Vice President JD Vance told Republicans to “stop whining” about Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial ad featuring his Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother.
“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance told reporters on Wednesday in Cincinnati.
The Ohio Republican’s ad targeting his Acton exploded across the political landscape on Tuesday, sparking criticism from both sides of the aisle in the final stretch of the battleground gubernatorial race.
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who is running for a full term in the Senate after he was appointed to fill Vance’s former seat, said that he “would not have run that ad.”
Ramaswamy’s ad features Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a “liar” and urging Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton previously recounted being sexually abused by her mother’s husband as a child, and Acton’s brother said on Tuesday that their “birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”
Acton previously said in a 2019 interview with The Youngstown Vindicator that she had not seen her mother since a hearing in the 1978 court case against Acton’s stepfather.
Conservative commentator Meghan McCain said on X that the ad was “dastardly” and “never should have been created.” An aide for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, deleted his post that shared the video. The aide, Dan Hauser, apologized and said he deleted his post “after researching it, and the disturbing allegations.”
Vance brushed off concerns about the ad, instead criticizing Republicans who condemned it. Speaking to reporters in Ohio on Wednesday, Vance said that “whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” adding that he was focused on who would win the elections.
“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he said.
He also urged Republicans to “remember some of the ads that have been run against me” and other Republicans.
Vance brought up the ad in an Ohio rally Wednesday afternoon, though he said he “wasn’t even supposed to talk about” the controversy, “but I cannot help myself.”
“Now the media and the Democrats of the state of Ohio are obsessed, because guess what, Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.”
“My message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple: Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts,” he said, going on to criticize Acton.
Vance’s and Ramaswamy’s political circles have notable overlaps. NBC News previously reported that several members of Ramaswamy’s campaign previously worked on Vance’s political team.
Ramaswamy’s team is planning a $4 million statewide advertising push around the ad.
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, responded to the ad on Tuesday, slamming Ramaswamy.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said.
Stearns said that he and his sister were removed from their mother and stepfather’s custody after their stepfather was arrested.
Attempts to reach Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, by phone and email on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

The race to be Ohio’s next governor has turned ugly amid uproar over one of the most viral attack ads of the midterm elections campaign.
But the ad leaves out that her daughter, Democratic candidate Amy Acton, alleged she was raped by Arthur’s husband 40 years ago when she was just 12.
Acton’s brother said turning alleged sexual assault into “a political talking point” was a “despicable low”. Experts told the BBC that the jarringly personal nature of the political attack will likely backfire.
Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged in 1978.
That’s when she last spoke to her mother, Acton said in an interview with The Vindicator, an Ohio news outlet. The Arthurs fled Ohio, and he was never prosecuted on the rape charge. He died in 2004.
Political attacks ads are not a new feature of US politics, but they have grown more coarse, experts say.
“They have become more intense, and the boundaries have stretched in terms of what one attacks about,” said David Lublin, a professor from American University’s School of Public Affairs.
Lublin also said it was not new for relatives to be used against a political opponent, mentioning family members who testified against Robert F Kennedy Jr before he was confirmed as health secretary.
“But this is of a different order,” Lublin said. “They’re estranged not over policy but over a rape allegation.”
The BBC has reached out to Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment. In a statement to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, a campaign spokesman reiterated assertions in the ad that Acton was untruthful, but conceded, “We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother”.
When the ad was initially released to social media on Monday evening, it did not say who the video was paid for or authorised by. But Ramaswamy confirmed on Tuesday that it came from his campaign, and he later pledged to spend $4m (£2.9m) to further air it.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on X it was “an abhorrent attack”. Illinois governor and 2028 presidential hopeful JB Pritzker said Ramaswamy “has reached a new low by launching these vile and false attacks”.
Acton’s team released its own campaign ad on Tuesday, a video featuring her brother, Philip Stearns, recounting childhood abuse and saying “Amy always got the worst of it”.
“Shame on Vivek,” he says in the 30-second clip. “It’s the contempt he has for Amy. It’s the contempt he has for Ohio.”
Some Republicans also criticised the ad. Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, said “he’s a bad guy. It’s a shame he continues to get away with it”.
Vice-President JD Vance, when asked by the BBC if he thought the ad was appropriate, did not say. “It’s not really my concern,” he said. “What is my concern is who’s going to govern the next generation of American government.”
