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20 Years Since Hurricane Katrina

August 29th 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast and the New Orleans suffered catastrophic flooding when protective levees failed. A humanitarian crisis developed when thousands of residents were trapped in the city and the Federal Government was slow in implementing relief.

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"La Causa" is the name given to the Delano grape strike, a labor movement that began in 1965 in Delano, California, led by Filipino and Mexican American farmworkers fighting for better wages and working conditions. This historic strike lasted more than 5 years and resulted in contracts for more than 10,000 workers. It launched the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) and made leader Cesar Chavez one of the most celebrated figures of the 20th century.

La Causa: The Delano Grape Strike...

August 29th 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast and the New Orleans suffered catastrophic flooding when protective levees failed. A humanitarian crisis developed when thousands of residents were trapped in the city and the Federal Government was slow in implementing relief.

20 Years Since Hurricane Katrina...

Acclaimed English actor Terence Stamp has died at the age of 87.

Terence Stamp: 1938 - 2025

On Tuesday, August 5, massive fires broke out in southern France, reaching 16,000 hectares — the largest fires in half a century. The fires destroyed 36 houses and burned around 20 agricultural buildings. Although the fire has now been extinguished, authorities are asking residents and tourists to remain vigilant in the area amid a red alert due to the heat wave. Patrick Zackman photographed the destruction caused by the fire, as well as firefighters still working a week after the blaze began

Wild Fires Ravage the South of...

Lorenzo Meloni

Tunisian photographer Zied Ben Romdhane travelled to Jordan in the beginning of August where he worked on assignment for Le Monde to document the preparation of food aid intended for aerial distribution over Gaza.

The photographer visited a textile manufacturing plant that produced the parachutes used for the air drop. There, he met Maji, an engineer who manages the plant. Maji told him that prior to manufacturing parachutes, the factory had produced hundreds of tents bound for Gaza. Although 1,500 tents had already been produced and delivered to Gaza via land, the Israeli blockade meant that around 500 tents were currently stockpiled.

Before the flight, Ben Romdhan photographed the preparation of aid organised by the UAE in coordination with international governments and joined a French military flight that dropped aid over Gaza. The aid contains basic food commodities such as lentils, white beans and rice. Each pallet weighs around 1,000 kg and consists of 50 kg bags. On average, one flight can transport up to 17 pallets. Ben Romdhan boarded a French military flight loaded with eight aid pallets and staffed by soldiers from the 1st Parachute Transport Regiment at the King Abdullah II Air Base, a Royal Jordanian Air Force base near Zarqa.

Aid Airdrops Into Gaza

In 1970, while a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Susan Meiselas was living in a boarding house at 44 Irving Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What began as a class project evolved into a deeply empathetic portrait of community domestic life. Meiselas photographed her neighbors in the building—many of them strangers—inside their rooms, initiating a collaborative exchange by sharing contact sheets and inviting written responses. These reflections appear alongside the photographs, offering insight into how her subjects saw themselves.

Boarding houses like 44 Irving Street were transitional spaces, yet Meiselas found individuality and self-expression in each room. Her portraits—full of personal detail and visual texture—reveal a rich inner life often hidden in shared housing. The handwritten letters act as a kind of written punctum, a counterpoint to the image that pierces the surface with honesty and introspection.

This early body of work helped shape Meiselas’s enduring approach to photography as a form of connection and dialogue. “It wasn’t about the formalism of photography,” she notes. “It was about the narrative and the connectivity.”

44 Irving Street, 1970–1971 marks the first time this complete series has been published in book form. The book includes two tip-ins: a photograph and a contact sheet from the original project.

TBW Books, 2025
66 pages, 46 plates
ISBN 978-1-942953-81-4

44 Irving Street, 1970-1971

American avant-garde theater director and artist Robert Wilson has died at the age of 83.

Robert Wilson: 1941 - 2025

Since April 2025, the sixteen statues around the spire of Notre-Dame, representing the twelve apostles and the symbols of the four evangelists, have been moved from the "Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine" and gradually returned to their original locations around the spire of Notre-Dame, after workers replaced damaged sections and cleaned away corrosion.

Starting on April 15, 2025, photographer Patrick Zackmann documented the transfer, arrival, and installation of the statues until the final one, representing Saint Thomas, was placed back on July 24. Currently hidden by scaffolding, all statues will be fully visible by the end of August.

The statues of Notre-Dame's spire...

