Singer Whitney Houston accepts the International Favorite Artist Award onstage at the 2009 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Sunday in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
Soccer fan Phil Andruss painted his face to resemble a socer ball for the MLS Cup championship at the Qwest Field in Seattle. The Lynwood, Wash. native said he spent two hours getting his hair and face paint done. The Los Angeles Galaxy lost the MLS Cup to Real Salt Lake in penalty kicks. (Elaine Thompon / Associated Press)
A woman looks at the River Nith that burst its banks in Dumfries, southwest Scotland after heavy rainstorms. Britain’s flood-ravage northwest braced for more devastation as forecasters warned of more rain following unprecedented deluges. (Andy Buchanan / AFP / Getty Images)
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger loses control of the ball as Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Wallace Gilberry tackles him. The Chiefs upset the Steelers in overtime, 27-24, on Sunday. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
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An Afghan police officer rushes to Kabul’s upscale Serena Hotel after it is hit by a rocket. At least two people were injured, the Afghan Interior Ministry said. A number of foreign humanitarian workers have been staying there since an attack on a U.N. guesthouse last month.Full story(Anja Niedringhaus / Associated Press)
Palestinian militants with the Marxist insurgent group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, train in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis. Israeli planes carried out air strikes against targets in Gaza, injuring seven Palestinians, Palestinian medical workers said. (Said Khatib / AFP/Getty Images)
American student Amanda Knox, accused of killing her British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007, cries as her trial ends in Perugia. Italian prosecutors sought life imprisonment for Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the killing of Kercher. A third person, Rudy Guede, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the killing. (Vincenzo Pinto / AFP/Getty Images)
Duke’s Kyle Singler reaches for the board as Radford’s Phillip Martin falls during the second half at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday. Duke won the game, 104-67, to move their record to 4-0, while Radford fell to 2-1. (Gerry Broome / Associated Press)
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Central Florida receiver Kamar Aiken comes down with a touchdown in front of Tulane defenders Devon Walker, left, and Ryan Travis during the seonc half between the two teams in Orlando. The Knights scored 28 points in the third quarter to help beat the Green Wave, 49-0. (Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
Pastor Matthew Barnett gets a hug from Orlane Mahak at the Dream Center in Echo Park after a Thanksgiving turkey and groceries giveaway. (Christina House / For The Times)
Palestinians protesting the Israeli barrier in the village of Nilin run as Israeli troops fire tear gas. Israel says the barrier is necessary for security but Palestinians protest the route, through Palestinian farms. (Nasser Ishtayeh / Associated Press)
Wu Jingbiao of China strains to lift a weight during the world World Weightlifting Championships in Goyang, South Korea, west of Seoul. Wu won the silver metal in his category, scoring a total of 286 kg. (Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)
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Afghan children push a cart through a darkened street in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. In western Farah province, a suicide bomber killed 16 people in an attack believed to have been targeting the governor, Rohul Amin. He was unhurt. Full story(Mustafa Quraishi / Associated Press)
A butterfly perches on a plant during a butterfly exhibit at the botanical garden in Bogota, the Colombian capital. (William Fernando /Associated Press)
Gina Meyer of Stevenson Ranch lifts up daughter Siena, 2, while ice skating after this year’s opening of the rink at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles. It will be open every day through Jan. 18, including holidays. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Supporters of Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya hold crosses as they demand his reinstatement outside the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in the capital, Tegucigalpa. Supporters said the crosses represent the people who have allegedly been killed since the June coup that removed Zelaya from power. Honduras’ general election is schedule for Nov. 29 and Congress is scheduled to vote on whether to reinstate ousted Zelaya on Dec. 2. (Arnulfo Franco / Associated Press)
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Emergency workers on the scene in the flooded town of Cockermouth, in Cumbria, northen England, where they were working to evacuate about 200 people by helicopter. Hundreds of homes were flooded after torrential rain battered parts of northern England, northwest Wales and western Scotland throughout Thursday, rescue officials said. (Andrew Yates / AFP/Getty Images)
A tourist takes pictures near the Hungarian Parliament building despite thick fog in Budapest. (Bela Szandelszky / Associated Press)
Gold medalist Long Qingquan of China makes an attempt during the men’s 56-kilogram event at the World Weightlifting Championships in Goyang City, South Korea. (Jeon Heon-Kyun / EPA)
A couple takes a picture in front of a Christmas illumination in Tokyo. (Shizuo Kambayashi / Associated Press)
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The reflection of village women carrying firewood on their heads as the sun sets is seen in a puddle of water on the outskirts of Amritsar, India. (Altaf Qadri / Associated Press)
Hula hoop artist Marawa performs during a photocall to promote the cabaret show La Clique in London. The show -- a mixture of cabaret, burlesque, circus and variety -- runs through Jan. 17. (Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images)
Rescue workers continue their search for those trapped in the flooded town of Cockermouth, England. Recent heavy rainfall caused severe flooding, cutting off villages and towns in northern England’s Lake District. In the town of Worthington, two bridges collapsed, and Cumbria Police said that one of their officers died after he was knocked into the water when one of the structures gave way. (Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images)
