The Week in Pictures: Nov. 18 - 25, 2016 - NBC News

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1. Starlings gather in a murmuration on Nov. 25, 2016 in Gretna, Scotland. The birds' movements are so well coordinated that murmurations are often compared to a dancing cloud.
Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images





2. An oil worker walks next to burning oil fields in Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq, on Nov. 22. For months, residents of Qayara have lived in the darkness under a cloud of toxic fumes after oil fields were set on fire by retreating ISIS fighters.

Felipe Dana / AP





3. Police use a water cannon on demonstrators protesting the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota on Nov. 20.

The pipeline, which is already more than 70 percent completed, is a $3.7 billion project that would transport 470,000 barrels of oil a day across four states. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe see the pipeline as both an environmental and cultural threat to their homeland.

Stephanie Keith / Reuters





4. Tater and Tot, the National Thanksgiving Turkey and its alternate, are presented to members of the media on Nov. 22 at the Willard Hotel in Washington. The two turkeys were granted the traditional Thanksgiving pardon by President Obama on Wednesday.
Win McNamee / Getty Images





5. A Spongebob SquarePants Balloon is navigated along the route of the 90th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

Erik Pendzich / REX/Shutterstock





6. U.S. military personnel wait in line for Thanksgiving dinner at a coalition air base in Qayara south of Mosul, Iraq, on Nov. 24.
Felipe Dana / AP





7. Shoppers reach out for television sets as they compete to purchase retail items on Black Friday, Nov. 25, at a store in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Nacho Doce / Reuters





8. President-elect Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos pose for a photo after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club on Nov. 19 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey.

Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration.

Trump picked DeVos to be his education secretary Wednesday, putting an outspoken advocate of charter schools and school vouchers in America's top education post.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images





9. President Obama awards television host Ellen DeGeneres the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Nov. 22.

For the last time during his tenure in office, President Obama bestowed the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on a distinguished array of American icons on Tuesday. It was a star-studded affair filled with luminaries from a broad range of fields spanning the arts, sports, philanthropy, education, science and mathematics.

Michael Reynolds / EPA





10. Indigenous children from the Kaingang ethnic group dance during a protest of indigenous people at the entrance of the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Nov. 22. Protesters demanded that their ancestral lands be protected from agribusiness.

Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters





11. A Syrian girl cries as she's carried into a makeshift hospital following a reported government airstrike on the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on Nov. 25.

Douma, a town of more than 100,000 residents, is surrounded and regularly shelled by regime forces.

Abd Doumany / AFP - Getty Images





12. Rescuers work at the site after 14 coaches of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village in Uttar Pradesh, India, on Nov. 21. At least 104 people were killed in the derailment.

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP





13. Children play soccer as oil wells, set ablaze by retreating ISIS fighters, burn behind them in the town of Qayyarah, south of Mosulm on Nov. 20, 2016.

Locals say the face a range of health issues from the fires, including breathing difficulties, and shepherds said they could not sell their livestock as the sheep's fleece was blackened by smoke.

Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images





14. Huge waves crash on the San Esteban de Pravia seafront in the northern Spanish region of Asturias on Nov. 18.

Eloy Alonso / Reuters