[December 26, 2012]    

Emergency crews comb through some of the damage after a severe storm hit Harrisburg. The severe pre-dawn storm pounded portions of southern Illinois. Several deaths were reported in Harrisburg, and the storm left the city's medical center scrambling to treat an influx of injured, the hospital's top administrator said.

AP photo by Paul Newton, The Southern Illinoisan

New York Mets third baseman David Wright throws out Chicago Cubs' Joe Mather at first to end the seventh inning of a baseball game in Chicago.

AP photo by Charles Rex Arbogast
 

 

Skydivers form a massive snowflake formation in Illinois. Three judges representing the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the international air sports agency, certified that 138 skydivers created the formation over Ottawa, about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. It took 15 attempts over three days for the team to break the previous record of 108 skydivers, which was set in 2009.

AP photo by Brian Buckland

A visitor walks next to a pumpkin sculpture, "Hansel and Gretel," during preparations for the autumn exhibition "Fantastical Fairy-Tale World" at the Erfurt Garden Construction Exhibition, known as the EGA, in Erfurt, central Germany. At the event, gardeners portray fairy tales with more than 20,000 pumpkins. The horticultural exhibition ended Oct. 31.

AP photo by Jens Meyer

 

Fans watch as Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Kevin Ogletree celebrates scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the New York Giants in East Rutherford, N.J.

AP photo by Bill Kostroun


In this photo from Oct. 9, 2008, actor Larry Hagman listens to a reporter's question while visiting the Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas, made famous in the television show "Dallas." Hagman, who for more than a decade played villainous patriarch J.R. Ewing in the TV soap "Dallas," died at the age of 81, his family said.

AP photo by Tony Gutierrez

Zookeepers at Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England, do a health check on a 10-day-old Rothschild giraffe, watched by its mother, named Dagma. The calf was yet to be named.

AP photo by Martin Rickett, PA


This January 1983 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith posing in Los Angeles to promote his CBS-TV film, "Murder in Coweta County." Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an enduring TV favorite, died in Manteo, N.C., at age 86.

AP file photo by Wally Fong