An Afghan policeman holds his weapon close during a joint patrol with U.S. soldiers on the outskirts of Kandahar city. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

A fisherman prepares to cast a net into the rapids at Stanley Falls near Kisangani on the Congo River. Emery Makumeno for NPR hide caption

When The Levees Broke: The rate of suicide in 2008 and 2009 in Orleans Parish was about twice as high as it was the two years before the levees broke.  Above, the 17th Street Canal Levee. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

Natural-Born Storyteller? Shaun Parker moved from Menasha, Wis., to Los Angeles nearly 20 years after an illness in his family put his adolescent dreams on hold. "I liked the idea that I was meant to be something more," Parker says. "I always said that we're kind of the sum total of the decisions we make in life, and I just felt like I could very easily make the decisions that lead me away from that path of being more, whatever it is." Katie Falkenberg for NPR hide caption

Leonid Burmistrov, a researcher at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, stands amid orange "sorbus" or "mountain ash." This fruit and others could be destroyed if the Russian government sells the land in the village of Pavlovsk. David Greene/NPR hide caption

Freddie Mercury performs in 1980. Steve Jennings/Wire Image hide caption