Lublin said President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and campaigns have helped act as a catalyst for the coarsening of American political discourse – he mentioned when Trump appeared to mock a reporter in Ohio who had a disability.
“We live in an age where certainly many candidates can appear mean and even inappropriate at times,” Lublin said.
But Lublin expects the Ramaswamy attack ad to backfire. He said it could be an indication that his campaign is desperate to swing momentum in his favor in the increasingly competitive race for Ohio governor – even though a Democrat has not been elected governor there in over two decades.

Democrats are up in arms after a so-called polling firm that projected far-left candidates as strong contenders in several primaries admitted that it had fabricated its polling data.
Wedgewood Polling, which billed itself as an election survey company, released a statement Tuesday night admitting it used “fabricated numbers” for an “experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.”
The group’s polls were cited by Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign amid a high-profile primary race against Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich. The nonpartisan polling aggregator Political Polls also cited Wedgewood in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, showing socialist Francesca Hong having an edge over Republican candidate Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.
McMorrow said Wedgewood’s numbers led to her donations drying up and reporters having “hounded” her with calls to drop out of the race.
JONATHAN TURLEY: FAKE POLLSTER’S STUNT WAS A RECKLESS GAME WITH REAL RACES
“Sure, a point was proven. Polling is broken. But tens of thousands of people poured their hearts, time, energy, hard-earned money into something they believed in – for a year-and-a-half, and it was treated like a game,” she said in a statement on X. “Trust is already at an all-time low. We don’t get out of this mess without rebuilding trust. And media – who loves to ride the drama of a pollercoaster – needs to take a hard look at what’s legitimate and what’s not.”
Unlike El-Sayed, who advanced from Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, Hong lost Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary to the establishment-backed candidate. El-Sayed, a former Michigan public health official, is currently locked in a tight race against former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., for Michigan’s open Senate seat.
Democrat strategist Jennifer Holdsworth said she ran a super PAC that raised money for McMorrow and that “this poll was used by several donors to pull back funding at a time we were being outspent by $80 million.”
MORNING GLORY: THE POLLS GOT MICHIGAN BADLY WRONG. NOW DEMOCRATS MAY FACE A BIGGER RECKONING
Wedgewood’s numbers were cited by high-profile outlets like The New York Times and Decision Desk HQ, which both said they have since removed them from their projections.
The Times said it removed 15 polls released by Wedgewood between June and October after it admitted to fabricating data. The outlet said Wedgewood had “answered a series of questions regarding the identities of the pollsters; the methods they were using to draw their sample, contact respondents and weight their polls; and the source of their funding” during its vetting process.
Decision Desk HQ said it removed 17 Wedgewood polls from its projections but that it “has not changed the projected seat totals or chamber control probabilities in the Senate or House.”
Wedgewood Polling’s statement said it “was never intended to sway an election” but rather was aimed as a “wake-up call” about data integrity and vetting standards.
MYSTERIOUS POLLING FIRM BEHIND FAKE ELECTION SURVEYS CLOSES AFTER ADMITTING ‘SOCIAL EXPERIMENT’
“These people are absolute scumbags,” veteran Democratic strategist and former Kamala Harris advisor Mike Nellis told Fox News Digital. “They can try to claim that they have some moral high ground here, but they lied about their polling data, got caught, and are freaking out because they’ve committed fraud.”
“The people responsible for this should be run out of American politics, and if they can be, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Nellis said. He added that both Democrats and Republicans, as well as the media, should reflect on how polling is verified “because there’s likely other people that are doing things like this.”
TOP ELECTION SCHEMES ROILING KEY MIDTERM RACES AS BOTH PARTIES ACCUSE RIVALS OF TRICKERY
Independent outlet FiftyPlusOne said it was investigating Wedgewood when it had released its statement. Co-founder G. Elliott Morris wrote on X, “We were investigating Wedgewood for faking their data and emailed them for comment this morning, ahead of publishing the findings tomorrow. They are trying to cover up their fraud with the ‘we were doing a social experiment’ excuse.”
Former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor said on X that Wedgewood’s actions amounted to “lying and fraud.”
A group called “Wedgewood Polls” had also previously created a GoFundMe to raise money for polling in Nebraska’s gubernatorial and Senate races. It raised $500 of its intended $5,000.
