Miles Scott, dressed as Batkid, walks with Batman before saving a damsel in distress in San Francisco, on November 15, 2013. San Francisco turned into Gotham City on that day, as city officials helped fulfill Scott's wish to be "Batkid." Scott, a leukemia patient from Tulelake in Northern California, was called into service on Friday morning by San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr to help fight crime, The Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation said. #

A tractor sits partially submerged in a field after flooding along the South Platte River in Weld County, Colorado near Greeley, on September 14, 2013. A days-long rush of water from higher ground turned parts of Colorado's expansive eastern plains into muddy swamps. #

An unfortunate frog is flung skyward during a launch of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on September 6, 2013. #

The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft carrying Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA, lands safely in a remote area of Kazakhstan, on September 11, 2013. #

A member of the "Ansar Dimachk" Brigade, part of the Asood Allah Brigade which operates under the Free Syrian Army, uses an iPad during preparations to fire a homemade mortar at one of the battlefronts in Joubar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on September 15, 2013. #

A Chinese boy sits on his father's shoulders to see an 18 meter high rubber duck at Beijing Garden Expo Park on September 6, 2013 in Beijing, China. After touring 13 cities in 10 countries, the giant rubber duck designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman floated first at Beijing Garden Expo Park and then at the Summer Palace in Beijing. #

Philippine government troops continue their assault on members of the Muslim rebel Moro National Liberation Front in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines, on September 12, 2013. Philippine troops battled Muslim rebels on two fronts Thursday, after extremists attacked a second city near the southern port where militants have been holding scores of residents hostage in a four-day standoff with government forces. #

A vending machine, carried inland by the tsunami in March of 2011, stands in an abandoned rice field inside the exclusion zone near Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on September 21, 2013. #

A child runs to safety as armed police hunt gunmen who went on a shooting spree at Westgate shopping center in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 21, 2013. The gunmen, reportedly associated with the Islamist group al-Shabaab, stormed the shopping mall, killing at least 72 people, and sending scores fleeing into shops, a cinema and onto the streets in search of safety. #

An injured woman cries for help after gunmen stormed the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 21, 2013. Gun battles raged in the mall for several days, ending with massive destruction of property, and reported looting by government forces. Kenyan authorities claim the gunmen were all killed, but a recent report by the New York Police Department suggests the shooters may have escaped. #

A U.S. Park Police officer watches at left as a National Park Service employee posts a sign on a barricade closing access to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, District of Columbia, on October 1, 2013. Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown as a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law stalled a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job and suspending most non-essential federal programs and services. #

A molotov cocktail explodes in front of riot police on September 25, 2013 during clashes with demonstrators in Athens, Greece. Police clashed with protesters in Athens at the end of a huge march sparked by the murder of an anti-fascist musician, allegedly at the hands of a self-confessed neo-Nazi. Protesters were seen hurling petrol bombs at riot police, who responded with tear gas a few hundred meters from the headquarters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. #

In the town of Rjukan, Norway, people gather in front of the town hall, where sunlight is reflected by giant mirrors (top) erected on the mountainside, on October 18, 2013. Rjukan, a small industrial town 150 km west of Oslo, is situated in the bottom of a valley between steep mountains in Telemark County, and is cut off from direct sunlight for five to six months a year. Now, three giant mirrors mounted on a nearby mountainside will reflect winter sunlight into the valley. #

Boston police officer Steve Horgan reacts as Torii Hunter of the Detroit Tigers tries to catch a grand slam hit by David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox in the eighth inning of Game Two of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 13, 2013. #

A burst of fireworks goes off near members of the so-called Black Bloc anarchist group during clashes with police after a march of striking teachers took place to mark National Teachers Day, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 15, 2013. A largely peaceful rally of teachers turned violent in Rio when small groups of masked protesters started hurling rocks and gasoline bombs and set fire to a passenger bus. #

Saw Min lies on a bed with weights on her eyes after receiving local anesthesia ahead of a cataract operation at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar, on October 22, 2013. She waited with hundreds of Myanmar's poorest villagers to be prepped for the simple, free surgery she hopes will restore her sight. "My heart is racing," said the 38-year-old mother of five, who lost all vision in her left eye one year ago and, in the months that followed, all but 20 percent in her right. #

A person takes a photograph of a sculpture by artist Lucy Humphrey titled "horizon" on a rocky cliff which is part of the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition at Sydney's Tamarama Beach, on October 24, 2013. The free and temporary outdoor exhibition, now in its 17th year, stretches for two kilometers along the coastline between Bondi and Tamarama beaches. #

An Iraqi boy cries at the scene of a car bomb attack, shortly after it exploded as worshippers left a Sunni mosque after prayers marking the start of the Eid al-Adha, in Kirkuk, Iraq, on October 15, 2013. Militants in Iraq carried out numerous attacks on both Sunni and Shiite mosques in 2013, raising fears of a return to the all-out sectarian conflict that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people. #

