Year in focus: Images that defined America in 2025

An electronic board displays "Happy New Year" as confetti falls after the ball drop at Times Square during New Year's celebrations in New York City Jan. 1, 2025.  (Reuters/Kent Edwards)

Police investigate a crime on Bourbon Street in New Orleans Jan. 1, 2025.  (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, killing the driver and injuring seven others in Las Vegas Jan. 1, 2025.  (EyePress News/Shutterstock)

Firefighters fight flames from the Palisades Fire burning the Theatre Palisades during a powerful windstorm in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles Jan. 8, 2025.  (Apu Gomes/Getty Images)

Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife Melania and his children look on during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Emergency response units search the crash site of an American Airlines plane on the Potomac River after the plane crashed on approach to Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., Jan. 30, 2025. The American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kan., collided in midair with a military helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Demonstrators hold banners as they march during a protest after the arrest by U.S. immigration agents of Palestinian student protester Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University in New York City March 10, 2025.  (Reuters/Jeenah Moon)

A crane vessel lifts the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River in New York City April 10, 2025. (Seth Wenig/AP)

Members of the clergy attend the funeral Mass of Pope Francis at the Vatican April 26, 2025.  (Reuters/Dylan Martinez)

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025.  (Reuters/Yara Nardi)

A search-and-rescue volunteer holds a T-shirt and backpack with the words Camp Mystic on them in Comfort, Texas, July 6, 2025.   (Danielle Villasana for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Charlie Kirk speaks before he is assassinated during Turning Point's visit to Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)

A memorial dedicated to Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 11, 2025. Zarutska was stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This redacted photo released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows files documented on Aug. 12, 2019, during a search of Jeffrey Epstein's home on Little St. James island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)

Members of the U.S. National Guard stand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Dec. 22, 2025.  (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)

A makeshift memorial on the Brown University campus near the site of a shooting in Providence, R.I., Dec. 15, 2025. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia shakes hands with attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg as he arrives with wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura at U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt, Md., Dec. 22, 2025.  (Alex Wong/Getty Images)