“I know they crowdfunded, I believe, a good chunk of their polls,” Nellis told Fox News Digital. “Are they going to return that money? And if not, are they going to be prosecuted?”
FOX NEWS POLL: IT’S A LONE STAR SENATE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN TALARICO AND PAXTON
Other Wedgewood surveys showed Democrats with significant edges over Republicans in states like Texas, where a July Wedgewood poll showed James Talarico leading state Attorney General Ken Paxton among Hispanics by 64% to 30%.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have long heaped doubt on the veracity of polls.
Polls notably showed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with an edge over Trump in 2016 — far from the actual result.
And with the fight for control of Congress coming to a head in November, every data point is being scrutinized as political tea leaves.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News Digital reached out to McMorrow’s state Senate office, Stevens’ campaign and strategist Lis Smith for further comment.

From 3h ago
New polling shows likely voters prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans, fewer than two weeks until midterm elections
New polling from the New York Times and Siena University shows that likely voters prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans running for office by 11 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s approval rating dropped to a new low for this particular survey – 36%.
Notably, according to the Times’ polling, the perception of either party has shifted over the last two years. The number of people who consider Democrats as the party of the working class has grown by five points – from 48% to 53%, while it’s dropped by five points for Republicans – from 45% to 40%.
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Updated at 11.11 EDT
Key events
Maya Yang
A 24-year-old Kansas man has been arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot Donald Trump.
Authorities arrested Jaden J Read, of Clearwater, Kansas, last Saturday after he allegedly posted threats to kill the US president at his rally in the Wichita area on Monday, according to the justice department.
According to federal authorities, a Crime Stoppers tip on 15 October led investigators to a Facebook post responding to a KAKE News article about Trump’s upcoming Wichita visit. Read allegedly commented: “Let’s shoot Trump honestly, where’s our shooter? I’m tired of living this money life.”
Immediately afterward, he allegedly posted a second comment on the same article: “I just got a 308 and 305 round and I’m killing this pedo.”
Authorities also found two additional comments allegedly posted by Read in response to a KWCH 12 News article about Trump’s planned visit.
“Can we shoot him in Kansas please I will myself,” Read allegedly wrote. A minute later, he allegedly posted another comment, saying: “IK where your speech will be. Already mapped out roofs around. Finna get kirked since yall couldn’t help him.”
Read was arrested in Clearwater last Saturday and taken into federal custody, where he will remain pending a detention hearing. The district of Kansas filed a criminal complaint against Read for making threats against the president.
Here’s Maya’s report:
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Retiring GOP senator Thom Tillis has ridiculed Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff for praising Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian”.
“WTF, Steve? Look up the definition of ‘humanitarian,’” Tillis said in a post on X, with a screenshot showing the definition.
“What an embarrassing and outrageous thing to say,” the North Carolina senator went on. “You should go back to Ukraine and ask the families of the children Putin has kidnapped and murdered whether they agree your friend Putin is a ‘humanitarian.’”
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Updated at 13.10 EDT
Anna Betts
Elena Kagan criticized rulings made by the US supreme court’s conservative majority this week, arguing that its recent decisions on redistricting and campaign finance had undermined America’s democracy.
“The court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works,” said Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, during a discussion at Catholic University’s law school in Washington DC yesterday, according to multiple reports.
She emphasized that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, “has created a democracy that does not work as well as it should”.
Kagan’s remarks come just two weeks before the midterm elections and amid battles over congressional redistricting. Earlier this year, the supreme court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, effectively gutting a major section of the Voting Rights Act. In June, the court also struck down campaign finance restrictions limiting how much political parties may spend on candidates. Both decisions were split 6-3 along ideological lines.
During yesterday’s discussion, Kagan also took aim at the court’s 2019 decision that held that federal courts should not police a practice known as partisan gerrymandering.
As a result, she said, “both political parties have been engaged in a race ​to the bottom in terms of doing these partisan gerrymanders, effectively depriving masses of citizens of their rights to voting ​equality”.
Kagan said that decision was pushing political candidates “away from the center, toward the wings, toward the extremes, because the only thing anybody has to worry about ⁠any more is being primaried”.
