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 immigrati

See Full Page