On assignment for the New Yorker, photographer Rafal Milach documented the Hedgehog exercise in Estonia in May 2025, one of the largest military exercises in Estonia's history, involving over 16,000 troops from various NATO allies. More than seven thousand Estonian reservists and soldiers from NATO countries and allies - among which Sweden, France and the UK - joined forces to test the national and regional defense plans in case of a Russian invasion. The exercise focused on training key tasks of Estonian, enhancing cooperation and interconnectivity between allied units, and testing rapid deployment and combat readiness.

NATO's Military Exercise in Estonia...

In 1974, French archaeologist Françoise Claustre was kidnapped by rebel forces in Chad while exploring ancient tombs. Held for 33 months by Hissène Habré’s Maoist group, her captivity became a major diplomatic crisis. Her husband, Pierre Claustre, was also taken hostage after trying to negotiate her release.
In 1975, French photojournalist Raymond Depardon interviewed Claustre during her captivity. His images and documentaries, Tchad 2 and Tchad 3, aired on French TV and caused a public outcry.
Finally, in 1977, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi brokered a deal for their release. Years later, Depardon revisited the story in his 1990 film Captive of the Desert, inspired by Claustre’s ordeal.

The Claustre Affair

I AM STILL HERE - My Lens, is an online exhibition by Magnum photographer Newsha Tavakolian, in collaboration with The Salvation Army, Stop Trafficking Africa and the Hope Education Project, shedding light on the current human trafficking crisis through healing stories of West African women who have survived modern slavery.

Human trafficking remains an unresolved issue worldwide. According to the UNODC 2024 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, the number of victims of human trafficking increased by 25% to 74,785 in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, compared with the pre-pandemic levels. Of these cases, 61% involved women, most of whom were trafficked for sexual purposes. I AM STILL HERE - My Lens, aims to shine a light on a worldwide phenomenon that is often overlooked.

The largest proportion of trafficking originates from Africa, according to the same report. And around 15, 000 victims from Africa were in Europe and the Middle East between 2019 and 2024, but also in East Asia and North America.

While displacement, insecurity and climate change are increasing the vulnerability of people from the continent, poverty and economic inequality, coupled with weak institutional responses, push them to seek a better future elsewhere, engaging in labour migration. Meanwhile traffickers prosper — sometimes even within the victim's own family thanks to the same factors.

I AM STILL HERE - My lens, brings together the stories of survivors of human trafficking and modern slavery — from those who were promised a nursing education in the UK, to those who were lured to Dubai with false employment offers — who share their journeys from exploitation to recovery and empowerment. The project uses photography to share the testimonies of Theresa, Joy, Elizabeth , Grace, Wendy, Maryam, Jennifer, Lima and Layla. Through first-person accounts, the exhibition highlights their journeys to healing and empowerment after oppression, ensuring their dignity and agency are preserved throughout.

I AM STILL HERE - My Lens

Consisting solely of previously unpublished photographs, The Way Back is a deep dive through Bruce Davidson’s 60-year career. The book chronologically presents photos made between 1957 and 1992, showcasing Davidson’s exceptional versatility—from his earliest assignments to later seminal bodies of work including his year-long study of teenage members of a “Brooklyn Gang” (1959), his extensive coverage of the American Civil Rights Movement in “Time of Change” (1961–65), and his breakthrough portraits of the residents of a single block in Harlem in “East 100th Street” (1966–68). Series such as “Subway” (1980) and “Central Park” (1992) furthermore confirm Davidson as a quintessential chronicler of New York City.

Regardless of his motif, what emerges through this retrospective is Davidson’s overt sensibility and empathy for his subjects, his commitment to documenting them in depth over time, and to capturing their beliefs, communities and subcultures. Unlike his peers who photographed events that constituted history, Davidson focused on the people within these histories. Now, drawing near the end of his long career, Davidson offers this book as a parting look at his artistic passage, an elegiac goodbye as well as a requiem: evidence how his vision, experienced over decades, has shaped our understanding of the world.

Steidl, 2025
144 pages, 128 images
ISBN 978-3-96999-231-9

The Way Back

ZERO LINE

At the edge of silence and survival on a shifting front.

By Chien-Chi Chang

At 3:47 a.m. near the Dnipro River in Kherson, our BMP-2 jolted to a stop inside the zero line. Moments later, the thunder of 30mm autocannon fire erupted in rapid succession, each muzzle flash briefly illuminating the darkness like a lightning tracer. The blasts rang like a steel drum in my skull. The recoil rocked the vehicle. Just meters away, my fixer and I crouched in the dark, exposed, flinching with each concussion. It lasted less than a minute.

"Back in, now—move!" a soldier barked, and we lurched into motion, speeding away at 90 kilometers per hour through pitch-black, mined terrain. The engine roared. Metal clanged. Each jolt slammed through our spines, the hull a drumbeat of violence. We were sitting atop nearly 300 gallons of diesel and crates of unfired 30mm cannon rounds. The sense of vulnerability was suffocating. One rocket and everything would have gone up in flames.