“It is making what I think is unfortunately a too polarized country even more so,” she continued. “In ​this election, and the next election, we are seeing large states with substantial numbers of people who vote for Republicans and who ​vote for Democrats, and the states are going to be tried to turn all red or all blue in a way that I think is very destructive to our democracy.”
Kagan also criticized the court’s decisions on campaign finance rules, and the increasing amounts of money in politics.
double quotation markThe people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare. And they’re right.
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Updated at 13.14 EDT
Supreme court rebuffs Trump restrictions on medical care for trans inmates for now
The supreme court has refused to allow the Trump administration to immediately deny gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prisons.
The decision leaves in place a lower-court block on the policy while a legal challenge plays out. It was adopted after an executive order from Donald Trump, who’s taken several steps to roll back transgender rights during his second term.
Two of the supreme court’s six conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented, meaning they would have allowed the policy to be enforced.
The high court has previously allowed other policies for transgender people to move ahead for now, including restrictions on military service, passport sex markers, and state-level bans on trans women and girls athletes from participating on sports teams.
Trump’s January 2025 executive order called on the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex”.
The new policy would halt surgical and hormonal treatments, and end “social accommodations” like makeup and wigs. Prisons would continue to offer mental health services.
Trans prisoners sued the administration over the policy and, so far, two lower courts have blocked officials from implementing the order as the larger lawsuit over the executive order continues.
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Pjotr Sauer
Vladimir Putin ordered the release of an American from a Russian jail as he met Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg today for fresh talks on ending his war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.
Trump had previously asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old former teacher who had spent more than four years in Russian jails on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.
His release appeared to be Moscow’s latest calculated move to bring Trump further into line with Putin’s position on Ukraine, while offering the US president a diplomatic victory before the midterm elections.
Hubbard was released unilaterally by Russia, rather than as part of a prisoner exchange as has often been the case with previous releases of Americans held in the country.
Writing on social media after the release was announced, Trump said it followed a request he had made “directly” to Putin last week.
Witkoff, meanwhile, lavished praise on Putin during their meeting at the grand Constantine Palace in St Petersburg, describing the Russian president as a humanitarian.
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff told Putin. He also conveyed Trump’s thanks for a deal to resume Russian diesel exports to the US.
The Russian president is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) as a war criminal, in relation to the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia during the war. More than 17,500 civilians have been confirmed killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to the UN, which says the true toll is likely to be significantly higher.
The warmth of Witkoff’s remarks stood in stark contrast to the increasingly hostile rhetoric directed at Volodymyr Zelenskyy by senior US officials, most notably Trump, who has called for the Ukrainian president to resign and portrayed him as the main obstacle to peace.
Witkoff travelled to Russia from Oslo, where he had met Zelenskyy and European leaders a day earlier in an attempt to inject momentum into stalled negotiations, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine now in its fifth year.
Witkoff told Putin during a televised portion of their meeting:
double quotation markWe’ve brought some papers. It’s really some ideas, some sort of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and you’ll read that at your leisure.
The visit was Witkoff’s ninth to Russia since Trump tasked him with brokering an end to the war.
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Updated at 12.23 EDT
A White House official has confirmed to the Guardian that Donald Trump’s roundtable at 2.30pm ET will be focused on cybercrime.
The president is “unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-based organized criminal organizations that exploit Americans in cyberspace”, the official said in a statement. “The most vulnerable among us – seniors, children, and low-income families – are disproportionately targeted, with scammers draining life savings, stealing the benefits of years of work, and destroying lives.”
According to the FBI, Americans reported losing almost $21bn to cybercrime and internet scams.
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Updated at 12.22 EDT
While Donald Trump will be in South Carolina today, his vice-president, JD Vance, will be stumping in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Buckeye state is home to a must-keep Senate seat for Republicans, where the incumbent, John Husted, is fending off a challenge from former Democratic senator Sherrod Brown – the populist hoping for a comeback.
The state’s gubernatorial competition has also become increasingly bitter. On Tuesday, my colleague Chris Stein reported that the family of Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, is criticizing her Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy for using Acton’s estranged mother in a recently released campaign ad.
In the ad, which has circulated among conservatives on social media, Actons’s mother, Donna Arthur, said: “She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life.”
