The Week in Pictures: Aug. 23 - 30 2018, NBC News

源济

Beached

A rescue team tries to move an Orca back to the sea in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on Aug. 26, 2018.

— Argentine Marine World Foundation via Reuters

Goodbye kiss

Cindy McCain lays her head on the casket of her husband Sen. John McCain during his memorial service at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on Aug. 29. The former prisoner of war and maverick politician died last Saturday of brain cancer at age 81.

— Ross D. Franklin / AP

Wedding glow

A couple watches a screen during a mass wedding at the Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea, on Aug. 27. The Unification Church's mass wedding was organized by Hak Ja Han Moon, wife of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church.

— Ahn Young-joon / AP

Long jump final

Great Britain's Polly Maton competes in the women's long jump T47 final at the 2018 Para Athletics European Championships in Berlin on Aug. 24.

— Felipe Trueba / EPA

Color blocking

Apartment blocks in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 24. Despite ongoing international negotiations aimed at easing tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea remains the most isolated and secretive nation on earth.

— Carl Court / Getty Images

Montana crisis

Michael Lee, 13, died of suicide on July 27 and is buried next to his mother, who died of suicide just over two years ago. Frederick Lee and Colleen Timmins-Lee, Michael's father and stepmother, return to the grave for the first time since the funeral.

Montana had the highest suicide rate in the country. Then budget cuts hit.

— Annie Flanagan / for NBC News

Up and down

A flag flies at half-staff above the White House on the evening of on Aug. 27 in Washington. Glowering in public and near-silent for two days, President Donald Trump relented under pressure Monday by tersely recognizing Sen. John McCain's "service to our country" and re-lowering the White House flag.

While much of the nation remembered McCain's record as a war hero, longtime senator and presidential nominee over the weekend, Trump had nursed his grievances. McCain had been an infuriating foil in a long-running feud over style and policy that did not end with the senator's illness and death.

— Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

Crash landing

Fernando Alonso's McLaren flies through the air and lands on top of Charles Leclerc's Sauber during the Belgian Grand Prix in Stavelot, Belgium, on Aug. 26. Leclerc, unharmed, was likely spared a head injury by the protective halo device surrounding the cockpit area of F1 cars.

— Francois Lenoir / Reuters

Presidential housing

Former President Jimmy Carter works with other volunteers during the first day of the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, their 35th project with Habitat for Humanity, on Aug. 27, in Mishawaka, Indiana. Carter and comedian David Letterman helped launch a five-day Habitat for Humanity effort to build 23 homes in northern Indiana.

— Robert Franklin / South Bend Tribune via AP

Kiev kids

Children look up as aircraft fly above the city center during a military parade to celebrate Independence Day in Kiev, Ukraine, on Aug. 24.

— Felipe Dana / AP

源济

117 years young

117-year-old Julia Flores Colque sits outside her home in Sacaba, Bolivia, on Aug. 23. Her national identity card says Flores Colque was born on Oct. 26, 1900, in a mining camp in the Bolivian mountains.

At 117 and just over 10 months, she would be the oldest woman in the Andean nation and perhaps the oldest living person in the world. In her long life, she has witnessed two world wars, revolutions in her native Bolivia and the transformation of her rural town of Sacaba from 3,000 people to a bustling city of more than 175,000 in five decades.

— Juan Karita / AP

Hanging on

A boy participates in mutton busting as he rides a sheep at the Snowmass Rodeo on Aug. 22, in Snowmass, Colorado. This is the 45th year for the rodeo, making it one of the longest running rodeos in Colorado.

This image was released by AFP this week.

— Alex Edelman / AFP - Getty Images

Dramatic rescue

A woman screams for help as she is caught in a rip tide before being rescued at Bronte Beach in Sydney on Aug. 30. Meteorologists issued a surf warning as massive waves continue to hit the coast.

— Jenny Evans / Getty Images

All the buzz

A man photographs bees as a swarm gathers in Times Square in New York on Aug. 28. A swarm of bees caused a brief commotion in the city after they made their home atop a hot dog stand. The NYPD's bee keepers unit responded to the scene and safely removed the bees.

— Brendan McDermid / Reuters

Class act

Children respond to a teacher at the Gyongsang Kindergarten in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 23.

— Carl Court / Getty Images

Queen of Soul

Aretha Franklin's casket is displayed at her viewing at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on Aug. 28. The late Queen of Soul was in a gold-plated casket dressed completely in red, including high-heeled pumps, proving, as one person put it, that she was a "diva to the end."

Mourners poured into the museum to pay their final respects to Franklin, who died Aug. 16 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. The two-day viewing was part of a week of commemorations for the legend, who will be laid to rest on Friday.

— Paul Sancya / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

Race cat

A cat wanders onto the track ahead of a race at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Aug. 25.

— Issei Kato / Reuters

Family ties

North and South Korean separated family members bid farewell to each other on the last day of a reunion at Mount Kumgang resort, North Korea, on Aug. 26. The reunions are the latest gesture of reconciliation between North and South Korea, as Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-in work to decrease tensions on the Korean Peninsula over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

— Yonhap via Reuters

Swimming piglets

A man wades through a flooded street with two pigs following Typhoon Rumbia at a village in Shouguang, China, on Aug. 23.

— China Daily via Reuters

Drug bust

Mexican soldiers destroy a marijuana plantation in Tecate, Baja California state, Mexico, on Aug. 28. During the operation, the army destroyed two plantations with a total surface area of 19,000 square meters and seized a clandestine laboratory of crystal meth.

— Guillermo Arias / AFP - Getty Images

Tree planting

First lady Melania Trump participates in a tree planting ceremony on the south grounds of the White House in Washington on Aug. 27. Joined by descendants of past presidents, Trump helped plant a sapling from an Eisenhower-era tree.

The White House says the 12- to 14-foot sapling came from the original Eisenhower oak that still stands, towering over an East Wing garden created by former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. It replaces a tree that groundskeepers removed after it was felled during a violent windstorm in March.

— Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

End of summer

Women lie in the sun in Brooklyn's Domino Park as high temperatures hit the region in New York on Aug. 29. Scorching temperatures stretched from Virginia to New England.

— Andrew Kelly / Reuters