A human tide of would-be Americans, rolling toward the border. American rockets streaking across the darkness over Damascus. Students fleeing a gunman at a Florida high school, their hands raised in the air.

Associated Press photographers were there to record a world in constant motion in 2018. Some of it was huge, and destructive _ lava pouring from a Filipino volcano, the leveling of Indonesian neighborhoods by an earthquake, the wildfires that raced across California. Some of it was human scaled, but no less epic _ disgraced comedian Bill Cosby being led in handcuffs from a correctional facility; an angry crowd carrying a wounded youth during clashes with Israeli troops in Gaza.

But the AP was also there when the world stopped, at least for a moment. President Donald Trump’s hands grasp instructions on what to say to participants at a meeting on school shootings (“I hear you”). Dressed entirely in red, the Queen of Soul rests in her coffin. And girls weep in the aftermath of the rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead and countless hearts broken.

This year’s set of compelling and newsworthy images was selected by Deputy Director of Photography Denis Paquin.

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