USA Artistic Swimming intermediate teams practice drills at the Junior Olympics on July 2, 2021, at the Air Force Academy Cadet Natatorium in Colorado Springs.
Roger Hornback waits for a police officer he called to arrive to a Menards home improvement store after the center refused to accept bottles for beverage deposits. Hornback, a former maintenance and auto mechanic of 20 years, has trouble finding work after undergoing brain tumor surgery in 2000. Iowa Code 455C requires retailers to take back empty containers, though many impose lower returns or refuse cans. With only one redemption center in the city, Hornback said, "This is what I get by on other than food stamps."
Mourners gather outside Club Q, a gay club in Colorado Springs where five people were murdered and 25 others were injured in November 2022. In June 2023, the shooter pled guilty and was sentenced to five consecutive back-to-back life terms.
Mirror, 5, covers herself in mud on June 29, 2021, in Denver during Clayton Early Learning’s first celebration of International Mud Day in almost five years.
Jenny Chen helps her 9-year-old daughter, Ida, remove a loose baby tooth in the kitchen of Panda Garden, the family's Chinese restaurant in Bettendorf, Ia. After immigrating from China to New York, the Chen family relocated to Iowa in 2009, opening the restaurant where aIl four family members help run the eatery.
Chryss Cada relaxes in her yard in Fort Collins after microdosing psilocybin on July 15, 2022. Cada was 12 years old when her brother, Mark took his own life at age 15. Cada has since looked for ways to relieve anxiety and depression into her adult life. “I had trauma. And I’ve tried everything,” Cada said. “This has helped me and I think it can help other people. It really does clear your mind, it puts things in perspective.” Cada’s typical mushroom dose ranges from 0.15 to 0.4 of a gram, three to four times a week.
Myra S. helps adjust Annetta Miller, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2010 and quadriplegic since 2016. Miller, a former head of drug treatment at the U.S. Penitentiary of Marion, did not receive assistance under Medicaid nor Medicare in Iowa until her death in March 2020.
Rick and Kathy Jeffries look to salvage items from the remains of their Louisville home, on Jan. 4, 2022, where they lived since 2011. Nearly 1,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by the Marshall Fire in December 2021, Colorado’s most destructive fire to date.
President Joe Biden uncaps a pen to edit his speech before a rally in January 2020 in Indianola, one month before the Iowa caucuses.
Ruth Carter sits in her home in April 2016. Carter was born and raised in rural Birmingham, Iowa — a town of 448 — where she farmed with her husband, Fred, until her death in November 2016 at age 88. Family-owned farms in Iowa have been rapidly diminishing in recent years due to increasing urbanization and technology.
Runner and author Josiah Hesse smokes marijuana on Sept. 2, 2021, at his residence in Denver. Hesse lived a mostly sedentary lifestyle before becoming a runner in 2010 for its mental health benefits. “I knew that cannabis was in every corner of American life — I didn't realize that not only that it was in sports, but also seemingly in a bigger majority of professional athletes,” Hesse said.
Justin Lewton removes stalks of feral wheat with a pocketknife in a field south of Fort Morgan, Co, in July 2023. The presence of feral wheat, an annual grass weed, can result in lower yield and grain quality of a harvest of red winter wheat. A typical harvest season starts around the fourth of July and lasts two weeks. Harvest days usually last around 18 hours — starting around 8:30 daily — seven days a week to cover the family farm’s acreage. Lewton started helping on his family’s decades-old farm at age 9, making 2023 his 21st wheat harvest.
Students exit Harbin No. 124 High School after finishing Gaokao exams in Harbin, China in June 2018. Known as the "most pressure-packed exam in the world", the 9-hour test directly determines which universities students can attend, along with career opportunities and earning potential. Gaokao is aimed to minimize the wealth gap between students, but frequently is surrounded by behaviors of intense cramming, academic cheating, and identity forgery.
“There wasn’t a plan in place to say, 'How are we going to recycle these?' 'How are we going to reduce the impact on landfills?," said Bill Rowland, president of the Iowa Society of Waste Operations. Iowa’s wind industry provides 34% of the state’s electricity. Turbine towers can be recycled, but their six-ton blades are such a large composite of metal, wood, and fiberglass that they aren’t commercially viable to recycle.
Lonnie and Sandy Phillips attend a town hall meeting on Feb. 8, 2023, in Denver to discuss the Gun Violence Victims Access to Justice and Firearms Industry Accountability Act. Lonnie and Sandy’s daughter, Jessica, was killed in the Aurora movie theater shooting in 2012. After suing the company that sold the shooter’s ammunition, the couple was forced to pay about $200,000 in legal fees, and thereafter declared bankruptcy.
Luis, last name not given, gives a razor shave and haircut to Charlie near Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street December 2023 in Denver. Almost 40,000 migrants, many from Venezuela, have come to Denver since 2022 from southern border regions of the U.S., looking for work permits and stable housing.
A cyclist rides across the frozen Songhua River in Harbin, China in January 2018. Harbin is known for hosting the largest ice and snow sculpture festival in the world, with average winter temperatures ranging between 1.8 and -31 degrees Fahrenheit.
Demonstrators march through the 16th Street Mall in Denver on June 24, 2022, after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Heidi Pendleton in her home in Fort Dodge, Ia. Heidi's son, Joshua Pendleton, was charged with the murder of Rev. Al Henderson in Oct. 2019. Diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, Josh is described by his mother as having fallen "through the cracks" of the state's receding mental health system.
Young spectators prepare to watch bareback bull riding at the 2018 New Windsor Rodeo in Windsor, Ill.
Parkland shooting survivor Aalayah Eastmond becomes emotional after testifying at the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on gun violence on Feb. 6, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C, the first hearing regarding gun violence in eight years. The shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, killing and injuring 17.
Muslims gather for the celebration of Eid al-Fitr at Niujie Mosque, the largest mosque in Beijing. The mosque was first built in 996 during the Liao Dynasty, and spans 10,000 square meters.
Nicole Margheim writes chalk messages in solidarity with fellow Black Lives Matter protestors who faced felony charges in July 2020 in Des Moines, Ia.