Hours later, back at the base, the gunner told me we had been pursued by a Russian suicide drone. If we had been hit, the drone's explosive payload would have ruptured the tank. Such a strike would have jolted the diesel violently. Had we been hit, this story would have ended there. The gunner just grinned as if it were nothing unusual—a shrug toward fate more than fear. I didn't hear the drone. I only felt the speed, the urgency, the silence of men trained to survive. The blast of the cannon still reverberated in my ears. And after I was told what could have happened, a cold chill shot through my spine.

In March 2025, I embedded with the first battalion of Ukraine's 40th Brigade for multiple missions into the zero line, including two deployments to the Dnipro River. In each, four marines in ghillie suits, rifles slung, boarded a rubber boat with supplies to last a month. The river separates not just territories but worlds, both sides lined with death.

But while the frontline remained volatile, global focus began to shift.

In recent months, international attention has drifted elsewhere. The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran—marked by missile exchanges and retaliatory airstrikes—has drawn headlines and global political focus. The crisis threatens to ignite a broader regional war and drag in global powers, while monopolizing diplomatic bandwidth. This shift has deepened a sense of "Ukraine fatigue" in the international arena. Resources, media coverage, and political will have been diverted, even as the war in Ukraine has grown more deadly. Since early 2025, Russia has steadily reinforced its positions, escalating drone warfare and artillery strikes across multiple fronts, including civilian targets. These attacks are often silent until they have an impact, devastating in effect and corrosive to morale. The obligation of the press remains: to bear witness and to remind the world that this war is far from over.

And so, the zero line continues to evolve.

The zero line is not a single place—it's a shifting concept shaped by unit and terrain. For infantry, it might be the trench just beyond the tree line. For artillery, it's the edge of effective range. For special forces, it's deep inside enemy territory.

In Zaporizhzhia, it looks different than in Donbas. Along the Dnipro in Kherson, it's the riverbanks and islands—thick with mud, mines, and motion—where both sides operate within artillery range. There is no fixed map for the zero line. It moves like the war itself—and with it, the danger: sudden, relentless, and often unseen.

To cross it is to enter a space where hesitation can kill. There's no warning, no second chances. Just darkness, orders, and the sound of your breath as the vehicle lurches forward.

Operations like these only happen at night. No headlights, no flashlights—only dim tail lights on the Humvee pulling the rubber boat. The Humvee, equipped with drone jammers and driven by a soldier using night vision goggles, moves fast over treacherous terrain. These are moments when everything feels exposed: the soldiers, the machines, the terrain itself. You don't see the threat. You feel it moving somewhere beyond the reeds. Even in total darkness, the risk is palpable. The danger never fades.

During the day, the same soldiers train relentlessly. I watched them hammer river crossings, sprint through drills, and plant booby traps. They fired rocket-propelled grenades, launched mortars, and drilled for chaos. They studied digital maps and coordinates inside shattered buildings—preparing for missions that would unfold in darkness.

Between missions, they called family, checked Telegram, and washed clothes in makeshift bases. But mostly, they waited. Waited for the next mission. Waited for coordinates. Listened to orders. The rhythm of war is not constant fire. It's long stretches of silence broken by sudden movement. It's waiting, watching, and preparing. And in those long pauses, stories surfaced—some spoken, others carried in silence.

Khatab, a 42-year-old company commander, shared his story from the 2022 Kherson counter-offensive. His call sign, like many here, is all that can be used. Ordered to hold a strategic position with 100 men, he and his unit endured waves of brutal onslaught—shells whistling overhead, rifle and machine gun fire shredding the tree line, smoke choking the trenches. Reinforcements arrived two hours late. Before that, a radio message warned, "Two Russian tanks are moving toward you."

Khatab is a big man—190 centimeters tall, about 90 kilograms—with a big heart. Shrouded in smoke, his uniform soaked with sweat and dirt, he gave away two of his three remaining magazines to fellow soldiers. The air was thick with the metallic stench of blood and cordite. At one point, he was shot in the leg. He readied a grenade to kill any Russians who breached their lines. But rescue came. As he limped out, he stepped over the mangled bodies of comrades, the mud sticky with blood and ash. Of 100 men, only nine survived. Mid-sentence, his voice stuttered. His eyes welled.

He stepped outside for a smoke. The lighter's flick was barely audible over the silence that followed.

