At 8:30 a.m. one mid-October morning, Oumar Konipo arrived at a gas station in Bamako, Mali. For the 73-year-old retired United States Embassy worker, who has lived in the city since 1968, this was a familiar errand. Konipo waited until 2:30 p.m. to finally fill his tank.
Tomas Ayuso’s images are jarring distillations of humanity. His pictures are reflections of intense violence, depicting machine guns, police, and bullet wound scars. Yet his photos also contain something unexpected: joy.
Mikhail Zygar is a journalist, historian, and one of the leading figures in the Russian opposition over the past decade. He was the founding editor-in-chief of TV Rain, Russia’s leading independent news outlet. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zygar was forced into exile and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army in 2024.
It was 1:15 p.m. when Professor Sisay Ade, identified by a pseudonym, received a call from Mbale Regional Hospital that his sister, Kofi, also a pseudonym, 58, had gone into cardiac arrest. With a history of end-stage renal failure and diabetes, Kofi had checked into the Msaba Wing that morning to undergo routine dialysis treatment. Thirty minutes later, her heart abruptly ceased to function.
“It’s time for people to grow a spine,” says Ayaan Moledina, a junior in high school from Austin, Texas. “I think America has the potential to be the best country to live in, in the world. We’re not there yet. And I don’t think there are people working hard enough to get there.”
erial shots capture more than the sheer scale of the No Kings protests—they capture their pulse. Children, perched on their parents’ shoulders, wave American flags as drums rattle the streets and hearts alike. The turnout is staggering.
n September 2025, instead of taking selfies at a concert or a soccer match, Nepali Instagram was full of teenagers taking photos in front of the burning ruins of their country’s parliament.
In the Khumbu Valley, before the altitude hits or the wind slices one’s skin, flashes of blue, white, red, green, and yellow appear everywhere on the trek to Everest Base Camp. Stretching across suspension bridges, wrapping around stupas, tangled in rooftop lines, and draped along exposed ridgelines are prayer flags—one of the most recognizable features of the Himalayan landscape and a signal that this region is as much cultural terrain as physical geography.
