James Harkins, 72, refused to evacuate his home of more than 20 years and used a garden hose to combat the flames racing up the hillside toward his home. "Let it go up in smoke, " he quipped. "No, no, no. Not without a fight." Harkins welcomed the help of some firefighters who came to aid him. "What about my things, my memories, my things to pass on, he added. "It's mine. If it burns down I don't have a lot left."

A bull upends one of the thousands of participants in the annual Running of the Bulls during the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain. Every year there are dozens of injuries and 15 people have died during the event since 1910, when officials began keeping records.

Ryan Reyes, 32, center, breaks down immediately after learning his boyfriend was one of those killed during an ISIS-inspired terror attack in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead.  Reyes had waited all night for word of his fate and found out in a phone call the next morning. (Part of the 2016 Breaking News Pulitzer)

U.S. Marines take advantage of a clear day to pound an Iraqi target with artillery rounds after several days of being inundated by dust storms at the start of the war with Iraq.  

Los Angeles Galaxy's Landon Donovan holds up the championship cup after his team beat the New England Revolution 2-1 during the MLS Cup championship game at the StubHub Center in Carson. It was the last game for the Dovovan, considered by many as the best American soccer player of all time.

One of photojournalism's greats, Alfred Eisenstaedt, kisses the hand of Eddie Adams, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his famous photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon during the Vietnam War.  Eisenstaedt had just spoken to a group of aspiring photojournalists and was leaving to return to his home in New York City.

A young boy makes the best of a desperate situation by playing  around a rare rain puddle in Afghanistan's Maslakh refugee camp. Nearly a half a million internally displaced people endure brutal living conditions there on a daily basis.

When his stage hadn't arrived for a planned rally in Iowa because the delivery truck had struck a deer, Presidential candidate Barack Obama made use of a what was available to address the crowd.

Stella Anasogak carries her daughter Audrey Nashoalook, 1, through the few dirt streets of Wainwright, Ak. on her way home.  The city has few cars as most people either walk, use four-wheelers in the summer or snowmobiles in the winter. Wainwright, Alaska, with a population of less than 600 people, is already changing as Shell Oil began its drilling operations off the coast in the Chuckchi Sea.  The corporation has brought equipment and personnel into the Inupiat Eskimo community, which is primarily a whaling, fishing and hunting culture. Shell has spent billions of dollars trying to open up a new oil frontier in the Arctic with estimates of 90 billion barrels of oil to potentially be extracted there. 

Arvin Reyes, 31, was deployed to the Baghdad area with the U.S. Army during the "surge" in Iraq in 2007.  His convoy was attacked leaving 5 of his comrades dead.  Reyes, who was injured in the attack and suffers from PTSD ( post-traumatic stress disorder )  and TBI ( traumatic brain injury ), has been racked with guilt since the incident, during which he thinks he shot and killed one of his own troops.  His hazy recollection of the death of Shin Woo Kim, who authorities say was killed by an enemy hand grenade, has been a painful obsession for Reyes for the last 7 years. Reyes, shown sitting in his dark apartment where he spends most days, smokes marijuana daily to help curb his thoughts of the incident. 

U.S. Marines run through a graveyard while searching a nearby mosque for Iraqi insurgents after they came under fire during a mission in the besieged city.  

Hundreds of people waited for hours to exchange their guns for monetary gift cards at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Area.  Heaps of rifles, shotguns, handguns as well as assault weapons were sold to the Los Angeles Police Department in an annual event that was moved up in the wake of the recent school shooting in Connecticut that left more than two dozen people dead.

A rugged Skip Biker, 64, salvages his belongings from the Betty Boo, the day after Hurricane Frances caused the boat, which he lives on, to crash into a bridge during the height of the storm. Biker struggled to safety in the darkness after abandoning ship.  "The waves were busting all over me. " he said, "I don't know how I got out."

Los Angeles area neighborhood as seen from the Goodyear Blimp and photographed with a tilt-shift lens that is used to create a more narrow band of focus than a traditional lens.  "The Spirit of Innovation" Goodyear Blimp just began operating out of its Carson, Ca. base after the "Spirit of America" airship was retired from service in August 2015.  The blimp is used to carry passengers and also to provide aerial coverage of sporting events.  The blimp is 192 feet in length and can go as fast as 50 miles per hour.

One person counted in the 2016 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count makes use of a chair in an alley.  Dozens of volunteers fanned out around neighborhoods to collect data that will serve to paint a picture of the state of homelessness in Los Angeles county. 

A cowboy working for the Bureau of Land Management lassos a wild young mustang during a round up on BLM land.  Each year the BLM conducts wild horse roundups, taking thousands of free-roaming appaloosas, pintos, bays and roans are from the range to control animal populations and diminish damage to grazing lands, the agency says.   Animal advocacy groups are heavily engaged in trying to protect wild horses and blame the BLM for managing the populations toward extinction with aggressive roundups.  Critics of the roundups say the BLM often favors for-profit cattle ranchers that graze their livestock on the public land shared with the mustangs. The BLM currently holds 47,000 wild horses in government holding facilities at a cost of $42 million, far more than the 31,500 mustangs still left living in the wild.

President George W. Bush greets a frenzied, hat-waving crowd amid a downpour of confetti at the close of the Republican National Convention in New York City.  Despite engaging the United States in two wars, he won re-election over Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Patricia Corona, of Colton, Ca., holds her kids Dejah Salvato, 7, and Brandon Salvato, 9, as they attend a vigil to honor the 14 people killed and 21 injured in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca.  The vigil was held at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors headquarters.

A juvenile sea lion sits uncharacteristically on shore at the base of the Huntington Beach Pier at a time when the Pacific Marine Rescue Center issued a "state of emergency" after an astounding number of pups have washed ashore malnourished and in need of medical attention.

The Endeavour Space Shuttle inches through South Central Los Angeles to the delight of onlookers as it makes its way toward the California Science Center where it will remain on display.

Young migrants who have been caught crossing the border illegally flood the McAllen Border Patrol Station in McAllen, Texas where they are processed.  The station holds both men and women, and range in age from infants to adults.   More than 350 were being held here on this particular day.  Detainees are mostly separated by gender and age, except for infants.  Thousands of unaccompanied children have been apprehended while crossing the southwestern border, many fleeing the growing violence in Central America.