When you run an empire such as TIME you have more than a few reporters out on the front line. You would expect then that the best news photos from each week would be rather memorable and you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Each week TIME Lightbox selects the cream of the crop and has gathered this year’s best shots in one place for us to enjoy. You can see three of our favourites below.

A Kurdish marksman surveys the devastation of Kobani, Syria, on Jan. 30, days after Kurdish forces recaptured the city from ISIS. Months of fighting left the town largely abandoned.

 To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Oprah Winfrey and other cast members from Selma led thousands of demonstrators on Jan. 18 across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where King led his own marches from Selma, Ala., in 1965.

Heavy blizzards have triggered Afghanistan’s worst avalanches in three decades, resulting in roughly 250 deaths and stranding residents of the mountainous Panjshir province, including those seen here waiting for an army helicopter to distribute supplies on Feb. 28.

You can head over to TIME Lightbox to see the rest of the gallery. Warning, your snaps of the sunset this weekend don’t stand a chance.

[source:time]