Photos from around the world: Bracing for a hurricane, opening schools, amid pandemic

Aug. 26, 2020 at 4:08 pm Updated Aug. 26, 2020 at 4:08 pm

Nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Saint Teresa of Kolkata, distribute food to homeless people and others in need in Kolkata, India, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020. Wednesday marked the birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, a Catholic nun who spent 45 years serving the poor, the sick, the orphaned and the dying. (Bikas Das / The Associated Press)

Entrepreneur Jocimar Alves da Costa looks out at Copacabana Beach from the hotel room he’s using as an office at the Rio Othon Palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday. Hotel operators are offering hotel rooms for office space, aimed at enticing workers who need a home office without distractions, hoping to offset the sharp decline in tourist revenue. (Silvia Izquierdo / The Associated Press)

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson sits with pupils during a visit to Castle Rock school on the students’ first day back, in Coalville, England, on Wednesday. Following mounting pressure to change tack, the British government decided late Tuesday to ditch its advice that high school students in England don’t need to wear face masks while at school. In another in a series of abrupt coronavirus-related policy changes, the government said children in secondary schools, those above age 11, and those in areas under local lockdown rules will have to wear face masks when moving around corridors and communal areas. (Jack Hill / The Associated Press)

A woman walks past a coronavirus-themed mural honoring health and other essential workers, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020. The mural reads, “Our body and soul for the country.” (Dita Alangkara / The Associated Press)

Two women, wearing masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus, take escalators at North train station in Brussels, on Wednesday. Face masks are mandatory in Brussels in all public spaces. (Francisco Seco / The Associated Press)

French Prime Minister Jean Castex, left, greets former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta at the MEDEF business union summer forum, at the Paris Longchamp racetrack in Paris, Wednesday. Castex urged his compatriots to wear masks more but insisted that rising infections across the country are “nothing to panic about” and that it’s time for people to get back to work and school and “cultivating themselves.” (Gonzalo Fuentes / The Associated Press)

First-grade teacher Jessica Johnson asks students if they’ve been sick or near anyone who’s been sick before the start of the first day of school at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School Wednesday in De Pere, Wisc. (Sarah Kloepping / The Associated Press)

A medical worker in a booth takes samples from a woman for a COVID-19 test at a makeshift clinic in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. Health officials in South Korea called on thousands of striking doctors to return to work as the country counted its 13th straight day of triple-digit daily jumps in coronavirus cases. (Ahn Young-joon / The Associated Press)

Buddhist monks wearing face masks to help protect against the spread of the coronavirus leave after a service at the Chogyesa Temple in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. (Ahn Young-joon / The Associated Press)

A Palestinian man wears a face mask as he walks next to Hamas police officers guarding the entrance of the Shifa Hospital, where the first coronavirus cases in Gaza were discovered earlier this week. Gaza health officials have reported the first death from COVID-19 since authorities detected community transmission. (Khalil Hamra / The Associated Press)

Wearing a mask to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Patricia Gomez in Mexico City sells homemade shirts in front of a business that has been shuttered for almost six months, since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. Gomez says she has two children to feed and has to make ends meet, and sells even if the city government has banned street peddlers because of the lockdown. (Marco Ugarte / The Associated Press)

Cemetery workers carry the coffin of Wilson Gil, who family members say died of COVID-19-related complications, to a burial site at the Martires 19 de Julio cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on Wednesday. The South American country has the highest number of new coronavirus infections in Latin America after Brazil. (Martin Mejia / The Associated Press)

Ball attendants wear masks as they watch matches during the quarterfinals at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament Wednesday in New York. (Frank Franklin II / The Associated Press)

State Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, sits at her desk surrounded by plastic partitions during a session in the temporary Virginia Senate chamber inside the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, Va., Wednesday. Sen. Chase stated that she would not wear a mask to the session, resulting in the partition being added. (Bob Brown / The Associated Press)

Nurses take part in a march for NHS workers at hospitals across London, demanding the government give them a 15% pay raise on Wednesday. (Kirsty Wigglesworth / The Associated Press)

People show their wrist band identifications as they line up to board buses to evacuate Lake Charles, La., on Wednesday, ahead of Hurricane Laura. (Gerald Herbert / The Associated Press)

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left, and Oleg Tulea, minister of foreign affairs and European integration of Moldova, greet each other before their talks, in Kishinev, Moldova, on Wednesday. (Cem Ozdel / The Associated Press)

Port Arthur firefighters on Wednesday check the temperatures of people arriving at the civic center in Port Arthur, Texas, where evacuation buses wait, on Wednesday. Hurricane Laura is expected to make landfall in the area Wednesday night or early Thursday. (Eric Gay / The Associated Press)

At Dayton Elementary School in Dayton, Washington, Jamie Finch adjusts her daughter Bertha’s face mask as she shows up for third grade on Wednesday. School began on a split schedule in the district, with some students starting Tuesday and some on Wednesday. (Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP)

A macaque mother prepares to raid a roadside stall for a packet of crisps in Dharmsala, India, on Wednesday. Due to the reduced human activity, this Himalayan town is seeing a growing number of monkeys and other wild animals. (Ashwini Bhatia / The Associated Press)

By

Courtney Riffkin

Seattle Times photo staff

Courtney Riffkin: 206-464-2203 or criffkin@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @SeaTimesPhoto.

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