Lillian Leal comforts her son David Leal, 3, at the scene of a deadly fire Sunday morning, which claimed the life of David’s cousin Joshua Rivas, 2. Michael Leal, 8, inspects the remains of a bicycle. The Leals, who live next door to the Rivas family, came to inspect the damage and to salvage what was possible. Lillian Leal said Joshua was in the bedroom when the fire broke out while the two families were barbequeing outside. Tice District firefighters believe the cause was faulty wiring.

Chauntavia Thomas, 11, prays during an Ecumenical Service the Sunday before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day, at Friendship Baptist Church. The service featured a choir as well as a number of speakers, who addressed the congregation on Dr. King’s legacy.

Aaron Fletcher waves the flag of his native Grenada during a celebration for the 30th anniversary of independence at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg, Florida. Grenada gained its sovereignty from the United Kingdom in 1974.

Tempers flare during a hotly contested game of chess between Gregory Parks, 12, and his mentor Vishal Yajnik, during an after school program at the Village Learning Place, a community library in Baltimore, Maryland. Yajnik and Parks are a part of the America Reads, and meet three days a week to do homework and play chess. The Village Learning Place is struggling to keep programs such as America Reads, amid a $75,000 budget cut by the state of Maryland and the city of Baltimore.

Nicolas Plancher buries his head in his hands while reading an English textbook during his ESOL class at Fort Myers High School. Plancher came to the United States from his native Haiti in 2000. He speaks some English, but is more comfortable in Haitian Creole. A senior, Plancher enjoys math and aspires to become an engineer, but needs to strengthen his English skills on order to go to college.

Amanda Greene takes a moment to herself during practice. One of 15 amateur female fighters at the 4th Street Boxing Gym in St. Petersburg, Florida, she is preparing for her first bout, which is only two weeks away.

These days, Miami Beach residents exercise where once World War II soldiers trained for combat.

Tina Bailey sits outside the Lakewood Village community with 29 others, who were camping out in order to be the first few to put down a deposit for new properties in the development. Residents and speculators were among those in line. Although Bailey had been camping out since 7pm the previous day, she was not among the first in line. “I didn’t expect to see this many people. I was pretty shocked,” she said.

Chef Erik Berlin celebrated the opening of his first restaurant in Columbia, MD. Berlin has been working as a chef for the past 12 years.

Bishop MacLeord O’Chola II left his native Uganda after his wife and daughter were killed in the ongoing civil war in his country. He is currently seeking refuge at St. Raphael’s Episcopal Church in Fort Myers, FL, where he is writing a memoir.

“When I got home, I just wanted to rinse it all off,” said nurse Brooke Simon of her traumatic experience caring for a brutalized rape victim. Simon wrote an essay about her work caring for the patient, which won a Clinical Excellence in Writing award from the Southwest Florida Nurses Association. She ended her essay, writing “we are sisters. I took it pretty hard.”

“It’s startin’ to fill up,” says Chris Connors, 38, as he peeks through the curtain to see the crowd entering the big top tent. Fort Myers is the last stop this year for Connors, who is the ringmaster for the Cole Bros Circus. This is the 125th city he has travelled to in about 240 days. After Fort Myers, Connors and the circus will go their separate ways in the off-season. Cole Bros retreat to Deland, FL, and Connors goes to his home in Hudson Valley, NY, only to meet up again in march, for another tour. This has been Connors’ yearly cycle for the last four seasons, after he agreed to join Cole Bros from a smaller show, to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy James, a veteran ringmaster and a legend in the profession. “It was very tough when I first came here, because everyone wanted me to be like Jimmy,” he said. Connors spent his first year imitating James, who had been the ringmaster with Cole Bros for 36 years. “Now I have my own style,” he said. “My style is short anouncements, but I make it sound like they’ve never heard it before. What’s more important than the actual word is the way you say it, the way you pull the word. Presentation is very important. I’m also very involved with the show, with the clowns.” Connors says the clowns respect him, because he started out as one, early in his career, when he spent his vacations from his day job in the corporate world clowning for circuses. However, the task of a ringmaster requires a whole different skill set. “This is not an easy show to manage,” he said. “You got all these cultures here, Chinese and Romanian, Mexican and American, and we all got to communicate and get things done.” Declining audiences through competition with other forms of entertainment have also made changes to the show necessary. Cole Bros has introduced a number of new characters to make the show more current, like Spiderman and The Human Slinky. “It’s not like the old days anymore,” said Connors, “but I still love the show.”