Actor and activist Jesse Williams says he believes his efforts are making a difference but gives credit to those who inspire him, among them black women and the black LGBTQ community.
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Bubbles float over visitors during a New Year's Eve celebration event a Tokyo hotel. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave a speech at Pearl Harbor about the power of reconciliation in the waning days of 2016.
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President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for the media before a bilateral meeting at United Nations headquarters on Sept. 28, 2015.
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Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative columnist and Internet personality, confirmed that he has a book deal with Simon & Schuster, saying on his Facebook page: "They said banning me from Twitter would finish me off. Just as I predicted, the opposite has happened."
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A fence surrounds an estate in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, N.Y., on Long Island. On Friday, the Obama administration closed this compound for Russian diplomats, in retaliation for spying and cyber-meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual speech to the Federal Assembly at Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow in early December.
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Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper defeated incumbent Pat McCrory in a tight election. Cooper is seen here with his wife, Kristin, at an election night rally in Raleigh.
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Walter Shaub Jr. is the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, which tweeted last month about President-elect Donald Trump's conflicts of interest.
U.S. Office of Government Ethics
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Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer at a 2015 press conference. The two Democratic leaders are plotting out how to work with a Republican president and Congress next year.
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The river banks in Sunderland here were once home to shipyards, but like the city's coal mines, they disappeared. In June, the voters of Sunderland voted by more than 60 percent to leave the European Union, even though it would put tens of thousands of local jobs at risk.
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U.S. intelligence agencies maintain that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally authorized the hacking of Democratic officials' email accounts during the runup to the presidential election.
Toru Hanai/AP
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Edward Snowden speaks in September via video link from Moscow during a news conference with Human Rights Watch to call upon President Obama to pardon Snowden before leaving office.
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Former President Bill Clinton plays with balloons onstage at the end of the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia in July.
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