Top photos of the day for Dec. 21, 2014

A collection of our picks for top photos from around the nation and world today:

The Rev. Shalom Hazan, foreground, takes a selfie as Mr. Mossi Fadlun lights the candles on the top of a giant menorah celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, in Rome on Sunday. | AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino

A large balloon (top) of a face of “ojisan”, a middle aged man, is illuminated with LED lights as it floats above the grounds of Nishiki elementary school in Utsunomiya in Tochigi prefecture, 100km north of Tokyo. Members of art group “Me”, meaning “eye” in Japanese and the Utsunomiya Museum of Art launched an art installation “The Day an Ojisan’s Face Floated in the Sky”, a 15-meter by 10-meter face balloon of the depicted man, who was auditioned in the city, looking down on his home town from the sky. | Getty Images

Malaysian women sit during the 1600 Pandas World Tour in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 1600 pandas made by French artist Paulo Grangeon jointly with WWF with recycled paper are being exhibited in Kuala Lumpur. The paper-made panda exhibition aims at advocating more people to participate in protecting endangered animals. | Samsul Said/Getty Images

A trainer tends to Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel after he was injured during their game against the Carolina Panthers. | Grant Halverson/Getty Images

New England Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola is tackled by New York Jets free safety Calvin Pryor. | Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Antek Marciniec walks along a slackline as he highlines between two cliffs at Diamond Bay in Sydney, Australia. Slacklining is a balance sport in which participants walk on a flat nylon webbing anchored between two points with the tension adjusted to allow for slack, providing an experience similar to that of walking on a trapmoline. Highlining is a style of slacklining where the two anchor points are set up with significant elevation from the ground or water. | Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

A boy walks near the Savur Mogila monument to Red Army soldiers fallen during World War II near the eastern Ukrainian city of Snizhnee. The memorial complex, built in 1963 to commemorate a 1943 World War II Soviet battle, was reduced to rubble after battles between Ukrainian forces and separatist soldiers of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic to take and re-take the strategic position in the summer of 2014. The 30m-high structure, on top of the 300m-high hill was destroyed on August 21. | Getty Images