Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years blanketed the heavily populated east coast Sept. 23 in a cloud of red Outback grit, nearly closed the country's largest airport and left millions of people coughing and sputtering in the streets. It also served as a backdrop for some amazing photos ...


Traffic makes its way over the Cahill Expressway near Sydney in the midst of a dust storm Sept. 23 that dumped thousands of tons of dust on the most populated city in Australia. "It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red glow coming through," Sydney resident Karen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. (Greg Wood, AFP / Getty Images)

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Soldiers from the U.S. Army Old Guard place flags at grave stones at Arlington National Cemetery May 21 in Arlington, Va., in preparation for Memorial Day weekend. It took 1,300 soldiers, sailors and Marines about three hours to place a flag at each of the more than 300,000 gravestones.

See all of this week's top photos in ...

Our friends at Switched.com have put together a very simple guide to buying a digital camera. Their post, 'Five Things to Consider Before Buying a Digital Camera' condenses what can be a pretty complex subject into five bullet points.

So if you're in the market for a new camera, check it out. The post touches on the size of the camera, including getting into the megapixel debate; the amount of control you want over making your exposures; taking a 'test drive'; and battery life considerations.

An amazing set of pictures from Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic, who was shooting pictures right next to a U.S. Marine engaged in a firefight, shows the Marine narrowly escaping death -- or at least what would have been an extremely serious wound. The Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit was engaging Taliban fighters after they opened fire near Garmser in Afghanistan's Helmand Province May 18. The Marine was not injured.



We ran one photo from this series in our Pictures of the Week photo gallery, but I thought that showing these photos as a group would give a sense of just how close this Marine came to being hit, and how instantaneously and irrevocably things can change in combat. Luckily this Marine escaped with his life.

The images, like this one, cause you to catch your breath:

Slightly blurry, but easy to read what's happening. The caption says, "A woman survivor tries to escape from the debris of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province May 12, 2008." You realize it's been hours and hours since this photo was taken, and you think of the fate of this woman, trapped amid tons of rubble from a collapsed building. How badly was she hurt? Did she make it? It's clear she's been trapped a while. It looks as if someone tried to give her comfort by placing a red pillow under her head.

A young woman reads a book at the opening of the Turin book fair, which honors Israeli writers, in Turin, Italy, May 8. The fair in the northern Italian city opened Thursday amid heavy security. (Massimo Pinca, AP)

This is the stock in trade of many daily photographers -- getting assigned to cover something as relatively mundane as the opening of a book fair. You draw that assignment and think, "You've got to be kidding me. I'm gonna have to go make a picture at a book fair? Great." And you wonder what you did to get on the wrong side of the assignment editor that day.

Then you get to the assignment and see possibilities in light. You think, "OK, I can work with this ... " And you wait for something to happen. And it does. Click.