Best of 2008
American gymnast Nastia Liukin soars to a gold medal in the women’s all-around individual event at the 2008. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
A U.S. Marine traverses an opium poppy field in southern Afhanistan, where the mission includes working with farmers. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
Twenty-five people died and 135 were injured when Metrolink and Union Pacific trains crashed head-on in Chatsworth. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Hundreds of homes were lost in fires across Southern California, including a devastating blaze in a Sylmar mobile home park.
Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination in Denver; 68 days later, he would become the president-elect.
Protesters outside the Mormon temple in Westwood decry the church’s support of Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage.
A woman leads relatives to the building where her child died in Beichuan, China, after the devastating magnitude 7.9 quake.
Kenyans clamor for food in Nairobi, a typically chaotic scene in the weeks following the disputed presidential election.
The Dharavi slum is a teeming center of trade in Mumbai, India -- and subject of a dispute over the much-coveted land.
Cucapa Indian fishermen in Mexico crawl through mud to get home, one result of the declining flow of the Colorado River.