In a Tuesday statement, Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said his sister is estranged from her mother, who had married a man that sexually abused Acton when she was 12 years old. He added that Arthur remained in the marriage even after her husband was arrested and her children were taken away from her.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” he said in a statement released by Acton’s campaign.
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Updated at 11.13 EDT
Trump praises UK approval of controversial Jackdaw gasfield in North Sea
Donald Trump has welcomed the news that UK government has approved the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea.
“Great news for the wealth and prosperity of the United Kingdom, and the wonderful region of Aberdeen. The UK has started drilling in the North Sea, one of the greatest and most prosperous areas of OIL in the World,” the US president wrote on Truth Social.
He added that the UK should go “FULL BLAST”, and the move to resume offshore extraction would “make the UK very wealthy again”.
As my colleagues reported earlier today, Andy Burnham, the UK prime minister, said the Jackdaw project will “protect hundreds of jobs and help keep millions of homes warm this winter”. This comes after fierce opposition from several Labour MPs and environmental groups throughout the country.
Trump has long pushed for Britain to expand oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, instead of relying on wind turbines. He frequently clashed with Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, who argued that energy sustainability relied on renewable sources and moving away from fossil fuel dependence.
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Updated at 11.25 EDT
Emma Graham-Harrison
Reporting from Jerusalem
The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.
“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”
Lander, who is Jewish and an outspoken critic of the Israeli government, describes himself as a liberal Zionist. He believes in the vision of Israel as a safe, Jewish home, but argues that it cannot be a true democracy while it denies Palestinians their human rights and freedom.
An ally of the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Lander’s critical approach to Israel was a key factor in his resounding primary victory against Dan Goldman, a prominent supporter of Israel.
He condemns Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supported the restriction of US military aid to Israel and believes that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks amounts to genocide.
Settler militants have unleashed extreme violence on Palestinians attempting to harvest olives from their trees across the occupied West Bank, and anyone accompanying them.
A vicious assault on a US photojournalist and attacks on European diplomats and a French mayor over the weekend drew international condemnation and calls for the Israeli government to crack down on militants.
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New polling shows likely voters prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans, fewer than two weeks until midterm elections
New polling from the New York Times and Siena University shows that likely voters prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans running for office by 11 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s approval rating dropped to a new low for this particular survey – 36%.
Notably, according to the Times’ polling, the perception of either party has shifted over the last two years. The number of people who consider Democrats as the party of the working class has grown by five points – from 48% to 53%, while it’s dropped by five points for Republicans – from 45% to 40%.
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Updated at 11.11 EDT
Meanwhile, as my colleague Jakub Krupa reports, French president Emmanuel Macron blasted “unacceptable” and “stupid” comments on the protests and riots in France from foreign leaders, accusing them of “campaigning at our expense”.
This comes after Donald Trump has explicitly linked the protests to mass migration, without any evidence to support his claims.
Speaking to reports in Doha, Macron slammed the comments without mentioning any leaders by name. “We saw images generated by artificial intelligence depicting scenes that never actually occurred in France,” he said. “Some people even claimed that we had been overrun by hordes of migrants and Islamists – which is completely false.”
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As we bring you more from Steve Witkoff’s meeting in St Petersburg with Russian officials, it’s worth noting that it takes place after a day of talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, in Oslo.
Trump’s special envoy will relay the proposals discussed on Tuesday – including calls for a trilateral summit between Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in order to hammer out a lasting deal.
Trump, however, appeared skeptical of any progress for peace when speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward, and that’s what they’ve done,” the US president said. “We want Zelenskyy to make a deal. He can make a deal … In my opinion, it’s just really just going to get worse.”
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Updated at 11.06 EDT
Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington, and host a roundtable at the White House at 2.30pm ET.
He’ll then continue his midterm campaign blitz by heading to Clemson, South Carolina, where he’ll rally for Darline Graham – the Republican nominee for US Senate who is hoping to secure a full term for her late brother’s seat. Trump won the Palmetto state by almost 18 points in 2024.
A reminder that Darline was appointed by the South Carolina governor to carry out the remainder of Lindsey Graham’s time in office after his death in July. However, she now faces a competitive race against Annie Andrews, a paediatrician and the Democratic nominee, in a contest that has become rancorous in recent months.
