Good morning. Sam is away.

The U.S. launched a number of strikes against ISIS fighters in Nigeria who, the White House asserts, have been targeting Christians. The strikes involved missiles fired from a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea and hit insurgents in two ISIS camps. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, according to a U.S. military official.

We’ll have more news below. But first, we have a look back at the most powerful photographs that Times journalists captured this year.

The year in pictures

A president returned to power in America. Wildfires ravaged populated neighborhoods of Los Angeles. A fragile cease-fire took hold in Gaza. A conflict in Sudan wore on. Over the course of a turbulent year, photographers captured those and other events with intrepidness and determination — even when they put themselves at risk to do so.

Doggedly, they trailed a young mayoral candidate as he electrified his base in New York. In cities across the United States, they were on the front lines of an increasingly aggressive immigration crackdown.

In their bold photographs, they show their own neighbors eking out a life amid the rubble of their destroyed homelands. Their diligence allows us to peek inside a quiet vigil for a coyote returning to its pups, and to observe a tender hug between a boy and a man with 100 years between them. The images that make up “The Year in Pictures” are stunning.

Looking back on the year ​through ​those fleeting moments gives us a chance to reflect on the world, ​and to endeavor to understand it better. Here’s a taste of what The Times’s photographers have done.

Jan. 9: Los Angeles

A house destroyed by the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and engulfed thousands of homes. Once known for its stunning views, the Pacific Palisades area was left unrecognizable by the blaze.

Kyle Grillot of The New York Times says:

I was struggling to find something that wasn’t just completely destroyed, something that showed human life and habitation. Besides maybe one house that didn’t burn, it was kind of hard to tell what you even were looking at. I thought the pool was something you could relate to. Times were had there.

Jan. 19: Ilulissat, Greenland

Sea gulls swarmed a fishing boat in the Ilulissat Icefjord. Greenland was thrust into a geopolitical maelstrom when President Trump, covetous of the island’s untapped mineral resources, announced that the United States would take it over.

Ivor Prickett of The New York Times says:

Fishing was such a big part of the community, so I was trying to get a sense of what life was like for fishermen. It was so cold I could barely use my hands. It was a nice moment where I saw them gutting their catch, and every single sea gull in the fjord arrived. A beautiful place.

March 12: Khartoum, Sudan

The commander of a sniper unit in the Sudanese Army observing Rapid Support Forces positions from the bedroom of a deserted apartment. Two years into a civil war, Sudan’s military recaptured the presidential palace in the devastated capital.

Ivor Prickett of The New York Times says:

Just days later, those same troops we were with took over the river and presidential palace, and within two weeks it was all under the control of the Sudanese military. Declan Walsh [chief Africa correspondent] and I were some of the first journalists to set foot inside Khartoum proper. That was a huge moment and a privileged position.

May 10: Arcadia, Calif.

After the Eaton fire destroyed their campus, 40 students at Aveson School of Leaders came together to stage their spring musical, “Alice in Wonderland.” For children and their families grappling with loss and devastation, rehearsals provided much-needed normalcy.

Isadora Kosofsky of The New York Times says:

The play was really an escape for some of these kids. Losing a school is traumatic, but some of these kids lost their homes as well. Their school had been an oasis in the hills. It had a yurt and an orchard, and the kids used to garden and take care of chickens. It was their own wonderland.

May 12: San Francisco

Coyotes vanished from San Francisco decades ago, after a campaign that encouraged people to poison or shoot them. Now, the animals have become ubiquitous in the city once again. Some residents find them delightful; others view them with disdain.

Loren Elliott of The New York Times says:

I was working with a wildlife ecologist. We set up a camera and immediately retreated. I stood in the forest hiding behind a tree on top of a stepladder. I waited for four or five hours until one of the coyote parents came back. I just started furiously clicking the remote trigger in my hand, hoping I had something good.

July 16: Manhattan

Federal officers detaining Carlos Javier Lopez Benitez, a 27-year-old from Paraguay, after he attended an asylum hearing at the Federal Plaza courthouse. Migrants showing up for mandatory court dates and check-ins increasingly ended up in ICE custody.

Todd Heisler, a Times staff photographer, says:

Many of the detentions I photographed were so abrupt that we were unable to glean any information about the person. Often nearby family members were left reeling, sobbing, unable or unwilling to speak. Sometimes we could barely get a person’s country of origin as they were whisked off. Throughout the day, this tableau plays out over and over.

July 24: Kharkiv, Ukraine

A woman fled her apartment with her pet dogs after Russian bombs exploded nearby. Russia showed no signs of pulling back in its war, instead intensifying its long-range strikes on cities and attacks across the front line.

David Guttenfelder, a Times staff photographer

Aug. 4: Manhattan

Sophie Becker, 31, came to New York with dreams of becoming an actress. Years later, she’s putting on her ventriloquist act at downtown establishments like Jean’s and Roxy Cinema with her dummies Ronnie, pictured, and Jerry.

