Year in Pictures 2008 [Times]

The border fence between the United States and Mexico stretches across the Arizona desert, part of a US project to slow illegal immigration.

In pursuit of his seventh gold medal, US Swimmer Michael Phelps (left) races Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100M Butterfly. Phelps would push past his opponent in the final meter of the race, miraculously beating him by .01 second.

Hillary Clinton departs a campaign event in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Pope Benedict's Mass at Yankee Stadium is broadcast on a television in a bar in the Bronx.

British artist Damien Hirst is elevated above his workspace in Stroud, England. In September, an auction devoted exclusively to his work earned $198 million.

Emergency workers carry a wounded man out of a collapsed building in Mianyang, China, after it was destroyed by an earthquake in May.

A house is engulfed in flames as floodwaters and crashing waves inundate beach homes on Galveston Island as Hurricane Ike approaches the Texas Gulf Coast.

A tire burns atop a truck used as a makeshift roadblock in Kisumu, Kenya, after the town had been cleared of ethnic Kikuyus by armed mobs in January.

Congolese government forces stand guard along a road in the eastern Congo during renewed fighting in November.

A video of departing President George W. Bush plays at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Barack Obama is joined by his wife Michelle and aide Valerie Jarrett, among others, as he makes his way to a victory speech St. Paul, Minnesota. The speech would be his first after clinching his party's nomination in June.

Athletes competing in the men's road cycling event race past Tiananmen Square on the first day of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Tibetan Buddhist monks are detained by Nepali police during a protest outside the Chinese consulate in Kathmandu, Nepal. Pro-Tibetain protests gathered intensity in the spring as the Beijing Summer Olympics grew near.

Women and children walk past a Shi'ite shrine in Baghdad's Karrada District. In 2008, life in many parts of Iraq regained a semblance of normality.

Technicians gather around the re-entry module holding three Chinese astronauts after its return from space. During their mission, the astronauts carried out China's first-ever spacewalk.

Parents hold portraits of their children, killed by the collapse of a primary school in the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, China.