Palestinian girls in the West Bank city of Ramallah release balloons with messages attached during a UNICEF-organized event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ever since the treaty guaranteeing children’s rights was adopted by the U.N. in 1989, fewer youths are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion children still lack services essential to their survival and development, UNICEF says. (Muhammed Muheisen / Associated Press)
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Student protesters participate in a “die-in” in front of Covel Commons at UCLA as a statement about their education. Others locked themselves in a classroom building. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Elliot Goldstein, right, of Berkeley protests for the “future of education” as University of California police officers watch the crowd at UCLA, where regents approved a 32% increase in undergraduate fees. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
A man looks at kangaris, traditional baskets used to hold hot coals, in Srinagar, in India’s northern-most state, Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiris place kangaris inside their clothes to keep themselves warm as they go about their work during the snowy winter. (Mukhtar Khan / Associated Press)
A diver clad in a Santa Claus costume welcomes visitors to an aquarium at Kaiyukan in Osaka, in Japan. (Kazuiro Nogi / AFP / Getty Images)
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai kisses a copy the Koran during his swearing-in ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Karzai vowed to combat corruption and invited his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, to join the government. Full story(Shah Marai / AFP / Getty Images)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai reviews an honor guard as he arrives to be sworn in for a second term at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Full story(Shah Marai /AFP / Getty Images)
People gather near an airplane that overshot the runway Goma airport in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ten passengers were slightly injured in the crash of the CAA (Compagnie Africaine d’Aviation) plane from Kinshasa. (Jean-Louis Cheupex / AFP / Getty Images)
South African children play soccer on a makeshift pitch in mountains of Eastern Cape near Port St. Johns. South Africa will be hosting the 2010 World Cup, which will open June 11, and run through July 11. (Alexander Joe / AFP/Getty Images)
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A police officer sings in the fog before a 2010 World Cup qualifying playoff match between Uruguay and Costa Rica. (Natacha Pisarenko / Associated Press)
Taxis line up on an overpass in Chongqing, awaiting their turn at the fuel pumps. Most provinces in central and eastern China were facing a liquified natural gas shortage after supplies were diverted to snowstorm-hit northern China. (AFP/Getty Images)
Sommelier Masahiko Mori, right, pours a bottle of 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau wine into the wine spa at the Hakone Yunessun spa resort facilities in the town of Hakone. As the new Beaujolais Nouveau vintage was officially uncorked, Hakone Yunessun started its annual 12-day-long Beaujolais Nouveau spa. (Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP/Getty Images)
Victoria’s Secret model Doutzen Kroes gets her hair done backstage before the start of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP/Getty Images)
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President Obama greets U.S. troops at Osan Air Base, south of Seoul. A U.S. envoy will visit North Korea on Dec. 8 to try to persuade leaders to return to nuclear-disarmament talks, Obama said. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images)
Pope Benedict XVI, with prelates, delivers his blessing during a weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican. (Andrew Medichini / AP Photo)
A model shows a design by Adesagi during Jakarta Fashion Week. (Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images)
Belarusian soldiers crouch after throwing grenades during a training exercise about 50 miles north of Minsk near the town of Borisov. (Viktor Drachev / AFP / Getty Images)
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A man shields his eyes during a storm at Hoek van Holland beach. (Ed Oudenaarden / EPA)
Beth Ditto and her band Gossip perform at the Palladium in Cologne, at the start of their Germany tour. (Joerg Carstensen / EPA)
A student holding a poster that says “Now beat everyone with truncheons” participates in a protest a day after two students were arrested in Milan, Italy. The two students were arrested Tuesday after clashes with police during a demonstration against massive cuts in Italy’s higher education budget. (Giuseppe Cacae / AFP / Getty Images)
Undergraduate students dressed as Santa Claus attend a training session in Qingdao, northern China. Many undergraduates there impersonate the legendary, mythical figure associated with Christmas at shopping malls, bars and other places as a way to earn money. (Wu Hong / EPA)
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People protest President Obama’s trip to South Korea in downtown Seoul. He is in the country for two days as he finishes his nine-day, four-nation tour of East Asia, his first as U.S. president. (Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images)
President Obama tours the Great Wall of China in Beijing. The U.S. president is on a nine-day, four-nation tour of East Asia during which he has visited Japan and attended the APEC Summit in Singapore. He then traveled to China, where he discussed economy, trade and climate change issues, and is now in South Korea. (Feng Li / Getty Images)
Russian parkour enthusiasts jump from the roof of an eight-story building to the roof of a five-story building in St. Petersburg. Parkour is an urban activity featuring acrobatic flips and tricks, with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible. (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP / Getty Images)
A dog stands on a sand bank of the Yamuna River, which reflects the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The white marble monument to love was built by the mogul emperor Shah Jahan from circa 1632 to circa 1653 for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The monument, a must-see for most tourists, hosts an estimated 3 million visitors a year. (Gurinder Osan / Associated Press)
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Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reviews French troops at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during his state visit to France. (Christophe Ena / Associated Press)
A museum employee affixes the head of a replica of Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s terra-cotta warriors. A collection of the warriors will be displayed Nov. 21 through March 15, 2010. (Norbert Millauer / AFP/Getty Images)
