Alpacas in a Berlin care home and Maasai festival: The Guardian's photos of the day

The Guardian's picture editors selected twelve photographs from around the world for their Friday edition, published on 13 November 2026, and the lead image shows alpacas visiting residents in their rooms at a care home in Berlin. Nadja Wohlleben's photograph for Reuters documents a project intended to provide companionship and bring joy to residents' daily lives.

The selection spans four continents and moves between ceremony, protest and aftermath.

What does the day's news look like?

Politics and conflict. In Dublin, Canada's Mark Carney and France's Emmanuel Macron welcome Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Britain's Andy Burnham as they arrive at a summit on Ukraine — the ninth meeting of the European Political Community. Thomas Samson photographed the scene for AFP/Getty. In Kyiv, Alessio Mamo's photograph for The Guardian shows the aftermath of an overnight Russian drone attack on a medical facility. In Tokyo, Andrew Caballero-Reynolds captured a man working at an outdoor station near the Microsoft offices after efforts to repair a major outage.

Climate politics in Turkey. Two images come from Antalya, where Cop31, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, is under way. Ozan Köse photographed the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg at a demonstration called Kick Big Polluters Out, held outside the venue. Nearby stands a Trojan horse installation by Greenpeace International and the Danish artist Thomas Dambo, photographed by Kaan Soyturk for Reuters, intended to draw attention to the fossil fuel industry's expansion into plastics. The installation is the clearest art-world presence in the set: a large-scale sculpture deployed as political argument on the conference fringe.

Pope Leo XIV in Peru. Ernesto Benavides photographed a group of nuns shopping at a store selling a dessert called KingPapa in Chiclayo, northern Peru, ahead of a visit by Pope Leo XIV. In Lima, Luis Acosta caught the pope waving from a car as he left a prayer vigil with young people and university students at the National Stadium.

What carries the day visually?

Culture and celebration. Luis Tato's photograph from the Maasai Mara in Kenya shows community members in ceremonial attire for celebrations during a cultural festival — the image that gives the gallery its headline. In Las Vegas, Mario Anzuoni photographed Rosalía performing at the 27th Annual Latin Grammy awards show. In Varanasi, India, Niharika Kulkarni's image shows students from a Hindu religious school walking past a mural of the god Shiva at Assi Ghat.

The Berlin alpaca photograph leads the gallery for a reason: it pairs warmth with documentary purpose. The Kyiv image closes the frame. Whether the mix of ceremony and destruction reads as balance or as juxtaposition is left to the viewer; the editors offer no commentary beyond the sequence itself, and the series continues daily.