
In Focus
The Week in Pictures: March 22 - 29
Students march for gun reform, arctic soccer is played on ice, holy week celebrations begin, and more.

Mourners visit a makeshift memorial for victims of a fire at the Winter Cherry mall in the industrial city of Kemerovo, Russia, on March 29, 2018. The city of half a million people, 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow, is trying to come to terms with the fire last Sunday that engulfed the mall, killing 64 people, including children locked inside a movie theater.
The deadly fire caused an outpouring of grief and indignation against local authorities. The Kemerovo governor never visited the site of the fire, while President Vladimir Putin did not announce a period of national mourning until days after the fire.



Kim Jong Un waves from his train as it prepares to depart from Beijing on March 27.
The North Korean leader was treated to a lavish welcome by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a secretive trip to Beijing as both sides seek to repair frayed ties ahead of landmark summits with Seoul and Washington.

Firefighters rescue a motorist whose car became stuck as a flash flood washed over a road near Folsom, California, on March 22.
A powerful storm dropped more rain across the state, swelling rivers, flooding streets and causing some mudslides but so far sparing communities a repeat of the disastrous debris flows that followed a deluge earlier this year.


Emma Gonzalez stands in silence at the podium during the “March For Our Lives” in Washington on March 24.
The gripping moment stretched for 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the amount of time Gonzalez said it took a shooter to kill 17 people and wound 15 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last month.
Photos: These kids aren't kidding: March For Our Lives hits streets worldwide

KV Svalbard's crew, formed by Norwegian Navy privates and scientists from Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, play soccer as they are protected from polar bears by armed guards in the arctic environment in the sea around Greenland on March 22.

A man tries to put out a fire after flames erupted early on March 23 following a regime bombardment in Douma, one of the few remaining rebel-held pockets in eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Syria’s capital.
Syrian state media said more residents have left Douma, one of the three pockets isolated by the offensive and where the bombing continues, through a crossing linking it to the capital Damascus. The largest town in eastern Ghouta, Douma is controlled by the Army of Islam, the largest and most powerful rebel group in the region.



Stevante Clark, brother of Stephon Clark, the unarmed African-American man killed in a hail of police bullets in Sacramento, California, shuts down a City Council meeting March 27 by delivering a profanity-filled complaint about the city's treatment of minority residents.
The meeting was called to address the shooting of Stephon Clark on March 18. Police said two officers fired 20 rounds at Clark, who was found to be in possession of a cellphone, not a weapon.
Photos: City on edge: Scenes of anguish and anger over shooting of Stephon Clark


Smoke billows from the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, Russia, on March 26. With the fire alarms silent and staff reportedly nowhere to be seen, a fire at a shopping mall packed with children and their parents on the first weekend of the school recess killed 64 people in Russia's Siberia.
The fire was extinguished by Monday morning after burning through the night. Firefighters were still recovering bodies as parts of the buildings were still smoldering. Some of the dead were found inside a theater, which one witness said had been locked shut.


Officials of the French gendarmerie nationale and French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb hold a minute of silence for Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, on March 28, at the Interior Ministry in Paris.
The slain hero of last week's extremist attack in southern France, who swapped himself for a hostage, was honored Wednesday in an elaborate, daylong national homage led by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The coffin of Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame was driven through the morning drizzle in a procession across Paris from the Pantheon to the Hotel des Invalides, the final resting place of Napoleon. Macron delivered a patriotic public eulogy calling for national solidarity after last week's attack, which together with myriad other extremist attacks on French soil have claimed more than 200 lives since 2015.
Photos: France honors gendarme who sacrificed his life in supermarket attack

A Syrian woman and child walk down a destroyed street as civilians and rebels prepare to evacuate one of the few remaining rebel-held pockets in Arbin, in Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, on March 24, as the government moved ever closer to securing the outskirts of the capital.




Students clash with riot police outside the Education Ministry building during a protest in Santiago, Chile on March 27, after Chile's constitutional court struck down a law that would have banned universities operating for profit, dealing a blow to free tuition reforms brought in by former left wing president Michelle Bachelet.



An alpaca chews some food at the Wilhelma zoo in Stuttgart, Germany on March 26.