Amid upheaval across the U.S. in 2025, Associated Press photographers captured images of heartache and hope, celebration and despair and flickering moments of wonder.
They took us inside the infernos that devastated Los Angeles and swept through a historic California Gold Rush town, and found a sliver of joy in the form of a solitary blue van amongst the ashes.
AP's photographers documented the power of a towering wall of dust rolling across Arizona and the breathtaking sights within a springtime storm on the Oklahoma plains. They found beauty in a Florida freshwater spring threatened by climate change and in a seagull flying above the prison ruins on San Francisco’s notorious Alcatraz Island.
Their photographs put us in the heart of the nation’s debate over immigration — in courthouses where families struggled to stay intact and on city streets and freeways where protesters stood face to face with police in riot gear.
Images of military troops deployed to Washington showed how neighborhood life was being reshaped in the nation's capital.
AP's photographers laid bare the anguish after catastrophic flooding swept away campers and killed more than 130 people across Texas, and the grief following the collision of a jetliner and military helicopter that left 67 dead in the Potomac River.
They bore witness to a year of political change and turmoil — from President Donald Trump's inauguration to the death of former President Jimmy Carter to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the election of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
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Photo editing by Stephanie Mullen.
