A rare annular eclipse - a ring of sunlight as the new moon, passing between Earth and sun, blocks most, but not all, of the sun's disc. It is striking to see. Differing from a total solar eclipse, the moon in an annular eclipse appears too small to cover the sun completely, leaving a ring of fire effect around the moon. The eclipse cast its shallow path crossing the West from west Texas to Oregon then arcing across the northern Pacific Ocean to Tokyo, Japan. (Thanks to all Big Picture viewers for sending us your images of the eclipse.) -- Paula Nelson (49 photos total)

Thousands of images are supplied by multiple wire services to newspapers across the country each day. Many of those images depict ordinary scenes of life in different countries around the world. There are three picture editors that contribute to the Big Picture blog, each of them seeing the world in a little bit of a different way. Their backgrounds, their experiences, their interests - all very disparate. Each of them given the same resources (the visual wire) to edit from, each choosing very different ways to tell a story. The following photographs are my choices of those images for the month of May (and a few from late April) illustrating daily life around the world. -- Paula Nelson (53 photos total)

It's something often ignored unless it's annoying, harnessed for sport or energy, the cause of great damage, or sometimes used for fun. Wind is simply defined as "a natural movement of air of any velocity." Here is a collection of images showing its effects on us and nature. -- Lloyd Young(40 photos total)

A potentially catastrophic food crisis in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa could affect as many as one million children. The food and nutrition crisis resulting from a severe drought, threatens the survival of an entire generation of children. Those children in eight countries - Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal - are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. Sparse rainfall, poor harvests and rising food prices have left many vulnerable and weak, seeking medical attention. Sahel is one of the poorest regions in the world where children already face daunting odds of survival. The current crisis makes their survival even more tenuous. Associated Press photographer, Ben Curtis, documented the conditions in the region. -- Paula Nelson (EDITORS NOTE: We will not be posting Monday, May 14) (32 photos total)

Russia and former Soviet republics marked the 67 years since the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II today. Russia's newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin promised a strong Russia during a speech he delivered during a military parade at Red Square in Moscow. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 26 million people in the war, including 8.5 million soldiers. -- Lloyd Young (31 photos total)

The night sky on May 5 was animated by the once-a-year cosmic event of the perigee moon. Popularly known as the "Supermoon", the moon appears much larger above us when the elliptical orbit brings it within 221,802 miles to Earth, the closest point. The effect is magnified during a full moon, when we see our nearest celestial neighbor appear roughly 20 percent brighter and 15 percent larger. Collected here are images taken just before, during, and just after the perigee moon of 2012. -- Lane Turner (27 photos total)

With well over a year before American forces pull out of Afghanistan, the conflict there drags on. Every month in The Big Picture, we feature a selection of recent images of events there, from the soldiers and insurgents at war, the people longing for peace, and daily life and culture in the country of 29 million. Afghanistan remains among the world's poorest nations, and struggles with issues not found in other places, like an ongoing fight against polio. Afghanistan still supplies about 90% of the world's opium, a major cash crop in a country with few viable exports. Gathered here are images from April, 2012. -- Lane Turner (33 photos total)

May Day was marked once again around the globe with political protests and demonstrations by organized labor. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which formed last year in New York, used the day to spread its message of social and economic inequality. Also known as International Workers Day, May 1 is marked in different ways around the world, and in many countries May Day is observed as a national holiday. This celebration of the international labor movement stemmed from a deadly 1886 labor demonstration in Chicago calling for an eight-hour workday. -- Lloyd Young(39 photos total)

Photojournalist Diana Markosian spent the last year and half covering Russia's volatile North Caucasus region. This year she started a personal project entitled "Goodbye My Chechnya" documenting the lives of young Chechen women as they come of age in the aftermath of war.  She writes, "For young women in Chechnya the most innocent acts could mean breaking the law.  A Chechen girl caught smoking is cause for arrest; while rumors of a couple engaging in pre-martial relations can result in her killing.  The few girls who dare to rebel become targets in the eyes of Chechen authorities.  After nearly two decades of vicious war and 70 years of Soviet rule, during which religious participation was banned, modern-day Chechnya is going through Islamic revival. The Chechen government is building mosques in every village, prayer rooms in public schools, and enforcing a stricter Islamic dress code for both men and women. This photo essay chronicles the lives of young Muslim girls who witnessed the horrors of two wars and are now coming of age in a republic that is rapidly redefining itself as a Muslim state."  Markosian, who is based in Grozny, reports that "It has been quite challenging working as a female photojournalist in Chechnya. The region is undergoing significant change as Islam flourishes. The Chechen government is trying to adopt Islamic law and strengthen Chechen traditions. The attitude towards women becomes more conservative and tradition-based. Females are considered submissive and are expected to act demurely in the presence of men.  This naturally makes it difficult to operate as many officials in male-dominated Chechnya don't take women seriously. It's something I try not to take personally and instead find ways to work around. There's also a certain level of fear you have when working and living in a region as unpredictable as the North Caucasus. Something I am still trying to get used to:  my phone conversations are listened to. I am often followed on my shoots by federal security forces; my images have been deleted and I've been detained now more than a dozen times."  Gathered here are images from the last several months of Markosian's reportage on the state of young women in Chechnya, a Russian republic of 1.3 million. -- Lane Turner (33 photos total)

After 10 years of civil war, Sierra Leone is at peace. Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted April 26 by an international tribunal of 11 counts of planning, aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during it's civil war in the 1990s. Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers. Prosecutors alleged that Taylor, from his base in neighboring Liberia, directed and armed the rebels and because of that, bears direct responsibility for the results of that war. The eleven-year conflict (from 1991-2002) left more than 50,000 dead and was marked by unprovoked and unjustified violence - especially the amputation of limbs. Sierra Leone is peaceful, a decade later, but is among the world's poorest countries, with a much longer recovery in store. Reuters' Photographer Finbarr O'Reilly gives us a glimpse of life in the West African nation today. -- Paula Nelson (28 photos total)