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Updated at 11.26 EDT
No budging from the Kremlin as Witkoff visits Putin
My colleague Jakub Krupa over on our Europe live blog is staying abreast of the Witkoff and Putin meeting in St Petersburg.
Trump’s envoy is trying to advocate progress on peace talks after meeting yesterday with Zelenskyy in Norway.
We’re not expecting much though – both sides are still launching daily drone and missile strikes.
The first comments from the Kremlin on the meeting so far say Russia will analyze the US proposals but “much depends on Ukraine” and “if Ukraine does not make necessary decisions, situation for them will be worse.”
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Updated at 08.05 EDT
As voters struggle with the rising cost of living and gas prices up 45% since the Iran War, Trump on the campaign trail this week has also repeated his $5,000 cash promise to every American adult if the Republicans win the House and Senate.
That’s a $1.2 trillion cash splash. Lawmakers in his own party have questioned where the money will come from while Democrats have called it blatant vote-buying scheme.
The White House says the payments will be funded by foreign trade deals, investment by foreign countries and government shares in private companies and oil and gas.
There’s also scepticism among voters as to whether they’ll actually see the cheque. Some have pointed out that previous government dividends promised by Trump – such as tariff revenues- never materialised. Meanwhile voters are facing rising inflation and a national average price of gas is more than $4 a gallon.
Roughly half of registered voters say Trump does not keep his promises, according to September AP-NORC poll.
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Updated at 07.38 EDT
Trump hails Russia’s release of US teacher: ‘Stephen is on his way back home’
The US president has just posted on Hubbard’s release, saying: “Welcome home Stephen, it’s great to have you back.”
The statement posted on his Truth Social says the prisoner release was the result of a direct request Trump made to Putin in a telephone call last week.
“Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family,” the statement reads.
double quotation markThe United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return – an unprecedented situation for Russia.
There was no “swap” necessary for this release. This major return should have taken place long ago through the Biden Administration, which got nowhere in its negotiations with the Kremlin. Stephen is on his way back home.
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Updated at 07.57 EDT
Russia releases retired school teacher Stephen Hubbard
US envoy Steve Witkoff announced this morning that Russia authorities had freed Stephen Hubbard, the first American known to be convicted of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.
Hubbard, who grew up in Michigan, had been living with his Ukrainian wife in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum. He was arrested when the Russians briefly took over the city at the start of the war in 2022.
In 2024, he was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison by a Russian court. But he has always denied being involved with any combat or military unit, saying that the Russians just took him from his house.
Trump yesterday had flagged Hubbard’s release saying he’d spoken with Putin in regards to the 74-year-old. “It’s time to have Mr Hubbard back,” he said.
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Updated at 07.56 EDT
Trump continues midterms campaign blitz in final weeks of election season
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of US politics. With 14 days until the mid-terms, we’re heading into the final straight.
President Donald Trump attended a rally last night in North Carolina, where Democrat Roy Cooper is leading Trump’s pick Michael Whatley by a considerable margin.
Undaunted though, Trump said the pollsters “never poll us right” and he predicted “some amazing results”. He repeated his $5,000 cash “goodie” to voters if Republicans retain control of both the Congress and Senate. He’s got another rally in South Carolina later today.
Overnight he’s also posted on data centers – saying that companies building the energy-intensive sites should pay a “dividend” to the communities where they’re located, including several proposed warehouses in Michigan, where the president will head to on the weekend.
Trump has been pushing rapid AI expansion but in a nod to how unpopular these water and electricity-guzzling centres are with locals who have to live near them, he’s been hinting at community benefits.
Trump said the “new and giant” centers “are mandated by me to make their own electricity , and ‌give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid”.
Meanwhile US envoy Steve Witkoff is in St Petersburg for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine; some earlier wrangling by Trump has succeeded in the release of US schoolteacher Stephen Hubbard, who was captured by the Russians and accused of having fought for Ukraine.
Stay with us for all the day’s developments.
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Updated at 07.56 EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Democrat Dr. Amy Acton’s estranged mother appeared in a new attack ad, calling her gubernatorial candidate daughter a liar. Court documents show Acton’s stepfather was arrested for raping her as a child, and her biological mom lost custody.
Watch the full video below:
Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother calls her liar in ad, court documents say otherwise
This new ad features Donna Arthur, formerly Stearns.