Dina Litovsky of The New York Times says:

I followed the ventriloquist from her house to her performance. The whole train was looking at her. She was doing a little performing, doing her voices and things. People were coming back from work, everybody was tired, and you could see how delighted everybody was. They probably came home and told everybody about it. It was a fun train ride.

Sept. 16: Baidoa, Somalia

Malyun Ali Ibrahim and her daughter at an emergency feeding center. Hunger and disease surged, and the health care system was in disarray in Somalia after the Trump administration dismantled the Agency for International Development and ended much foreign assistance.

Brian Otieno of The New York Times

Sept. 21: Khan Younis, Gaza Strip

Palestinians at the Al-Mawasi displacement camp waiting to receive a free meal. Leaders of 20 aid organizations issued a statement in September accusing Israel of obstructing aid delivery efforts in Gaza “every step of the way.”

Saher Alghorra of The New York Times

Sept. 30: Quantico, Va.

Top U.S. military commanders were summoned for campaign-style speeches from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Trump leveraged the meeting to trumpet his policy moves, and suggested troops should use cities as “training grounds.”

Doug Mills, a Times staff photographer, says:

This was almost like a Rembrandt when you looked out and saw all of this high-brass military sitting as stiff and straight and proper as you can. Never had that many generals been assembled in one location to hear the president speak. It was so striking to see them sitting in chairs like they were at the movie theater.

Oct. 14: Chicago

Smoke filled the air after federal agents used tear gas during a confrontation with residents on the far South Side. The agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation; locals reacted by throwing objects and shouting, “ICE go home!”

Jamie Kelter Davis of the Times says:

Most of the people there were families, and people out watching. I saw the tear gas, and I ducked and put on my gas mask. They were throwing canisters. That was right at the end, when the agents were trying to leave. It was like the grand finale at the fireworks show, like, We’ll just throw it all out there.

Nov. 11: Charallave, Venezuela

Deisy Carolina Venecia Farías and her son Emmanuel, 11. They were apart for nearly seven months after she was detained by U.S. immigration officials and deported; for three of those months, the boy lived alone in their Texas home.

Adriana Loureiro Fernandez of the Times says:

He’s her youngest son and they have this really beautiful relationship. They seemed like best friends. He was alone without his mom and dad for so long, he made himself go to school unsupervised. His mom told me he was intent on presenting himself as clean and organized so his teachers would not suspect that she wasn’t around.

Dec. 8: Damascus, Syria

Fireworks lit the sky over Syria’s capital as tens of thousands of people celebrated the first anniversary of the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad and the end of his family’s decades-long tyrannical rule.

David Guttenfelder, a Times staff photographer

Browse all the photos here.

Christmas

War in Ukraine

More International News

Weather

How much do you remember about Trump’s first year as president? Take Gail Collins’s quiz to find out.

Here is a column by Michelle Goldberg on the resistance against Trump.

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A retail phenomenon: A Paris boutique has become a favorite of fashion insiders in just six months.

Mix with the locals: Apple’s new Live Translation feature lives up to the hype, according to our reporter who tested it on a trip to Japan.

Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about some weird signs of aging.

$10

— That’s how much money one nonprofit pays annually for a 99-year lease on seven theaters in Manhattan. (There are 64 years left.)

N.F.L.: The Green Bay Packers clinched a playoff berth on Christmas Day when the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Detroit Lions.

Tennis: The seven-time Grand Slam singles winner Venus Williams married Andrea Preti, a Danish-born Italian actor and model.

These soft-baked Malawian sweet potato cookies, called mbatata, have a tender crumb with invigorating notes of black pepper, nutmeg and allspice. They’re made from sweet potato purée lightly folded with flour, butter, brown sugar, dried fruit and spices. They go perfectly with a warm cup of coffee or tea. An impossible-to-resist (but optional) lemon-sugar glaze adds an acidic bite. Try it out.

Film is a dying medium — if not in the artistic sense, then certainly in the physical one. Prints of films are delicate, susceptible to decay and cursed with a limited shelf life. And they’ve been mostly stowed away since digital formats took over in the early 2000s.

But not everyone is ready to give up. A Times reporter, Andrew Keh, found a group of film enthusiasts who assembled not long ago at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, N.Y., to watch a 35-millimeter reel of “American Psycho.” The reel belongs to Brian Darwas, who began collecting prints around 15 years ago and now has hundreds of them.

Read about how private collectors are keeping film alive.

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Hit the slopes in Park City, Utah. One of the ski destination’s main resort areas, Deer Valley, has more than doubled its terrain.

Steam your clothes. A good steamer can de-rumple creased, tired-looking duds in minutes, without the need for an ironing board.