Photo courtesy of Tim Cothren

Tim Cothren with a reporter from German TV's N24 doing a stand-up in front of a collapsed nightclub.

© David Bathgate / Corbis

A Shiite Muslim woman finds her way through the back entrance to Takia-Khona Mosque, Kabul, Afghanistan. March 2004.

© Lucian Read

Still holding his 9mm Beretta, a seriously injured First Sgt. Brad Kasal is carried from the “Hell House” by Lcpls. Chris Marquez and Dane Shaffer on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004. First Sgt. Kasal lost much of his blood and nearly lost his right leg after being shot seven times by insurgents. His body was peppered with shrapnel as he used his body to shield an injured younger Marine, PFC Alex Nicoll, from a grenade blast.

© Ryan Pyle

A fully veiled woman walks along a lane in the old town of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times

Johnny Aralaji, the leader of a Badjao community in Puerto Princesa, Philippines, scans the sea for almost nonexistent schools of fish. Because the Badjao, a waterborne, mostly Muslim people known as “Bedouins of the sea,” do not celebrate birthdays, Aralaji guesses his age to be around 70. He sees the culture and traditions of his people sinking but remains unsentimental and resolute because he knows that they must seek land-based alternatives in order to simply survive. Palawan, Philippines, July 15, 2009.

© Peter Turnley/Corbis

Tears and cheers co-mingle as Romanians celebrate the overthrow of the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania's treacherous despotic leader, during the early days of the Romanian Revolution. An emotional Avram Constantin (center) watches as a truck piled with war dead drives past, enroute to Bucharest's Belo Cemetery, December 1989.

© Justin Mott for The New York Times

Students study in small numbers at the Mai Hoa AIDS Center in An Nhon Tay, Vietnam, because these HIV-infected children from the orphanage were turned away from a nearby primary school last month when the parents of the other students refused to allow their children to attend.