A boy carries a lamp for light as members of a band take part in a Hindu wedding procession. Many Indians hire street bands to mark wedding festivities. (Kevin Frayer / Associated Press)
Rowers on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia hoist a boat as the sun sets. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)
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President Obama a guard of honor along with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday. Obama is on a nine-day, four nation, Asia tour during which he has visited Japan and attended the APEC Summit in Singapore before heading to China. Following his visit to China, where he is expected to discuss the economy, trade and climate change, he will head to South Korea. (Feng Li / Getty Images)
A man looks over the art installation “The Hoerengracht” (Whore’s Canal) (1960-1972) by Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz at the National Gallery on Tuesday. London’s National Gallery has been transformed into a walk-through evocation of Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District. “The Hoerengracht” is one of the most significant pieces of installation art by the Kienholzes before Ed’s death in the mid 1990s. It’s the first time an art installation of this kind has been exhibited at the National Gallery. (Andy Rain / EPA)
Thai police commandos lie on the ground outside a house where insurgents took refuge in Thailand’s restive southern province of Pattani on Tuesday. Thai police shot dead six Islamist insurgents while suspected militants killed a school bus driver and two other Muslim men in the country’s troubled south, police said. More than 4,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded in Thailand’s Muslim-majority provinces bordering Malaysia since a separatist insurgency erupted nearly six years ago. (AFP / Getty Images)
A Russian woman walks under the snow-encrusted trees of a park Tuesday. Moscow is undergoing its first snows of the winter as temperatures fluctuate above and below the freezing point. (Natalia Koleskikova AFP / Getty Images)
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Children remove rubble from one the houses that were burned down Tuesday during clashes that began when one resident’s television was stolen but became mixed with a dispute over rent between Kikuyu landlords and their tenants from other tribes. (Karel Prinsloo / Associated Press)
Former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, background center, joins a group of people lighting candles and laying flowers as they commemorate the 20th anniversary of the so-called Velvet Revolution in Prague, Czech Republic, on Tuesday. (Petr David Josek / Associated Press)
The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off Monday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle is carrying six astronauts and a full load of spare parts to the International Space Station. (Stan Honda / AFP / Getty Images)
The coal-fueled Fiddlers Ferry power station in Warrington spews emissions into the night sky. World leaders are preparing for the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that will take on the task of drafting a new treaty to replace Kyoto. But resolve seems to be weakening with President Obama stating more time is needed to reach a binding deal. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images)
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Italian team Azzurra competes in Nice for the Louis Vuitton Trophy, sponsored by the luxury accessories manufacturer. The competition organized in conjunction with the World Sailing Teams Assn. is in the semi-final stage and ends Nov. 22. (Lionel Cironneau / Associated Press)
Indigenous farmer Sabino Catrilaf irrigates his lettuce field near Temuco. Chile is using an anti-terrorism law dating to Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s regime in an attempt to put down an uprising by Mapuche Indians, who have burned farms and equipment and seized land from timber companies and other large property owners. (Francisco Negroni / Associated Press)
Local residents remove a badly injured horse from the site of a car bombing on a police station in Badh Ber, a town near Peshawar, Pakistan. A pickup truck laden with explosives attacked the police station in northwestern Pakistan, killing people in an area that has become the focal point for militant retaliation against a recent army offensive. (Mohammad Sajjad / Associated Press)
A woman walks past a rainforest tree stump in Trafalgar Square in central London. The tree is part of an art installation titled “Ghost Forest,” highlighting the connections between deforestation and climate change. It features 10 rainforest tree stumps, most with their buttress roots still attached, positioned on Trafalgar Square beside Nelson’s Column, which stands at 169 feet, the approximate height these trees would have been in the wild. (Adrian Dennis / AFP / Getty Images)
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An Emirati man watches cheerleaders perform on the beach at beach at Jumeirah on the first day of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Dubai. (Karim Sahib / AFP / Getty Images)
A Jewish settler carries roof tiles amid the ruins of structures demolished by Israeli authorities in the settlement of Negohot near the West Bank city of Hebron. (Tsafrir Abayov / Associated Press)
Protesters shout slogans as they stage an anti-corruption rally in front of the Corruption Eradication Commission building in Jakarta. Indonesia’s police force recently denied that it was trying to frame the country’s top corruption fighter for murder, after a key state witness testified that he was part of a conspiracy to fabricate evidence. (Bat Ismoyo / AFP / Getty Images)
An orthodox believer bows before the casket of Serbian Patriarch Pavle during a farewell ceremony at the Cathedral Church in Belgrade. Pavle, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, died Sunday in a Belgrade hospital. He was 95. The patriarch had suffered poor health for several years and was frequently hospitalized. Pavle took over the leadership of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1990, on the eve of bloody break up of Yugoslavia, the fall of communism and rise of Serb nationalism. (Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty Images)
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A boy views the body of Patriarch Pavle at the Congregational church. The patriarch, who led Serbia’s Orthodox Church and called for peace and conciliation during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, died Sunday at age 95. (Darko Vojinovic / Associated Press)