The top photos of the day by AP's photojournalists

April 22, 2025

From front-page news to powerful moments you may have missed, this gallery showcases today’s top photos chosen by Associated Press photo editors.

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Palestinians examine the remains of bulldozers hit by an Israeli army airstrike in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The body of Pope Francis is carried into St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, where he will lie in state for three days. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

People walk around St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

A street artists chalks a portrait of the late Pope Francis outside the Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Clouds are reflected in the water of lake 'Walchensee' during low water near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

A group of singers and dancers perform after French President Emmanuel Macron's visit Monday, April 21, 2025 in Tsingoni , Mayotte island, in the Indian Ocean French territory of Mayotte. (AP Photo/Alexis Duclos)

Police officers calm an injured dog while a dead body lies near a multi-story building damaged by a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)

A Donald Trump bobblehead sits on the counter as trader Jonathan Mueller works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Dancers rehearse choreography before an audition for the Radio City Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Paramedics carry a wounded tourist on a stretcher at a hospital in Anantnag after assailants indiscriminately fired at tourists visiting Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, April 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Troops march during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade, which will take place at Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square on May 9 to celebrate 80 years after the victory in World War II, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Cincinnati Reds' Elly De La Cruz steals second during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Cardinal Silvano Tomasi arrives in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Faithful react as they attend a Mass for the late Pope Francis, at the St. John Lateran Basilica, in Rome, Monday April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

A woman prays during the morning mass at the Sanctuaire d'adoration cathedral, following the announcement of Pope Francis's death in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Women's race competitors including eventual winner Ferne Gardener, no. 11, right, run with a 20kg sack of coal over a 1.1 km course during the World Coal Carrying Championships in Ossett, West Yorkshire, England, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, ahead of the annual Holocaust remembrance day which begins at sundown Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A woman is dressed in traditional costume as she and visitors tour Jiayu Pass, a strategic point of the Great Wall of China along the ancient "Silk Road," near the city of Jiayuguan in China's northwestern Gansu province, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

A nun holds a rosary and a picture of Pope Francis during a rosary prayer for the late Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Tuesday April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Pope Francis's body is laid out in state inside his private chapel at the Vatican, Monday, April 21, 2025. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

A portrait of the late Pope Francis is projected onto a water fountain at Magic Water Circuit in Lima, Peru, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protests sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark Saturday, with the country’s government acknowledging the ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 65 people killed and over 2,300 others detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with the Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters" would face the charge.

“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating insecurity, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement read. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered support for the protesters.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio wrote Saturday on the social platform X. The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Saturday marks the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported. Internal Iranian government websites are believed to be functioning.

State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations. The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honors Iran's 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.

“Field reports indicate that peace prevailed in most cities of the country at night,” a state TV anchor reported. “After a number of armed terrorists attacked public places and set fire to people’s private property last night, there was no news of any gathering or chaos in Tehran and most provinces last night.”

That was directly contradicted by an online video verified by The Associated Press that showed demonstrations in northern Tehran's Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.

“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.

The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan. In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.

The Young Journalists' Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran. It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.

State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran's old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows a fire as people protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)