Bipedal humanoid robot "Atlas", primarily developed by the American robotics company Boston Dynamics, is presented to the media during a news conference at the University of Hong Kong, on October 17, 2013. The 6-foot (1.83 m) tall, 330-pound (149.7 kg) robot is made of graded aluminum and titanium and costs HK$ 15 million ($1.93 million). It is capable of a variety of natural movements, including dynamic walking, calisthenics and user programmed behaviors, according to the University of Hong Kong's press release. #

A three-month-old Sumatran tiger cub named Bandar reacts after being dunked in the tiger exhibit moat for a swimming test at the National Zoo in Washington, District of Columbia, on November 6, 2013. All cubs born at the zoo must take a swim test before being allowed to roam in the exhibit. Bandar passed his test. #

Canadian rower Mylene Paquette celebrates as she arrives in Lorient, France, on November 12, 2013, after a solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Paquette is the first North American woman to row solo across the North Atlantic. She left Halifax just over four months ago in a specially designed 7.3-meter boat propelled only by Paquette and the currents. #

A suicide attacker lies on the ground after his vest was defused in Jalalabad province, Afghanistan, on June 30, 2013. Afghan security forces captured the would-be suicide attacker before he was able to blow himself up. #

President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Honor to former Army Capt. William D. Swenson of Seattle, Washington, during a ceremony in the East Room at the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on October 15, 2013. Swenson was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in a lengthy battle against Taliban insurgents in the Ganjgal valley near the Pakistan border on September 8, 2009, which claimed the lives of five Americans, 10 Afghan army troops and an interpreter. #

Kaden Bowden, son of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joshua J. Bowden, looks at the casket for his father during burial services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on September 27, 2013. Bowden was from Villa Rica, Georgia, and died on August 31, 2013, from injuries sustained while serving in Afghanistan. #

Sgt. Matt Krumwiede of the U.S. Army takes a phone call as his hand is massaged by his mother Pam Krumwiede, after being admitted for an infection at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on November 4, 2013. On June 12, 2012, Krumwiede was on patrol in Afghanistan when he stepped on an IED, which tore away both his legs, damaged his left arm, and ripped open his abdominal cavity. The 22-year-old has since undergone around 40 surgeries and is learning to walk with prosthetic legs. He is keen to re-join the infantry as soon as his injuries allow. #

A demonstrator kisses a riot police officer during a protest in Susa, Italy, against the high-speed train (TAV in Italian) line between Lyon and Turin, on November 16, 2013. The link, expected to come into service in 2025, will see one million fewer trucks on the highways a year, and reduce train times between Paris and Milan from seven hours to just over four. #

An aerial view shows the path of a tornado that hit the western Illinois town of Washington, on November 18, 2013. It was one of the worst-hit areas after intense storms and tornadoes swept through Illinois. The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Washington had a preliminary rating of EF-4, meaning wind speeds of 170 mph to 190 mph. #

Donna Auchinvole with Duke and Lorraine Clark with Barron, Clydesdale Horses, attend a topping out ceremony at The Kelpies on November 27, 2013 in Falkirk, Scotland. Construction work has been completed on Andy Scott's Kelpies, the world's largest pair of equine sculptures and one of the UKs tallest pieces of public art. #

A cargo ship washed ashore, four days after Super Typhoon Haiyan hit Anibong town, Tacloban city, Philippines, on November 11, 2013. Typhoon Haiyan was the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall, and was responsible for nearly 6,000 deaths, laying waste to cities and towns on Leyte and Samar islands. #

Boys maneuver their boat, made from a broken refrigerator and bamboo, to the beach in Tanauan, in the province of Leyte, Philippines, on November 20, 2013. After losing their boats and houses in the Typhoon Haiyan, fishermen of a destroyed village in Tanauan started building two-seated boats made of abandoned refrigerators and some wood. The first boat was made by a fisherman, whose children gave him the idea as they wanted to play in it, and soon others followed. The Philippines and international armed forces and aid agencies are struggling to get help to devastated areas due to the extent of the destruction from Typhoon Haiyan. #

Anti-government protesters give roses, through razor wire, to security personnel guarding the Defense Ministry as protesters gather outside it in Bangkok, Thailand, on November 28, 2013. Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra breezed through a no-confidence vote in parliament on Thursday as confusion emerged over the goals of an anti-government protest movement massing at government offices. #

Fireworks light up during the inauguration of an 85 meter-high Christmas tree at Cantagalo park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 30, 2013. 3.1 million lights will illuminate the Christmas tree every night until the end of the year. #

A rare total inversion was seen on November 29, 2013 by visitors to Grand Canyon National Park. This shot is of the Desert View Watchtower near Desert View Point on the South Rim. The Watchtower is located at Desert View, the eastern-most developed area on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Recognized as a National Historic Landmark, the tower was constructed in 1932. #

Protesters try to break through police lines near the presidential administration building during a rally held by supporters of EU integration in Kiev, on December 1, 2013. Ukrainian opposition leaders called for President Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign at a rally of about 350,000 people, the biggest protest in the capital Kiev since the "Orange Revolution" of nine years ago. #

Flowers left by mourners surround a portrait of Nelson Mandela in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, on December 6, 2013. Mandela, the revered icon of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and one of the towering political figures of the 20th century, died on December 5, aged 95. #