December 15, 2014

Rabbis install a giant Hanukkah Menorah for the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights in front of a Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany.

A hostage runs to police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia.

A member of the special forces police installs equipment on a van in Ghent, Belgium. Four armed men have entered an apartment, and police have blocked off a wide perimeter around the area. Police said that three hours after the men entered the apartment it was still unclear whether they had taken any hostages.

Smoke billows from a place for storing weapons, allegedly belonging to rebel fighters, during an operation by Syrian regime forces to take control of the Al-Maleh farms, north of Aleppo, Syria.

A man passes a house built upside-down in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The house was constructed as an attraction for local residents and tourists.

Ernesto Vergne prays at a cross honoring his friend Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado and the other victims at a memorial to those killed in the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, a few blocks from the club in Orlando, Florida.

A car turns over during the Master Cross Race 2014 at Suuj Uul, outside Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Matilde Apiñas, 66, cries in front of the dock while waiting for news of her son, a diver who disappeared during the shipwreck, in the Caribbean port of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. Rescue crews have found the fishing boat that went missing last week with 50 people aboard and are still searching for crew members who remain missing, authorities said.

Ernesto Vergne prays at a cross honoring his friend Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado and the other victims at a memorial to those killed in the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, a few blocks from the club in Orlando, Florida.