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 John Moore—Getty Images

“I sped out to the airport, met up with my charter pilot and we set off in a Robinson R-44 Raven II helicopter into a stiff headwind for the 45 minute flight to the ‘target,’ as he put it,” photographer John Moore tells TIME. He was on assignment for Getty Images on May 14, 2013, tasked with shooting aerial photographs of the iconic JetStar roller coaster in Seaside Heights, New Jersey; now slated for demolition more than six months after Hurricane Sandy had “tossed it in the Atlantic Ocean.”  

“I had originally planned to fly later in the afternoon, a little closer to sunset, for the best light,” Moore says, until a tip came in from Getty staff photographer Mark Wilson, who was shooting the scene from the ground, that “the crane was making quick work of it and that I’d better hurry and get up in the air before it was all gone.”

“We flew in circles over the scene for about 25 minutes at varying altitudes, hoping to get a moment when the crane would lift a large piece of the debris from the surf,” he says. The photograph above, featured in this week’s issue of TIME and in LightBox Pictures of the Week, was made “from a height of about 500 feet, shot in the mid-afternoon with a high shutter speed in order to eliminate any possible camera shake from the helicopter.”

“You can see the beach of the Jersey Shore stretching northward, much of it, unlike the jagged pier, restored ahead of the upcoming tourist season, which begins anew with Memorial Day Weekend,” Moore adds. “Local business owners and residents hope the tourist income will help Seaside Heights get back to normal after Sandy’s cruel seas washed so much of their community away.”

—Eugene Reznik

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

Photograph by Andrew B. Myers for TIME

Spread from this week’s cover story on millennials photographed by Andrew B. Myers.

Photograph by Danny Ghitis and Daniella Zalcman/@echosight

The way we collaborate is simplified more every day. No longer are we required to share printed essays or negatives to work with each other; all we need is an internet connection. This idea is part of the inspiration behind @echosight, a joint-Instagram account between photographers Danny Ghitis in New York and Daniella Zalcman in London. See more work on LightBox here.

Photograph by EPA

May 10, 2013. Rescuers pull out a female survivor, Reshma, alive on the 17th day after the Rana Plaza building collapsed, in Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Photograph by Damir Sagolj—Reuters

May 9, 2013. A man falls from a high floor of a burning building in central Lahore, Pakistan.

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 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 Ilona Szwarc

Photographer Ilona Szwarc’s camera has brought her closer to her mother-in-law than she could ever imagine. LightBox presents Szwarc’s on-going project in honor of Mother’s Day.

Photograph by Rachel Bee Porter, The Joy of Cooking #5

Call for submissions:2013 CCNY Annual Juried Photography Competition

The Camera Club of New York (CCNY) is pleased to announce an open call for applications for its Annual Juried Photography Competition. Photographers and photo-based artists working in any genre are eligible to apply. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit a cohesive body of work.

For more information, visit here. The deadline is May 13, 2013.

Pictured above, last year’s first place winner, Rachel Bee Porter, chosen by 2012 jurors Elisabeth Biondi and Martine Fougeron.

Photograph by Massimo Berruti—Agence VU

The build-up to Pakistan’s elections, which will be held May 11, has been clouded by a disturbing streak of violence. Italian photographer Massimo Berruti has been documenting the frontrunners on the final days of their campaigns. See the work on LightBox here.

May 3, 2013. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice, or PTI) chairman Imran Khan speaks to supporters Abbotabad, Pakistan.