World Press Photo contest winners were announced today, see the gallery here.
Coming from a photojournalism background, I'm always intrigued by their annual picks especially compared to, say, a U.S.-based contest like POYi or (god forbid) NPPA BOP. There seems to be a marked distinction btwn. the American and European sensibilities that is quite evident in the results. In many ways a contest like POYi tends to be a bit predictable (and NPPA especially so). There's no doubt the work is compelling and top-notch, but it seems like the same names show up, and the same general pictures get rewarded, year after year (but again, many of them are often the photographers at the top of the game so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise...?)
I always look to World Press for a different view and photographers who are really telling stories in unique ways. A few works that really stood out to me in this year's crop:

--the 1st and 2nd place Sports Feature Story winners: Copenhagen Marathon pictures by Danish photographer Erik Refner (a frequent name in World Press, including Photo of the Year in 2001), and my Redux colleague Erika Larsen's beautiful project about child hunters. The decision to award Refner's images ahead was, well, an interesting decision let's just say. I love Refner's project, its a very coherent, stylized and quirky look at a potentially redundant subject (a marathon? people running?), but I still have hard time w/ it sitting above Erika's.

--the 1st place Daily Life Story of Kitezh, Russia, by Dutch photographer Pieter ten Hoopen. Again very stylized but definitely not at the expense of content. His 3rd image in the sequence really echos one from Josef Koudelka's famous Gypsy series.