Pictures of the Week

Kathy Fendelman comforts her twins Samantha and Benjamin, 9 , as their father First Sgt. Barton Fendelman leaves Philadelphia for an eventual deployment in Iraq. The soldier, not pictured, is a member of the of the 304th Civil Affairs Brigade and will be beginning his second deployment to Iraq following training at Ft. Dix ,N.J.
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Joseph Kaczmarek, AP
Members of the performing arts group Strange Fruit, Kathryn Jamieson, left, Ben Rogan, second left, Avan Whaite and Maiwah Williams, right, perform their show, Swoon, at the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House, April 17. Their 20 minute show features them swaying atop 5 meter (16.5 feet) flexible poles while telling a romantic boy-meets-girl tale with their comic aerial twists.
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Rick Rycroft, AP
An Iraqi family is seen during a sandstorm in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, April 17.
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Maya Alleruzzo, AP
Priests play 'baseball' prior to Pope Benedict XVI mass celebration at Nationals Stadium in Washington, DC, on April17. The Pope urged US Catholics to renew their faith and condemned the "tragic" sexual abuse of children by priests as he celebrated Mass before tens of thousands at a baseball stadium.
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Vincenzo Pinto, AFP / Getty Images
A Saharawi woman stands beside a traditional tent at Dakhla's refugee camp, near Tindouf in southwestern Algeria, April 15.
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Dani Cardona, Reuters
This image provided by NASA Wednesday April 16, shows the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, in this composite image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an ultraviolet survey telescope. Its observations, shown here in blue and green, highlight the galaxy's farthest-flung clusters of young stars up to 140,000 light-years from its center. The Very Large Array observations show the radio emission in red. They highlight gaseous hydrogen atoms, or raw ingredients for stars, which make up the lengthy, extended arms. Astronomers are excited that the clusters of baby stars match up with the extended arms, because this helps them better understand how stars can be created out in the "backwoods" of a galaxy. In this image, far-ultraviolet light is blue, near-ultraviolet light is green and radio emission at a wavelength of 21 centimeters is red.
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NASA / AP
A visitor plays in rising mists at the Wuhan Botanical Garden on April 16, in Wuhan of Hubei Province, China. Covering an area of 70 hectares, the garden was constructed in 1956 for the study of plant resources in central China and water plants in inland China, holding more than 7500 species of plants.
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China Photos / Getty Images
Capsules are silhouetted against fireworks released at the grand opening ceremony of the world's largest observation wheel also known as the Singapore Flyer on Tuesday April 15, in Singapore.
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Wong Maye-E, AP
A woman tries to cover hear mouth as she walks through cotton-like seeds from Poplar trees, also known as Cottonwood trees, on a Spring day in Beijing April 14. The more than 300,000 Poplar trees in the Chinese capital are flowering and creating pollen, adding to Beijing's air quality problems already under assault from industrial pollution and sandstorms and making life for residents who suffer from allergies and asthma even harder.
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David Gray, Reuters
A Pakistani vendor pushes his bicycle along a muddy street as children run for shelter, during heavy rain fall in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, April 15.
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Emilio Morenatti, AP