New York ? The Los Angeles Times captured five Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for coverage ranging from devastating wildfires in its back yard to a civil war on the other side of the globe — the second-most awards ever won by a newspaper.

Coverage of the war in Iraq led to two prizes: Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post for international reporting, and David Leeson and Cheryl Diaz Meyer of The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography.

The New York Times won the public service award for a story by David Barstow and Lowell Bergman about worker safety at a company where lax enforcement allegedly contributed to thousands of injuries and some deaths. The Wall Street Journal claimed a pair of Pulitzers: one for explanatory reporting by Kevin Helliker and Thomas M. Burton on aneurysms and a second for beat reporting for Daniel Golden’s stories on admission preferences given to the children of alumni and donors at U.S. universities.

The Los Angeles Times’ five prizes were exceeded only by The New York Times’ seven awards in 2002 — most of those related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Prior to that, no publication had won more than three Pulitzers in a single year.

The Los Angeles Times won Pulitzers in criticism; editorial writing; feature photography, for Carolyn Cole’s coverage of citizens caught in the crossfire of the Liberian civil war; breaking news and national reporting, a three-part series about the rise of Wal-Mart and its effect on economies around the world.

The Blade, based in Toledo, Ohio, claimed its first Pulitzer, winning for an investigative report by Michael D. Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr about an elite U.S. Army platoon accused of killing unarmed Vietnamese civilians in 1967.

The commentary award went to Leonard Pitts Jr. of The Miami Herald for his “fresh, vibrant columns that spoke, with both passion and compassion, to ordinary people on often divisive issues.”

“I’m going to Disney World,” Pitts joked after thunderous applause in the newsroom.

The board made no award in the feature writing category — the first time since the category was added in 1979 that an award was not given.

Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole is this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. Her submission for the contest included this photo, of displaced children lining up for food at a school complex in Monrovia, Liberia.

Each prize is worth $10,000, except for public service, which is recognized with a gold medal.

The awards are given by Columbia University on the recommendation of the 18-member Pulitzer board.