The top photos of the day by AP's photojournalists

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

Julie, the last circus elephant in Portugal, explores her new home, a recently inaugurated 1,000 acre elephant sanctuary in Alandroal, southern Portugal, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, that hopes in the future to receive other elephants from circuses and zoos in Europe. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)

Palestinians fill plastic bottles with water at a tent camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Tourists crowd to film the sun as it sends a beam of light into the Great Temple of Ramses II's dark inner chamber in Abu Simbel, 870 kilometers (540 miles) south of Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, a rare 3,200-year-old astronomical ceremony that happens twice a year. (AP Photo/Mohammed Salah)

Audience members listen to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., during a “Students vs. Billionaires” campaign stop in Portland, Maine, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

People take part in the final "Student List – Students Win" rally ahead of a parliamentary election in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, gestures to supporters as security personnel surround him during a campaign appearance at a market in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, ahead of the country's general election. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

People shine the lights of their mobile phones and light flares during the final "Student List – Students Win" rally ahead of a parliamentary election in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Vice President JD Vance is greeted by Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, as his son Vivek plays with a football, upon his arrival to North Platte Regional Airport in North Platte, Neb., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, en route to a campaign rally. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

A woman holds a sign of former first lady Cilia Flores during a government-organized march to raise breast cancer awareness during Pink Month in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before walking to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Zofia Marcinek of the Abortion Dream Team, a reproductive rights activist group, poses for a photo next to a parcel locker where women can anonymously collect abortion pills using a pin number, in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Beata Zawrzel)

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students read and discuss Torah texts at Ponevezh, Israel’s most prominent yeshiva, or seminary, in Bnei Brak, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A man looks at residential house destroyed in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Federal agents arrest a suspect during a raid related to health care fraud in the early morning on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Wally Skalij)

Iraqi students hold Iraqi flags at a high school in Sadr City on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in response to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s call to protest a decision to ban the hijab in schools in Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Vivek Ramaswamy ’s team confirmed late Tuesday that it produced a controversial advertisement featuring the estranged mother of Amy Acton, and the campaign said it will spend $4 million to promote it despite facing bipartisan rebuke for dredging up the painful childhood of his Democratic opponent in Ohio’s governor’s race.

The decision exacerbates a deeply personal element in one of the country's most closely watched and expensive campaigns for state office. Questions about the video will likely shadow Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire who previously ran for president but has never before held public office, in the final two weeks of the contest. Democrats said he was growing desperate at a moment when more than 676,000 people have already cast ballots in Ohio.

The advertisement features Acton's birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her “a liar” and insinuating she has mental health issues. Acton, Ohio's former public health director, has made no secret of facing homelessness and abuse as a child. Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted for raping Acton.

The video's origins were initially murky when it started circulating online. It first surfaced in a post by an Ohio political blogger, then spread across social media. It did not include the “paid for” tag that is legally required to air on television so viewers can know who produced and paid for it. D.J. Byrnes, who blogs as “The Rooster,” told CNN he got the video from a voter who viewed it as part of a poll and recorded it.

Connie Luck, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy's campaign, said Acton's mother was not paid for the one-minute video, which she said will stream online and air on television.

Acton spent Tuesday condemning Ramaswamy for the ad even before his campaign confirmed its provenance.

“I won’t normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I’m complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse," she told Spectrum News, a cable news outlet in Ohio.

She said Ramaswamy made similar personal attacks during his run for the Republican presidential nomination two years ago, calling it “a lifelong pattern.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign initially issued a statement that did not address whether he was responsible for the ad or knew who produced it. In the earlier statement, Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of.”

Casey Putsch, a car designer and YouTube provocateur who competed against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for governor, said on social media that he would be voting for Acton in the wake of the ad's release. He called the video “pretty damn low.”

Acton's campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, who said the two were removed from their mother Donna Arthur's custody as children after their stepfather, Arthur's husband, was indicted for raping Acton as a child. Acton has not seen Arthur, whose last known address was in Pennsylvania, since they were in a courtroom together in 1978.

Later Tuesday, the Acton campaign released a video featuring Stearns, who recalls his older sister taking “the worst” of the abuse they faced as children in order to protect him and disparages Ramaswamy and his allies for exploiting the situation.

According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton's biological father reported him to authorities. The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978.

Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September, but failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.

High-profile Republicans who back Ramaswamy — including Donald Trump Jr. and influencer Laura Loomer — elevated the video in online posts.

But others joined Democrats in condemning the ad. Meghan McCain called it “dastardly” and Dan Hauser, a strategist for Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, said he deleted his post sharing the video once he realized “the very serious accusations that caused their issues.”

The Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, described the spot as “disgusting” and said everyone — including his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted — should be willing to condemn it. Husted's campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

This story was first published on Oct. 20, 2026. It was published again on Oct. 23, 2026, to correct the blogger’s name to D.J. Byrnes, not D.J. Brynes.

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump listens as gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at a campaign rally at the Covelli Centre, in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)