September 4, 2025, Nove Mesto Nad Metuji, Czech Republic: Hot air balloons take off on a sunny morning from the airport in Nove Mesto nad Metuji (near Hradec Kralove city). Hradec Kralove hosted a spectacular launch of eighty-one hot-air balloons during this year’s largest European gathering of its kind. The simultaneous lift-off from one location established a Czech record for the highest number of balloons taking off at the same time. The festival continues until Sunday, 7 September 2025, with participants from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Germany and Hungary. (Credit Image: © Slavek Ruta/ZUMA Press Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

June 25, 2025, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Buildings and Scenes and Symbols Around Harvard University. (Credit Image: © Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

August 30, 2025, Leominster, Ma, USA: Harvard University and Harvard Square buildings and scenes as students return to the area. (Credit Image: © Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

November 6, 2019, Houston, Texas, USA: As officials watch, a woman who goes by the name Harvest removes her belongings during the third day of a state-sanctioned homeless camping crackdown in Texas’ capital city. On orders from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, highway crews are clearing 17 identified homeless camps on major highways. (Credit Image: © Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

December 28, 2024, Tampa, Florida, USA: Homeless men and women gather under an interstate bridge in downtown Tampa where volunteers and ministries distribute food and clothing items every Saturday. The United States saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and a surge of migrants in several parts of the country, federal officials said Friday..That increase comes on top of a 12% increase in 2023, which HUD blamed on soaring rents and the end of pandemic assistance. The 2023 increase also was driven by people experiencing homelessness for the first time. The numbers overall represent 23 of every 10,000 people in the U.S., with Black people being over represented among the homeless population. (Credit Image: © Robin Rayne/ZUMA Press Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

August 26, 2025, Tel Aviv, Israel: Hundreds of thousands joined the hostages’ families tonight, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the captives. The mother of two hostages declared: “Enough — I won’t give up.”

Video Credit © Israel Hadari/ZUMA Press

To license stills or footage contact licensing@zumapress.com

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

Scott Mc Kiernan Presents zReportage.com Issue #1003 Story of the Week: Published TUESDAY September 2, 2025: ‘Weeki Wachee Sirens’ Photography by ZUMA Partner newspaper The Tampa Bay Times Pulitzer winning photo-journalist Douglas R. Clifford and story by award winning writer Gabrielle Calise: The water is cold, but I’m too nervous to shiver. I try to kick to safety, but my legs are bound. I’m wearing the tail of a mermaid, I’ve never felt more painfully human. ‘You OK?’ asks Rita, one of the ”Legendary Sirens of Weeki Wachee,” mermaid performers from decades past. ‘Want to try it again?’ Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, one of the last mid-century roadside attractions left in Florida is home to the deepest freshwater cave system in the US. In 1946, when ex-Navy frogman Newton Perry discovered the spring, he didn’t know it was the entrance to a collection of deep underwater caverns. But he had a vision: a sunken theater, where people could watch pretty women do water ballet and chug grape soda underwater. Welcome to ‘Weeki Wachee Sirens’
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#zumapress #zreportage #reportage #journalism #photojournalism #photostory #weekiwacheesirens #tampa #mermaids

Sit back and enjoy “The Pictures of the Month” (POM) presented by Scott Mc Kiernan and ZUMA Press: Trump orders National Guard troops to fight crime in Washington D.C. and tries to broker a Ukraine peace deal in Alaska, while stars shine at the 82nd Venice Film Festival: The AUGUST 2025 Pictures Of the Month for @ZUMApress is now published. PLEASE SHARE! #photojournalism https://lnkd.in/gxzWVmd

ZUMA Press Wire’s talented award-winning picture editing staff of Mark Avery, Jim Colton, Jessica Cotsonas, Robin Loznak, Scott Mc Kiernan, Julie Rogers, Ruaridh Stewart, Shalan Stewart, whom with the fine ZUMA support staff: Florence Combes, John Collett, Katrina Kochneva, Pat Johnson, Julie Mason, Jeremy Mc Kiernan and Stan Sholik contributed to make this Lucie & Webby winning monthly movie possible.

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August 29, 2025, London, England, United Kingdom: A man draped in an English flag, the St George’s Cross, stands outside the Royal Courts of Justice as the Court of Appeal revokes the injuction on housing migrants at the Bell Hotel in Epping. (Credit Image: © Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire)

Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press

ZUMA’s Laura Brett lands the cover of the August/September 2025 Issue of ‘In These Times’ magazine.

Photo Caption: June 3, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani held a press conference in Jackson Heights in Queens, NY to address the unfounded call for his deportation by city council member Vicki Paladino and to receive the endorsement of fellow NY State Assembly member Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas. (Credit Image: © Laura Brett/ZUMA Press Wire)