Bushido, a call sign, a weapon specialist trained by French and Estonian instructors in Poland, told me: "Two is one. One is none." When he's on a mission, he carries at least eight magazines, four tourniquets, a radio, IFAKs, grenades, water, drone jammers, and three flashlights. His kit is heavy, worn, and purposeful. When asked about preferred weapons, he shrugged. "The one in your hand is the best."

In the safe warehouse before each deployment, we waited in total darkness. Phones cast faint glows on tired faces—the hum of generators outside mixed with the distant thud of incoming and outgoing artillery. Inside, stillness reigned—shallow breaths, occasional coughs, the rustle of ghillie suits, the mewl of stray cats threading through shadows. Radio static crackled with updates from the command center.

The sense of abandonment is real. Trump floated ceasefire plans but slowly backtracked, leaving troops with nothing but commanders they trust. To them, politics is noise. Washington's mood swings—whether Trump's erratic promises or Europe's cautious diplomacy—feel distant. The only voice that matters is their commander's.

Outside, a Pathfinder sat ready. A drone scanner and walkie-talkie lay on the dash. But even these have limits. Many drones fly on undetectable frequencies, and fiber-optic suicide drones offer no warning. Unmanned warfare—drones in the air, on land, and at sea—has redefined this war. They scout, strike, and kill. Drone jammers are mounted on vehicles. Soldiers rebuild battery packs, craft bomb casings with 3D printers, and repurpose commercial gear.

Ukraine produced approximately 2 million combat drones in 2024, making it one of the world's most prolific manufacturers of drones. That number is expected to rise to 4.5 million in 2025 as the country ramps up domestic production to meet battlefield demand. On June 1, 2025, the Ukrainian military launched a meticulously planned operation that had been in the making for 18 months. Codenamed "Spider Web," the strike used concealed shipping containers to deliver 117 drones deep into Russian territory, targeting five airbases. At least 13 Russian warplanes were damaged, dealing a significant blow to Russia's air power.

On this battlefield, the enemy may be a signal, a shadow, a whirring sound above. The war is no longer fought solely by those holding rifles, but also by machines watching from the sky.

Before each mission, soldiers tested drone jammers, prepped 30mm belts for the BMP-2, and readied 57mm shells for the AZP S-60 anti-aircraft gun. Elsewhere, improvised aerial munitions—fire-starting, thermal, high-explosive—lay ready. Batteries were repacked for an extended range. Drone warfare is not a sideline. It is the war.

Yet despite the high-tech drone warfare, older Soviet-era weapons remain crucial on the battlefield. Ukraine makes use of everything it can get—repaired, repurposed, and fired.

The AZP S-60 is a Soviet towed, road-transportable, anti-aircraft gun from the 1950s, once widely used across Warsaw Pact countries. In Kherson today, it has been repurposed—mounted on trucks to fire across the Dnipro River. Designed to defend the skies, it now strikes ground targets. War adapts. So do the people.

On one mission, two AZP S-60s were set deep inside the zero line, locked in and ready to strike across the river. Then came the command: Abort! Abort! We scrambled back to the vehicle. Flashes burst across the distance. Seconds later, we heard rockets whoosh overhead and explode farther away. We tore away at full speed. The escape was as fast and chaotic as the setup had been meticulous.

A reminder: the zero line bends to its rhythm. Plans shift in seconds. Even the most carefully positioned weapons can be silenced by an incoming barrage. And then, just as quickly, another mission begins.

On the way to the zero line, we passed ruins: tangled irrigation pipes, collapsed homes, and smoke on the horizon. I thought it was a rocket. It was just a burning truck. But we knew the signs. A flash on the horizon means an incoming rocket. Light travels faster than sound. In a few seconds, a flying, buzzing, whirling lawnmower—an FPV drone—could smash into the field, followed by a bang-like sound as steel tears apart inside a furnace, echoing across the open terrain. But we kept moving. Faster. Lower.

Once, inside a rubber boat towed ashore, I saw soldiers scan the tree line while others covered them with rifles. They knew every crossing could be deadly. After returning to the safe warehouse, in total darkness lit only by dim red headlamps, they chain-smoked and drank water, pouring it over their heads. A ritual. A release.

Zero line is not just a title. It's what I saw, what I lived. It is the line between light and dark, between promises made and help withheld. Ukraine isn't fighting for symbolism. It's fighting to exist. It's the crunch of boots through ruined fields. It's the glow of a phone screen in a blackout safe house. It's the silence that precedes the launch of the rocket. Its memory is scraped raw by reality.

And memory alone is not enough. It must be brought to awareness, then to action. The next front is not just physical. It's personal. It begins with what we choose to see, remember, and resist.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I've made ten self-funded trips to the frontlines. What I witnessed there may well foreshadow Taiwan's future. Kherson and Taipei—strategically and existentially—are closer than they appear.