“I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America… Amy has a serious problem.” Arthur states in the ad. “She is a liar. She lies about her past.”
It’s an ad that’s circulating on the internet but doesn’t say who paid for it. It was first published by Columbus-based political blogger The Rooster.
Acton is lying about her background, Arthur claims in the ad.
“She says she grew up living in a tent,” she said. “None of that is true.”
Acton shouldn’t be elected governor, Arthur states.
Court documents tell a different story
Acton hasn’t had contact with her mother since leaving the courthouse once her stepfather was charged with raping her, the candidate said.
Mahoning County Court records we obtained show that Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with sexually abusing Acton, then 12 years old. The abuse went from ages 10-12, she said.
Acton’s younger brother Phil Stearns said their mother lost custody, as she “stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”
Last week, Stearns spoke out about their upbringing.
“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Stearns said. “She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me.”
Police did find the stepfather living in a tent when Acton was a child, court records show.
After pleading not guilty, he posted bond and fled, becoming a fugitive of the state until his death in 2004. Police tried to find him for numerous years, documents state. He and Acton’s mother moved to Pennsylvania, according to public records.
Backlash
The ad has created mass backlash, including from sexual assault survivors who are blaming Acton’s opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy.
“I was taken aback, and I feel that it is quite atrocious and vile, given the circumstances, and wondering myself, as a survivor of such heinous crimes, how someone who is running to be the governor of our state [could air this]” Jessica Miranda, a former Democratic lawmaker and current Hamilton County Auditor, said.
It is “heinous and outrageous” to think that anyone would vote for him after this, Miranda continued.
Even Republicans like Mark Pukita say it goes too far, adding that the constant attack ads over the past few months, as well as campaigning like this, lost his vote.
“I don’t know a good mother who would ever do that to her child, so she’s clearly an unfit mother,” Pukita said. “Why would I take advice from an unfit mother? That would be like taking child-rearing advice from a child abuser.”
Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia Mihalik, one of Gov. Mike DeWine’s top cabinet members, condemned the ad.
“I don’t have to agree with Amy Acton’s politics to believe that exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong… I haven’t changed my political beliefs. I’m simply unwilling to set aside my personal values to defend a political ad. There is a difference between fighting for your principles and abandoning them to win,” Mihalik said on social media.
Other Republicans point out that Acton’s stepfather was never convicted, and there is no disclaimer on the ad.
“You can accuse Ramaswamy of doing it, but there’s no evidence that I know of of his campaign doing that,” Republican strategist Terry Casey said. “That might be false too.”
Once we told Casey about the documentation we had of the court documents, he brought up how this ad and our subsequent investigation are all “TMI, too much information” and irrelevant to who would be the best governor.
At first, the Ramaswamy team did not take explicit responsibility for the ad, but did say that “Ohioans deserve to know” that Acton’s mother doesn’t support her.
“We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor,” Ramaswamy’s spokesperson Connie Luck said in a lengthy statement.
We tried to ask follow-up questions about the ad, including how much Acton’s mother was paid, as well as confirm who created it. We didn’t hear back.
After this story aired, Ramaswamy confirmed it was his ad.
Acton has previously talked extensively about how she feels Ramaswamy has degraded her for what she has gone through.
“My opponent has said that I, someone who experienced child abuse and neglect, was a frequent flyer in children’s services, that I’m just ‘complaining about something done to me’ in my childhood,” Acton said, quoting Ramaswamy’s previous statement.
In the afternoon, Acton released a statement on her Facebook page, explaining more about her upbringing.
“My birth mother did nothing to protect me. I’ve always known that she was deeply sick and unwell, and it’s sad to see Vivek Ramaswamy exploit her all for his own political gain,” she wrote, in part.
Her experiences shaped her values, compassion and her “belief that every person deserves to be safe, to be heard, and to have a fair chance at a better life,” she continued.
“They are why I will never stop fighting for Ohio’s most vulnerable — especially the children and families who deserve the safety, dignity, opportunity, and hope that every Ohioan should have. No one in Ohio will ever be invisible to me,” Acton stated.
The ad had not been submitted to WEWS-TV News 5 Cleveland or WCPO-TV 9 News Cincinnati for airing. It is unclear if it is intended for a TV audience, which has more rigorous requirements for disclosure of who is paying for it.