the casket of Army Staff Sergeant Richard L. Berry to his final resting place during his a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Aug. 14. Berry, of Scottsdale, Arizona, died on July 22, 2012 from wounds caused by an IED while he was serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
A girl is submerged in water outside her home next to the swollen Pampanga River in Bulacan, Philippines, on Aug.15. A tropical storm hit the Northern Luzon, bringing days of wet weather to a region still recovering from massive flooding. According to the Office of Civil Defense, the floods have left at least 96 people dead.
Tires burn as Lebanese relatives of several men abducted in Syria block the road leading to Beirut's International Airport on Aug. 15, calling for the release of their family members.
Activists carrying Chinese and Taiwanese national flags walk on the disputed island chain known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China after arriving west of Japan's southern island of Okinawa on Aug. 15.
Miners demonstrate at a mountain near a mine in Rustenburg, South Africa on Aug.16. Clashes broke out over the weekend between members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The dispute escalated dramatically on Thursday when police opened fire on striking miners, killing 34.