That sense sharpened on July 4, 2025, Russia launched its largest drone-and-missile assault since the war began: 539 drones and 11 missiles struck across Ukraine in a single day. The attack came just hours after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. While no direct link is confirmed, several outlets noted the timing. In Taiwan, the news barely registered. War fatigue has set in; few seemed to notice, or care. But as someone who has stood on the zero line—who has returned from the edge of life and death—that morning hit hard. The memories rushed back: the hum of drones, the trembling ground, the unbearable waiting.

Fearing Taiwan could meet the same fate, I returned to Austria and filed a petition to recall our legislators. This, too, is the burden—and duty—of being citizen Chang.

Zero Line

On August 6th and 9th, 1945 the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan: the only instances of nuclear weapons having been used in warfare. The combined death toll was estimated to be between 129,000 to 250,000 with half of the victims perishing during the months following the attacks.
This year's 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes during a time of geopolitical tension, with people looking to the past as proof of the horrors of nuclear warfare.

80th Anniversary of the Hiroshima...

In response to the current humanitarian crisis' endeavours, and to mark the Global Summit: Health and Prosperity through Immunisation, Magnum Photos and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance collaborated on a project to showcase the impact Gavi-supported vaccines are having around the world.

The resulting visual essays highlight the results achieved in the last 25 years, from the wholesome youth of today who have grown up free from disease to health workers braving conflict, from the excitement surrounding the rollout of malaria vaccines to the freedom celebrated by girls receiving a HPV vaccine.

Magnum storytellers shine a light on the human stories the humanitarian system helps create every single day, all around the world, helping to build a healthier, safer and more prosperous future.

Health and Prosperity through Immunisation...

As demonstrations continue in Los Angeles following a series of coordinated city-wide federal immigration raids on June 6, Carolyn Drake took to the city’s streets photographing protesters at and around the Los Angeles City Hall in its Civic Center district.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led a series of raids across Los Angeles, resulting in thousands of arrests, receiving widespread criticism from local officials, advocacy groups and activists for what is seen as the indiscriminate targeting of immigrant communities.
Large-scale demonstrations in Los Angeles and other cities in the USA followed, seeing violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement, including 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines deployed by the Trump administration to curb unrest — an act condemned as federal overreach by California state officials.

L.A protests against I.C.E.

Since 2023, Thomas Dworzak has been traveling along the Russian border, from Finland to eastern Kazakhstan, to assess the impact of the war in Ukraine on neighboring countries: their perceptions of and relations with Russia, the influence of the United States, and the evolution of their own national security policies after the invasion. Since Winston Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, the term has come to define the separation between Russia and the West, a way to examine the shifting ideological and geopolitical boundary between Russia and its influence on Eastern Europe, and these longstanding tensions with the West.

Covering military training, landscapes, museums, and ordinary moments of life, Dworzak explores each place with a specific geographical angle, linking each to its historical significance. Each of these countries has its specific complex history with Russia, and the war in Ukraine has moved people with a particular sentiment, whether it be independence or aggressivity towards Russia, like in the Baltics where volunteer military training is expanding, or a more tempered sentiment and assimilation of Russian culture such as in Kazakhstan.The photographer explores the tensions linked to a painful past, stretching back to Imperial Russia, and awakened again by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The New Iron Curtain - Ongoing...

On Saturday, October 7th, Israel was taken by surprise in an unexpected and severe cross-border assault by Hamas from Gaza, resulting in the initial deaths of 900 people. The BBC reported that included in this number were 260 individuals attending a music festival. With many still missing or abducted by Hamas in Israel, families are left desperately seeking information as the conflict unfolds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on Hamas, vowing to use “enormous force” by launching strikes in Gaza and imposing a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, freezing the flow of essential supplies. According to the BBC, as of October 9th approximately 690 people in Gaza had lost their lives and more than 120,000 had been displaced from their homes.

The result of this has triggered the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing in outside powers and echoing across the broader Arab region.

Israel and Palestine from the Archives...

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014, triggered by Ukraine's Maidan Revolution. Over the following eight years, the conflict escalated with naval skirmishes, cyberattacks, Russia's annexation of Crimea and support to pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukraine’s military in the ongoing Donbas War. In February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, deepening its occupation and igniting the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has caused a massive refugee crisis and led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

Magnum Photographers have been documenting the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, capturing scenes from the front lines and inside both countries, illustrating the impact of the war on people's daily lives. The selection below showcases our ongoing coverage in the region, which has spanned over a decade.

Russo-Ukrainian War

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