The Week in Pictures: Sept. 12 - 19

A man wades through floodwaters caused by heavy rain spawned by Tropical Depression Imelda in Patton Village, Texas, on Sept. 19, 2019.

Imelda brought driving rains to Louisiana and southeast Texas on Thursday, prompting evacuations and inundating many of the same communities ravaged by Hurricane Harvey two years ago.

Greta Thunberg, a climate activist from Sweden, speaks on Capitol Hill on Sept. 18.

The teenager implored Washington lawmakers on Wednesday to take climate science seriously. The self-described introvert spoke slowly and carefully, and said she was declining to provide prepared remarks, as is customary. Instead, she offered members of a Foreign Affairs subcommittee and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis a 2018 global warming report from a United Nations science panel.

Photos: Climate change protesters take to the streets around the world

Richard, a 34-year-old father of two and Ebola survivor, inside his bedroom in Beni, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on Sept. 17.

Richard's wife died of Ebola earlier this year. 

A tree stands in a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Brazil, on Sept. 17.

A tract of Amazon jungle burns while being cleared by farmers in Rio Pardo, Brazil on Sept. 15.

In Brazil alone, more 2,400 square miles of the Amazon have been deforested this year, an area larger than the U.S. state of Delaware.

Former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Mark Sanford speaks to reporters with a cardboard cutout of President Donald Trump during a campaign stop at the state house in Columbia, S.C., on Sept. 16.

A kayaker paddles through morning mist on Pigeon Lake in Kawartha Lakes in central Ontario on Sept. 17.

An Asian hornet flies in Loue, northwestern France, on Sept. 14.

New U.S. citizens take the Oath of Allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in New York on Sept. 17.

Hailing from 33 different countries, 50 people officially became new U.S. citizens at the ceremony.

General Motors auto workers picket outside the company's plant in Flint, Mich., on Sept. 16.

Tens of thousands of auto workers across the country went on strike Sunday night after negotiations faltered between their union and General Motors.

A pelt from a caribou is left out to dry on Sept. 11 in Kivalina, Alaska.

The hunters in the village say they've seen the migration patterns of fish, caribou, seal and whale they need for the long winter months change due to the warming weather.

Police fire water canons at protesters who blocked roads and threw petrol bombs outside government headquarters in Hong Kong on Sept. 15.

The demonstrations are the latest in nearly four months of sometimes violent protests. Protesters are furious over what they see as creeping interference by Beijing in Hong Kong's affairs despite promises by Beijing to grant the city wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms denied in mainland China.

Protesters form a human chain in Hong Kong on Sept. 13.

The initial trigger for the protests was a contentious extradition bill, now withdrawn, that would have allowed people to be sent from Hong Kong to mainland China for trial.

The protests have since broadened into other demands including universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into allegations of excessive force by the police.

Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., talk during the third Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston on Sept. 12.

The Week in Pictures: Sept. 5 - 12