Photograph by Wolfgang Kumm—AFP/Getty Images

May 31, 2013. A cat sits behind a window covered in raindrops in Berlin. Meteorologists forecast further rainfalls for the following days in wide parts of the country.

From protests in Turkey and flooding in Europe to Angelina Jolie’s selfie and a donkey wedding, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Photograph by Kevin Frayer—AP

May 12, 2013. A wild gray langur monkey scowls as it jumps on a car at a rest stop on a road near Leela, in the state of Rajasthan, India.

From tornadoes in Texas and the demolition of Hurricane Sandy’s iconic roller coaster to President Obama’s rain check and a dancing lion, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Photograph by Robyn Beck—AFP/Getty Images
 
May 3, 2013. A rabbit runs from a wildfire burning along the Pacific Coast Highway near Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County, California. Some 4,000 homes were threatened by a growing wildfire northwest of Los Angeles that has forced the closure of California’s scenic coastal highway, firefighters said.

From the safe return of three kidnap victims in Ohio and the rescue of a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory in Bangladesh to Israeli air strikes in Syria and a teddy bear hospital in Germany, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Photograph by Jehad Nga for TIME

In its heyday, horse racing had it all. It was the speed and danger sport before NASCAR came along; movie stars and gangsters rubbed glamorous elbows; and a couple sawbucks on a winning long-shot could put you on Easy Street. Jehad Nga’s photographs show that, as with all nostalgia, the reality could never match the legend.

April 22, 2013. A dog looks on amid trash as polluted waters flow down a canal on the outskirts of Ahmedabad during World Earth Day. (Sam Panthaky—AFP/Getty Images)

From funerals and prayer vigils in Boston and a deadly garment factory collapse in Bangladesh to the legalization of gay marriage in France and a giant inflatable pig in China, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

April 25, 2013. A worker grooms away tracks after an alligator crossed through a sand trap on the 14th hole during the first round of the PGA Tour Zurich Classic golf tournament at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, La. (Gerald Herbert—AP)

From funerals and prayer vigils in Boston and a deadly garment factory collapse in Bangladesh to the legalization of gay marriage in France and a giant inflatable pig in China, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Photograph by Li Wei—AFP/Getty Images

A few hours after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake stuck China’s Sichuan Province on April 20, 2013, killing more than 190 and injuring thousands, Li Wei, who works at the Bifengxia Panda Center near Ya’an, captured the photograph above of a terrified giant panda taking refuge in a tree, which made it on the AFP/Getty Images wire and in TIME’s Pictures of the Week.

“A number of pandas had fled, some of them climbed trees, and they remained very scared throughout the day as the aftershocks continued,” Li Wei tells TIME. “For several hours staff tried to coax them out of the trees, but they only came down in the afternoon to drink their milk.”

“The staff was as happy to see that as they would be to see their own children at home eating and drinking,” he adds. “Over the next few days we had to adjust their food and offer psychological care before they returned to normal.”

—Eugene Reznik, translation by Paul Handley

See more of this week’s best photos on LightBox.

Photograph by Eric Draper

Eric Draper’s official White House photographs, chronicled in a new book, capture the president in action against the implicitly powerful backdrop of the West Wing or Air Force One. They also bring the titan back down to earth, showing the man behind the podium as a regular guy who likes to play with dogs and goof around. See the photos on LightBox here.

Pictured: April 10, 2001. Barney joins his master on the running track of the South Lawn after a morning jog.

April 15, 2013. A keeper tries to feed Melani, a 15-year-old female Sumatran tiger that has been suffering from an undiagnosed digestive disorder for the past five years, in her cage at Surabaya Zoo in Surabaya, Indonesia. The emaciated female Sumatran tiger was in critical condition at Indonesia’s largest zoo Wednesday and may have to be put down after another rare tiger died at the problem-plagued facility earlier this month. (AP)

From the Boston marathon and Margaret Thatcher’s funeral to the bird flu in China and the lighter side of North Korea, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Photograph by Charlotte Dumas

For Jeffrey Kluger’s feature on animal grieving in this week’s issue, TIME reached out to noted animal photographer Charlotte Dumas, who has been making deeply empathetic portraits of a variety of species for years. See the work on LightBox here.